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Uncovering Toy Cameras and Polaroid Vintage Effects (With Photoshop Tutorials)

Posted by Jessica Bordeau on Mar 10, 2010 in Design & Graphics, Silver Light, Tutorials  | View Original Article
 
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Since its emergence, the digital photography market has gradually supplanted the traditional one. APN and digital SLR cameras entered our lives, and some people announced the death of silver-based images. This is not all lie, and yet old-fashioned images have been particularly popular in the past few years. All we do seem to do now is try to recreate the atmosphere of those bygone times anyway. Blurry, distorted and over-saturated images are not just a fad anymore. People have became familiar with the style and even consider it a full-fledged photographic genre.

And this is where toy cameras play a role. These devices, made entirely of plastic, including often the lens itself, are not only toys. Sure, they cost next to nothing and have no controls to speak of, but this is what people like about them: they create unpredictable pictures, with equally unpredictable vintage effects. Once you understand this, the rest is a beautiful game. Take them anywhere, anytime, and photograph whatever you like.

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Photo credit: Pirouetting, by helenannsia

How does this apply to modern design? Now that vintage websites are so trendy, why not look to this type of image for inspiration? You probably don’t want to go through the trouble of taking up silver-based photography because that would mean buying, developing and scanning film, maybe even making prints. That takes time and is expensive.

What you can do, though, is use the magic of Photoshop to make your ultra-sharp, high-definition images look like they were taken with one of these cameras. Below are a list of the most famous toy cameras and some tutorials that can be used to recreate their famous effects. Most of them are part of the Lomography movement, but you might also want to consider some other options in trying to recreate that authentic look. You also may be interested in our previous article “The Disturbing Beauty of Oversaturated Pictures and Lomography.”

[Offtopic: by the way, did you know that Smashing Magazine has one of the most influential and popular Twitter accounts? Join our discussions and get updates about useful tools and resources — follow us on Twitter!]

Famous Toy Cameras

Toy cameras are cheap, low quality and yet functional. As such, the deformations in the photos they produce are pronounced, and not all images are guaranteed to be perfectly exposed. Still, there are just so many of them these days that picking a few is hard. The ones presented here have paved the way for the success of the others. You may know them but not the stories behind them?

Diana

Let’s start where it all began. Picture yourself in Hong Kong in the early ’60s, when a factory starts producing the Diana. This inexpensive plastic-body camera was at the time usually given away as a novelty gift. Occasionally, it would be used by actual photographers who took advantage of the various effects it produced. And many effects there were. Because of the poor quality of materials used, the Diana camera was disposed to light leaks, leading to film damage, an effect typically fixed by sealing the seams with light-proof tape. Handy, huh?

But the plastic body wasn’t the most interesting part: it was the lens, also made out of plastic. Not only did it enhance the already low contrast created by the light infiltration, but it also made for odd color rendering, chromatic aberration and blurry images. As if this weren’t enough, the image circle only marginally covered the diagonal of the film frame, which is why Diana images have heaving vignetting.

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Photo credit: elZekah

As photographers started to deliberately exploit these characteristics, production grew through the ’70s and opened the way for other toy camera manufacturers.

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Photo credit: chomdee

Lomo LC-A

This is where things get a bit tricky, so pay attention. It’s now the beginning of the ’90s, and for a few years the Russian factory Lomo PLC has been producing the Lomo LC-A camera, which basically has all of the characteristics of a toy camera (vignetting in particular). But production was stopped, and the camera was all but forgotten until two Austrian students found one at a flea market in 1991 and decided to exploit its marketing potential. They convinced the director of the Lomo PLC factory to relaunch production and negotiated an exclusive contract for distribution with their brand-new company: Lomography AG.

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Photo credit: maaku

And here begins the Lomography movement. If the term is familiar to you, you probably know at least two things about it. First, it promotes casual snapshot photography. Second, it is associated with over-saturated and high-contrast images. To confuse things, this second characteristic has nothing to do with the LC-A camera itself or with any other cameras for that matter. It is actually the result of the way the film is processed, which would usually be cross-processing. But Lomography is a movement, not a technique, and it was certainly the first to promote camera imperfections as an aesthetic. The success of the LC-A camera helped spread this aesthetic.

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Photo credit: citronnade

Holga

With the success of this movement, Lomography AG became interested in other low-cost cameras, such as the Holga, which had been produced in China for a decade. Even though it was made by a different manufacturer, the Holga was considered the successor of the Diana. Inspired by its predecessor, the Holga was designed as an inexpensive mass-market camera. And like the Diana, it is not of the best quality and has the same flaws.

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Photo credit: babyabby10

But the Holga became popular and was even exported to the West over time, mostly for photo-reporting, for which its low profile was appreciated. Its problems were no longer problems, and now it is not surprising to hear of Holga photos winning awards. Because it is entirely manual, one can create effects, such as double exposure and panoramas, by not winding the film.

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Photo credit: Bill Hansen (website)

ActionSampler, SuperSampler, Oktomat

These three cameras don’t have many differences. They all take multiple shots in a set period of time, thus creating micro-images that look like short animated movies. The Actionsampler and Supersampler have four lenses each, while the Oktomat has eight, fitting eight frames into the standard 35mm.

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Photo credit: amylynnthompson

To make them a bit more fun, what you see through the viewfinder is not exactly what you get.

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Photo credit: golfpunkgirl

Lomo Fisheye 2

As the name suggests, the Lomo Fisheye camera has a fish-eye lens. It was the first 35mm compact camera to offer such a wide angle (170°), and unlike the other toy cameras covered here, it gave surprisingly good results for the price. The second edition came with several enhancements, such a viewfinder that covered the same angle as the lens (it was blocked off before).

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Photo credit: aapnootmies

The effect created, often seen in sport images, can serve many other purposes. But the user should be aware of two major characteristics: strong deformation and light leaks.

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Photo credit: faha

Photoshop Tutorials And Resources

Now, let’s put all this into practice. Even if you are familiar with these effects, have ever actually tried to replicate them? There are a lot of different effects, and you can combine them to create unique images.

Faking the Holga Camera and Fisheye Lens

How to Fake a Holga Photograph
This tutorial shows you how to fake Holga photographs in a few simple steps.

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Another Way to Fake a Holga Photograph
Another tutorial on faking Holga photographs.

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Fish-eye effect
This shows you how to create a fish-eye effect for a picture taken with a regular lens. This one is a video and it addresses two important points: the lens circle border is not supposed to be so sharp when taking a fish-eye photograph, and one often deals with light infiltration.

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Fish-eye effect
Another fish-eye tutorial. It doesn’t show how to distort the image, so you will have to add this step yourself, but it adds a nice final touch to the image by using a picture of the inside of a fish-eye lens.

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Recreating Low-Quality Camera Flaws

Vignetting
A very simple tutorial on recreating the vignetting effect.

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Soft-Focus Lens Effect
What if you’re already happy with the contrast and color saturation of your image and just want to recreate the effect of a soft-focus camera lens or diffusion filter? In this tutorial, you’ll learn a fast and easy way to add a more traditional soft-focus lens effect to images.

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Faking Barrel Distortion and Chromatic Aberrations
Here is a nice Photoshop plug-in to fake barrel distortion and chromatic aberrations. Adding these effects to your pictures will make them look even more authentic.

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Light Leaks Effect, Part 1 and Part 2
Of course, this article wouldn’t be complete without a great tutorial on light leak effects. Here is an awesome one, divided into two parts, each covering a different effect: a white-blur light and a colored bar leak.

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Working on Colors and Light Exposure

Getting That X-Pro Lomo Look
This tutorial is fairly quick and easy. It shows you how to get that great x-pro Lomo look by tweaking color. You’ll be exploring a new method of vignetting, and you’ll be widening and blurring the image a little.

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Cross-Processing Tutorial
With so many possible permutations of film stock and processing techniques, there is no single, identifiable look to cross-processed images. The most common combination is C-41 as E-6, in which slide chemistry is used to process color negative film; and mimicking it in Photoshop is a quick job. Image contrast is usually high, with blown-out highlights, while shadows tend towards dense shades of blue. Reds tend to be magenta, lips almost purple and highlights normally have a yellow-green tinge.

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Cross-Processing
Another cros-processing tutorial.

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Vintage Effect
Age your images a give them a vintage effect.

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Using Textures and Double Exposure

Through the Viewfinder
Did you know that Flickr has a Through the Viewfinder group? The idea is that you shoot through the viewfinder of an old camera using your modern digital or film camera and create an interesting framing effect. Here is a tutorial on how to create this effect.

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Resources of Speckle Pattern
Yes, there is also a Flickr group called “Noise and Dust Through the Viewfinder.”

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Paper Texture Effect
Here is a quick and easy tutorial for those who want to learn the art of taking a photo and turning it into an old-fashioned vintage picture.

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Some More Paper Texture Effect
Another tutorial (this one a video).

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Filmstrip Effect
Download a filmstrip template and use it to create negatives of your pictures.

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Double Exposure
When you take a double-exposed photograph, the results are usually a bit unpredictable. With Photoshop you have much more control over the result.

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Another Way to Create Double Exposure
While the most common way to create a double exposure is by using a different blending mode on the top layer and adjusting its opacity, this method accurately simulates how a camera takes a double exposure.

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Other Ideas

No tutorials are needed to create these effects. They are included here merely to give you more ideas. You’ll still need to work on your pictures to get that vintage look. Then, just put them together and enjoy.

Shoot Series Like the Oktomat and the Actionsampler
Draw inspiration from the Oktomat and Actionsampler cameras. You’ll get either four or eight images in the same frame, each of them having been shot after an interval of only a few seconds.

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Photo credit: Look!, by Moyö

Shoot Series like the Supersampler
The Supersampler effect is quite similar to the Actionsampler: four images in the same frame, but spaced differently. And remember that you can arrange layers both horizontally and vertically.

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Photo credit: moving clocks run slow, by aleinsomniac

Panorama 1
Panorama images don’t necessarily have to be perfectly arranged. Here is an example of what else can be done.

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Photo credit: Christophe Dillinger (website)

Panorama 2
Another inspiring panorama.

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Photo credit: bruceberrien

Panorama 3
The panorama view can be combined with a filmstrip effect. It simulates a double-exposure panorama taken on a manual camera.

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Photo credit: mikrofoniusz

Want More?

Polaroid

If cheapness is a defining characteristic of toy cameras, it surely isn’t for Polaroids. The Polaroid camera itself is not expensive, but because Fuji is now the only company that produces the film for it, getting affordable ones has become difficult. But this may change in the next few months thanks to the Impossible Project.

Going back a bit, the world’s first commercial instant camera was the “Land” camera, unveiled in 1947. Since then, Polaroid has become synonymous with instant photography, because most of the cameras have been created by the Polaroid Corporation. Nowadays, the cameras are used by photographers mainly to preview their work before actually shooting. But as toy cameras, they are fun to play with and can make for nice effects.

Polaroid in Uncovering Toy Cameras and Polaroid Vintage Effects (With Photoshop Tutorials)
Photo credit: paine666

Polaroid and Transfer Effect

Retro Polaroid Coloring on Your Photos
This is a simple tutorial on how to get that retro Polaroid coloring in your photos.

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Polaroid Transfer Effect
This Photoshop tutorial shows you how to create a cool old photo transfer edge effect using a piece of stock photography, an alpha channel and the burn and dodge tools.

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Showcase of Beautiful Pictures

Considering that Flickr has a group for almost every subject, it is no surprise that there is one for toy cameras. Here is a showcase of the most beautiful images from it.

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Photo credit: have I told you lately, by cHr1st1an S

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Photo credit: ubu84

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Photo credit: 000038, by qwj

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Photo credit: 54330027, by etara

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Photo credit: Ipanema Beach – Brazil, by marcelo_maia

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Photo credit: Hélicoïdal, by Cathy Lehnebach

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Photo credit: Purgatoire, by stiveune

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Photo credit: untitled, by Greg Zauswoz

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Photo credit: untitled, by bradbrochill

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Photo credit: .., by cjlomo

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Photo credit: spree1, by hellomelly

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Photo credit: Love me two times, by laszlo_ototh

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Photo credit: exit, by renaishashin

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Photo credit: untitled, by Sergio Conde Sánchez

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Photo credit: Akhirnya buat lomba juga -__-, by febryanyovi

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Photo credit: Cosy Clausterphobia, by miss_michelle

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Photo credit: svema_test1, by ashtonleee

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Photo credit: untitled, by poppart

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Photo credit: lomographicsocietyinternational

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Photo credit: La Bòfia – Redscale, by fgali1964

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Photo credit: chomdee

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Photo credit: offcenter

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Photo credit: Holga Tennis, by Nick Whitmoyer

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Photo credit: golfpunkgirl

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Photo credit: eyetwist

Further Resources

Old Toy Camera – Photoshop action
This Photoshop action makes images look as though they are aged prints, shot on a toy or antique camera. Also included are two actions that create borders similar to those seen on photos from many antique and toy cameras.

Toy Camera Contest
FILE presents here a selection of images submitted for its Toy Camera Contest. This collection gives an idea of the challenge facing the judges to find three winners. The range and quality of the submitted images are impressive.

Gallery
This project is home to photos taken with toy cameras. Most are plastic: Holga, Diana, Dorie, Debonair, Lubitel, Banner, Snappy and Yunon. Distortion, blur and imperfection are some of the characteristics that endear these cameras to enthusiasts.

Abduzeedo: 60 Interesting Lomo Fisheye Shots
Gathered here are a few Lomography fish-eye shots. Some were taken with Lomography cameras such as the Diana and the LC-A+ with a fish-eye lens adapter attached.

Lomography.com
Lomographic Society International Website.

(al)

© Jessica Bordeau for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
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Really Useful Tutorials You Should Have Read in February 2010

Posted by W3Avenue Team on Feb 27, 2010 in CSS, Javascript, PHP, Silver Light, Tutorials  | View Original Article
 

This update covers really useful tutorials, tips and techniques that you should have read in February 2010. Featured publications include: Nettuts+, Queness, Codrops, The Phuse, Ravelrumba, Web Designer Wall, AddyOsmani, AEXT, Smashing Magazine, SpoonGraphics, Sitepoint, Insic Designs, Webtint, Marcofolio, IT Shala, David Walsh Blog, Line25, OpenBit, CSS-Tricks, Tutorialzine, Soh Tanaka, Think Vitamin, Code Diesel, and Snook.ca.

Featured authors include: Matt Hedberg, Kevin Liew, Mary Lou, James Costa, Rob Flaherty, Nick La, Adnan Osmani, Lam Nguyen, Christian Heilmann, Chris Spooner, Madhuri & Mona, Mike More, David Walsh, Johnny, Marco Kuiper, Mitesh Sheta, Nikunj Sakhrelia, Jeffrey Way, Chris Coyier, Martin Angelov, Louis Simoneau, Soh Tanaka, Chris Lea, Sameer Borate, and Jonathan Snook.

So which tutorials you found most useful. Also feel free to recommend any good article that we may have missed.

Similar Posts:

You can also stay updated by following us on Twitter, becoming a fan on Facebook or by subscribing to our FriendFeed.

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0

Really Useful Tutorials You Should Have Read in January 2010

Posted by W3Avenue Team on Jan 30, 2010 in CSS, Javascript, PHP, Silver Light, Tutorials  | View Original Article
 

This update covers tutorials, tips and techniques that you should have read in January 2010. Featured publications include: A List Apart, Perishable  Press, DevSnippets, Webdesigner Depot, Nettuts+, Inspiring Pixel, Gaya Design, PV.M Garage, Line25, Woork Up, Six Revisions, Tutorialzine, Papermashup, WPWebHost, TechPortal, Yehuda Katz, Codrops, NuRelm, Queness, PHP Web and IT Stuff, DLOCC, WebM.ag, Jon Galloway, DevMoose, CSSKarma, AEXT, Viral Patel, and JankoAtwarpSpeed.

Featured authors include: Lam Nguyen, Tuhin Kumar, Chris Spooner, Jason Schuller, Louis Lazaris, Dan Wellman, Martin Angelov, Siddharth, Ashley Ford, Navjot Singh, Gaya Kessler, Burak Guzel, Piervincenzo Madeo, Peter Verhage, Yehuda Katz, Jeff Starr, Mary Lou, Chris Taylor, Kevin Liew, James Padolsey, Noura Yehia, Jason Cranford Teague, Devin Walker, Bill Peña, McBonio, Jon Galloway, Jean-Paul Bernadina, Tim Wright, Viral Patel, Shelley Powers, Janko Jovanovic,

So which articles you found most useful. Also feel free to recommend any good article that we may have missed.

Similar Posts:

You can also stay updated by following us on Twitter, becoming a fan on Facebook or by subscribing to our FriendFeed.

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0

Really Useful Tutorials You Should Have Read in December 2009

Posted by W3Avenue Team on Dec 30, 2009 in CSS, Javascript, PHP, Silver Light, Tutorials  | View Original Article
 

This update covers tutorials, how-to, screen casts, tips and techniques that you should have read in December 2009. Featured authors include: Jeff Starr, Angie Bowen, UpFrancesca Tosi, Marco Kuiper, Marko Randjelovic, Alen Grakalic, Lam Nguyen, Trevor Davis, Ashley Ford, Drew McLellan, Burak Guzel, Andrew Burgess, Inayaili de León, Piervincenzo Madeo, Ben Nadel, David Walsh, Cedric Dugas, Kevin Liew, Louis Lazaris, Philo Hermans, Dan Walker, Jason Garrison, Joel Reyes, Kyle Weems, Tim Wright, TJ Kelly, Jacob Goldman, Veera Sundar, Louis Lazaris, Mary Lou, Cory Thompson, and Martin.

Featured Publications/Blogs include: Perishable Press, Arbenting Freebies, Marcofolio, Woork, Onextrapixel, Nettuts+, CSS Globe, 24 Ways, Smashing Magazine, AEXT, Noupe, Tutorialzine, Viget Inspire, Queness, David Walsh Blog, Position Absolute, CreativeFan, PV.M Garage, Papermashup, Five Finger Coding, The Blog of Ben Nadel, CSSquirrel, Dans Blog, Codrops, Impressive Webs, Cory Thompson’s Blog, Veera Sundar Blog.

So which articles you found most useful. Also feel free to recommend any article that we may have missed.

Similar Posts:

You can also stay updated by following us on Twitter, becoming a fan on Facebook or by subscribing to our FriendFeed.

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0

The Best Vector Tutorials of 2009

Posted by Henry on Dec 10, 2009 in Design & Graphics, Silver Light, Tutorials  | View Original Article
 

During the past few weeks we’ve been publishing our “Best of 2009″ series in which we’re picking the best of the best in design resources created this year. This week our focus is on vector tutorials. Vector applications such as Adobe Illustrator that are used to create scalable graphics are ideal for creating such things as logos, characters, and icons. There were many great vector tutorials put out this year, which made it difficult to choose the best, but here are our picks.

You can check out the rest of the “Best of 2009″ series at the bottom of this article.

Create a Happy Sun Character

Character Illustration

Logo Design Process and Walkthrough for Vivid Ways

Logo Tutorials

How to Create a Vector Illustration and Prepare it for Micro-Stock Sale

Character Illustration

Create a Cute Panda Bear Face Icon

Character Illustration

Create incredible 3D type-based infographic art

vector

How to Create Smoky Brushes and Type In Illustrator CS4

vector

Create An Awesome Space Rocket Avatar in Illustrator

Character Illustration

Create a Character Mascot with Adobe Illustrator CS4

Character Illustration

Craft a Delicious Chinese Food Icon

Craft a Delicious Chinese Food Icon

How to Create an Alarm Clock Icon

Icon

Create a Stylized GPS Icon

Icon

Make 3D Yet Flat Looking Shopping Basket Icons

Icon

How to Create a Vector Light Bulb Icon with Inkscape

Icon

Create a Vintage TV Set Icon in Illustrator

Icon

Zee Logo in Illustrator

Logo

How to Create a Photorealistic iMac and Magic Mouse

vector

How to Create Funky 3D Springs in Illustrator

vector

Design a Cute Hamster Avatar

vector

Create a Rolling Stones Inspired Tongue Illustration

vector

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0

Really Useful Tutorials You Should Have Read in November 2009

Posted by W3Avenue Team on Nov 29, 2009 in CSS, Javascript, PHP, Tutorials  | View Original Article
 

This update covers tutorials, how-to, screen casts, tips and techniques that you should have read in October 2009. Featured authors include: Soh Tanaka, Chris Coyier, Andrew Burgess, Paul Burgess, Burak Guzel, Lam Nguyen, Janko Jovanovic, Adnan Osmani, Sam Dunn, Chris Spooner, David Walsh, Mike More, Jeffrey Way, Ashley Ford, Zac Siswick, Kevin Liew, Mary Lou, Steven Bradley, Gaya Kessler, Samuel Folkes, Leigh Kaszick, Matt Ward, Abhin Sharma, Tom Kenny, Mike Smith, Martin, Roy, Siddharth, and Rob Conery.

Featured Publications/Blogs include: Smashing Magazine, Soh Tanaka, Nettuts+, CSS-Tricks, JankoAtWarpSpeed, AEXT, Tutorialzine, PaperMashup, Spyre Studios, Build Internet, Line25, David Walsh Blog, Jeremy McPeak, MoreTechTips, AddyOsmani, Queness, Inspect Element, Web Design Ledger, Gaya Design, Samuel Folkes, Brenelz Web Solutions, Van SEO Design, A Blend of Programming and SEO, Chromaloop, Weke Road, and Codrops.

Similar Posts:

You can also stay updated by following us on Twitter, becoming a fan on Facebook or by subscribing to our FriendFeed.

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0

35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials

Posted by Obaid ur Rehman on Nov 13, 2009 in Design & Graphics, Tutorials  | View Original Article
 

  

Art is not restricted to any medium, nor is digital painting. Yes, you read that right: “digital painting.” It is a new trend in today’s technologically brilliant world that won’t go away any time soon. Here, we’ve gathered 35 tutorials to inspire you to display your creativity through digital painting. We hope you like this collection. Kindly share your comments about it with us.

Digital Painting Tutorials

Making of Spanish Girl
This tutorial shows you how to make this portrait of a Spanish girl.

Making of Spanish Girl

Making of “My Prince”
“The girl in the picture is a young witch with mysterious magic. The baby dragon is her pet. The baby dragon looks up to the sky naively, strains the leash, and wants to fly into an adventure. Overall, I wanted to create a peaceful scene, just like when we are holding our own pets, that makes you feel warm, or even proud.”

Making of

Umbrella Sky
Marta Dahlig’s gorgeous “Umbrella Sky” image was unanimously chosen for the cover of Ballistic Publishing’s EXOTIQUE 3. And after submitting it, Marta continued to improve on this exquisite work. Here, she takes us through the process of building on a dream.

Umbrella Sky

How to Create a Fantasy Mother Nature Scene
“This tutorial is about creating a fantasy scene called ‘Mother Nature.’ We will use well-chosen images, brushes and, most of all, our imagination, in combination with Photoshop techniques, to create an outstanding image.”

How to Create a Fantasy Mother Nature Scene

Making of Beauty on the Bed
“It was obvious that a female character was an ideal subject. I knew I wanted to create a girl with imposing beauty. I am a huge fan of Lara Swift’s photography, and one particular photograph in my collection really inspired and motivated me to start.”

Making of Beauty on the Bed

How to Create a Sparkling Fantasy Photo Manipulation
“In this tutorial, we’re going to do photo manipulation using different techniques. We’ll adjust each layer and element to make a compact final image. We’ll use multiple photos and a handful of effects to create this work.”

How to Create a Sparkling Fantasy Photo Manipulation

Modeling of the Dinosaur
“When working with ZBrush, I always model something with Z-sphere. It is one of ZBrush’s cool features and enables fast and intuitive modeling of low poly objects. Also, I like that you can constantly check the outcome of your ZSphere form against how it looks when turned into mesh by pressing the ‘A’ key on your keyboard.”

Modeling of the Dinosaur

Feathers and Angel Wings
Painting wings is quite similar to painting hair: the first time you do it, it seems impossible, but in fact it’s not, and little tips can help a lot.

Feathers and Angel Wings

Making of Binah
“Binah was a difficult and time-consuming project. It was a great challenge for me, technically and artistically. Binah is the third Sephirah of the tree of life in Cabbala. After reading many texts about the tree of life, I wrote some sentences describing my vision of Binah.”

Making of Binah

Making of Jealous Bodyguard
In this tutorial, the artist shows you his preferred method of setting up the image and using Photoshop tools. You’ll see a breakdown of how this image was created.

Making of Jealous Bodyguard

Digital Portrait -W-
A step-by-step tutorial on creating this digital portrait.

Digital Portrait -W-

Digitally Paint a Fantasy Tree Scene
“Learn how to make a fantasy scene using only the standard Photoshop brushes. I describe the basics of color and light theory. In this tutorial, you will paint this eye-catching illustration in less than two hours.”

Digitally Paint a Fantasy Tree Scene

Fantasy Light Effects in Photoshop
Fantasy art scenes are usually handled with a liberal sprinkling of Photoshop plug-in fairy dust. But you don’t have to slavishly follow that route. By creating your own brushes in Adobe Illustrator and using scanned elements with Photoshop, creating otherworldly scenes that are alive with glow effects and shafts of virtual light is a simple process.

Fantasy light effects in Photoshop

Making Of Boudicca 3060 A.D.
An engaging tutorial that teaches you how to make this beautiful Boudicca.

Making Of Boudicca 3060 A.D.

Painting fantasy eyes
To paint a realistic-looking eye, one must understand its form. The human eye is a sphere, covered by upper and lower eyelids. Imagining parallel lines passing along the eyes makes it easier to sketch them correctly.

Painting fantasy eyes

Create Film Sets in Photoshop
Film scenes frequently rely on vast backdrops and fantasy imagery that would be too costly or impractical to actually build or find. This is where matte painting comes in. Visual effects artists are called on to create both simple and elaborate illusions by painting over real images.

Create film sets in Photoshop

Creating Broken Link
This tutorial focuses on making design choices and a bit of theory.

Creating Broken Link

Red Assassin Digital Painting Tutorial
“Here’s how I do my painting. This is a work in progress, so you’ll see the steps I take in creating it. This is a quick sketch over a black background. Then I fill it with colors. I normally place my palette of colors beside the drawing so that I know what the colors will be.”

Red Assassin Digital Painting Tutorial

Do you want to Play with me
“This artwork was created in Photoshop CS2 with a Wacom Intuos 3. I will explain in detail how to make this image. Hope many of you will enjoy.”

Do you want to Play with me

Making of Three Lines
In this detailed tutorial, the artist teaches us how to make “artwork of three lines.”

Making of Three lines

Making of Willpower
“I’ve always found the thought of someone faint and helpless, suddenly being able to fight against the worst of dangers, very appealing. This is the point when everything changes, when the lost decide to escape their fate. In my image, a brave young girl is in a situation she would never believe she’d get into, and then something happens that no one would ever expect!”

Making of Willpower

How to Draw a Digital Portrait
In this tutorial, the artist explains how he created this portrait of the gorgeous Scarlett Johansson.

How to draw a digital portrait

Painting Kadaj
In this detailed and comprehensive tutorial, the artist shows his best techniques for making this portrait of Kadaj.

Painting Kadaj

Painting realistic hands
Painting hands can be very difficult for professional and amateur artists alike. The complexity of their structure makes them one of the hardest parts of the human body to render properly. Painting realistic hands requires two key factors for a satisfying result: a thorough knowledge of anatomy, and a creative choice of skin tone.

Painting realistic hands

Transform a Human into an Abstract Painted Werewolf
“In this tutorial, you will learn how to bring a simple concept to life and give it a fantastic final result. Beside illustrating the human-to-werewolf transformation, we will fill the images with cool painted effects and add some abstraction in the end.”

Transform a Human into an Abstract Painted Werewolf

Making of Angelina Jolie
“After having collected some pictures of the famous actress Angelina Jolie, I decided to use some of them for this creation. Before starting the modeling phase, I took a moment to observe the features of this beautiful actress—above all, her cheekbones, which are very pronounced.”

Making of the Angelina Jolie

Making of Cold Sky
The artist teaches us how to make this beautiful “cold sky.”

Making of Cold Sky

Skin Painting Tutorial
“I want to clarify that this tutorial is not the correct or only way to paint. It is just my way of painting, and only that. Feel free to follow it entirely or just the part that pleases you. I will be using Photoshop, but the tutorial can be done on any program that has good painting tools.”

SKIN PAINTING TUTORIAL

Painting Really Old People
“The Internet is full of young, pretty people with large breasts. But believe it or not, people do get old. And wrinkly. And nothing is wrong with that. It can actually be fun and interesting to draw people who don’t have silky smooth skin! This tutorial shares some methods I’ve found for painting wrinkles and some thoughts on how to make a character look old.”

Painting Really Old People

Making of Bronze Dragon
“In this tutorial, we are going to color a dragon portrait. As I always say, it’s impossible to make a good painting without a good sketch. That’s why, if your drawings are not as strong as you’d like, you should buy a sketchbook before picking up Photoshop.”

Making of Bronze Dragon

Spider Harp
“This fantasy is of musician playing the harp on a spider’s web. It was a personal piece and a really big and delicate work. I thank the users of 3Dvf.com and Tdt3D.be for helping my work in progress.”

Spider Harp

Making Frodo
A detailed and beautiful tutorial that teaches you to make a great Frodo.

Making Frodo

How to Create a Fantasy Landscape Photo Manipulation
In this tutorial, you will learn how to manipulate a fantasy landscape photo.

How to Create a Fantasy Landscape Photo Manipulation

Related posts

You may be interested in the following related posts:

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Really Useful Tutorials You Should Have Read in October 2009

Posted by W3Avenue Team on Oct 30, 2009 in CSS, Javascript, PHP, Tutorials  | View Original Article
 

This update covers tutorials, how-to, screen casts, tips and techniques that you should have read in October 2009. Featured authors include: Marco Kuiper, Janko Jovanovic, Konstantin Kovshenin, Andrew Burgess, Tom Kenny, Joshua Johnson, Chris Coyier, Jonathan Snook, Jean-Baptiste Jung, Jeffrey Way, Dan Wellman, Tyler Denis, W. Jason Gilmore, Andrew Valums, Joel Reyes, Louis Lazaris, Kerasiotis Vasileios, Dustin Blake, Joel Reyes, Martin, Jeffrey, Bratu Sebastian, Schalk Neethling, Rich and Michael.

Featured Publications/Blogs include: Smashing Magazine, Nettuts+, CSS-Tricks, Six Revisions, Snook, Design Shack, Marcofolio, JankoAtWarpSpeed, Tutorialzine, MyInkBlog, Inspect Element, Build Internet, Andrew Valums, Kovshenin, DesignersMantra, Jeez Tech, Expansive Derivation, AEXT, THAT Agency, Activetuts+ and Get Objected.

So which articles you found most useful. Also feel free to recommend any article that we may have missed.

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The Ultimate Round-Up Of T-Shirt Design Tutorials

Posted by Callum Chapman on Oct 16, 2009 in Design & Graphics, Tutorials  | View Original Article
 

  

Among all of the graphic designers in the world, many of them have probably had a go at designing some cool artwork for t-shirts. The t-shirt, after all, is one of the world’s most purchased products, and a lot of us wouldn’t know what to do without them!

If you have yet to design for apparel goods, today is your lucky day! Below, we present over 20 useful t-shirt graphic tutorials written by fellow designers, followed by a selection of great resources (such as vector apparel mock-up templates), an inspirational showcase to get your brain thinking and some great websites where you can submit your new t-shirt graphics.

You may be interested in the following related posts:

T-Shirt Graphic Tutorials

Create a Balanced T-Shirt Graphic

  • Work with vector image tools to trace stock photos.
  • Learn how to make great compositions.

Balanced T-Shirt Graphic

How to Design a T-Shirt on a Budget and a Tight Deadline

  • Use existing vector packs to produce new graphics.
  • Work with limited color schemes.

Designing on a budget and tight deadline

T-Shirt Design in Photoshop

  • Work with the Saturation Settings to manipulate photos.
  • Use the Circular Marquee Tool to produce custom shapes.

T-Shirt Design in Photoshop

Super-Slick Screen-Printing Separations with Illustrator

  • Set up documents and bleeds ready for screen printing.
  • Use Calligraphic Brushes to trace photographs.
  • Separate colors to be ready for screen printing.

Screen Printing Separations

How to Create Photorealistic T-Shirt Mock-Ups

  • Use apparel templates to produce realistic digital mock-ups.
  • Use layer masks to hide unwanted areas of a graphic.

Photorealistic T-Shirt Mock-Ups

Screen Printing Effects

  • Simulate silk screen imperfections in Photoshop.
  • Learn how to use alpha channels.

Screen Printing Effects

Create a Custom T-Shirt Stencil Design

  • Create stencils for your t-shirt artwork.
  • Use craft knifes and spray paint to produce home-made t-shirts.

Custom T-Shirt Stencil Design

Screen Printing Tricks

  • Get your hands dirty and produce home-made screen-printed t-shirts.
  • Use various objects from around the home to save money on one-off production tees.

Screen Printing Tricks

Separating Colors for Screen Printing in Photoshop

  • Use the Magic Wand Tool to select individual colors.
  • Use registration marks to help line up artwork when screen printing.

Separating Colors for Screen-Printing

How to Win at Design by Humans

  • Learn tips and tricks for submitting your artwork to Design by Humans.
  • Use Pantone Color books to get your colors correct.

How to win at Design by Humans

How to Prepare Artwork for Screen Printing in Illustrator

  • Use various Pathfinder Tools to separate your colors.
  • Use the Magic Wand Tool to select individual colors.

Prepare Artwork for Screen-Printing

Designing Ultra SceneXCore Apparel

  • Manipulate stock photos using various tools.
  • Use existing vector images to spice up your artwork.

Ultra SceneXCore Apparel

Create a Three-Color Illustration for Screen-Printing

  • Separate colors in Photoshop to be ready for screen printing.
  • Learn about trapping to avoid slight alignment on press.

Three-Color Illustration for Screen-Printing

Easy Color Separations for Screen-Printing in Photoshop

  • Learn the process of screen printing and how it all works.
  • Learn how to separate your artwork colors in Photoshop.

Color Separations for Screen-Printing

How to Create Awesome T-Shirt Mock-Ups like Jimiyo

  • Use the Transform Tool to correctly position your artwork.
  • Use the highlight and shadow levels to give your digital mock-up a realistic look.

Awesome T-Shirt Mock-Ups

DIY Vintage T-Shirts

  • Combine Photoshop and Illustrator to produce stunning artwork.
  • Use an imported sketch as a guideline.

DIY Vintage T-Shirts

Rapid-Fire Illustration Tutorial

  • Use the Live Trace Tool to quickly and effectively trace traditional ink drawings.
  • Use the Pen Tool to create custom shapes.

Rapid-Fire Illustration

How to Create a T-Shirt from Scratch

  • Use various Photoshop Tools to create custom shapes.
  • Use the Polygonal Lasso Tool to delete unwanted areas of artwork.

T-Shirt from Scratch

Create a Complete Apparel Tech Pack

  • Learn how to prepare your files correctly.
  • Learn how to separate colors correctly.

Complete Apparel Tech Pack

CMYK Process Printing for the Emerging T-Shirt Designer

  • Learn how to mix existing resources to create a good composition.
  • Work with unusual color schemes to produce eye-catching artwork.

CMYK Process Printing

Digital T-Shirt Mock-Up Resources

After giving a few of the above tutorials the once over, you should have enough knowledge to begin making your own separated t-shirt artwork. Below are several links we have collected to help you present your work in the most stylish way possible.

GoMedia Ultimate Apparel Vector Collection
GoMedia Ultimate Apparel Vector Collection

Freebie T-Shirt Template
Freebie T-Shirt Template

T-Shirt Templates: Free and Paid
T-Shirt Templates: Free and Paid

Free Blank Vector Clothing
Free Blank Vector Clothing

Huge Collection of T-Shirt Design Mock-Up Templates
Collection of T-Shirt Mock-Up Templates

VIP Mock-Up Templates
VIP Mock-Up Templates

T-Shirt Inspiration

Now you’ve got everything you need… except maybe for some ideas! Take a look at these great inspirational posts to help you get your thinking cap on!

Where To Sell And Submit Your Artwork

Below we have collected various online stores and open-ended competitions that invite you to submit your t-shirt designs, with the chance of getting them printed and taking home some well-earned cash!

  • Design by Humans
    An ongoing design contest and community where artists and t-shirt lovers can create, buy and talk about everything related to art and t-shirts.
  • Threadless
    Threadless is a community-based tee-shirt company with an ongoing open call for design submissions.
  • Teetonic
    Teetonic is about passion for design. It wants to create the best t-shirts and is always open for submissions.
  • Allmightys
    Submit designs to win tees, commisions, fame, friends and more!
  • Oddica
    Submit your artwork for a chance to earn 41% of every sale made.
  • Zazzle
    Make money online by selling your designs on hundreds of retail-quality products! It’s free and easy.
  • Cafepress
    Design, make and sell your t-shirts.
  • La Fraise
    This is pretty much the French version of Design by Humans.
  • Spreadshirt
    Create your own t-shirt shop for free, and fill it with your very own designs.
  • BigCartel
    BigCartel is a simple shopping cart for artists. Create an account and start selling!

Related posts

You may be interested in the following related posts:

About the Author

Callum Chapman is a freelance graphic designer and illustrator based in Cambridge, UK. He is also the creative blogger behind Circlebox Blog, a design-related blog that offers articles, inspiration, tutorials and free high-resolution textures.

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The Ultimate Round-Up of Print Design Tutorials

Posted by Callum Chapman on Oct 2, 2009 in Design & Graphics, Tutorials  | View Original Article
 

  

The Ultimate Round-Up of Print Design Tutorials (via @smashingmag) -

Although web design is everywhere nowadays (even when we’re not at the computer it still manages to squeeze it’s way in to our everyday life), print design is still a huge part of the design industry and is everywhere we look: newspapers, posters, prints, manuals, restaurant menus, business cards – the list goes on and on. So how do you make sure that you leave a good impression on people holding your piece of art in their hands? This is where experience and advanced print design skills come into play.

Below we present 25 useful print design tutorials as well as a collection of inspirational links at the bottom of the post to improve your skills and get your imagination running wild. These tutorials make use of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, and even the experienced designers out there can give their skills a polish by taking the time to read through these tutorials to squeeze a few more tips, tricks, do’s and dont’s up their already stuffed sleeves.

Print Design Tutorials

Printing and Prepress Basics (Ps, Ai & Id)

  • Learn about four-color process printing (CMYK)
  • Find out the differences between plain & rich black

Prepress Basics

Making a Print-Ready Business Card (Ps)

  • Set up CMYK documents in Photoshop with bleeds
  • Use textures to spice up your backgrounds
  • Create custom shapes using the Polygonal Lasso Tool

Print-Ready Business Card

Create a Magazine Cover Design (Id)

  • Use the Fill Frame Proportionally Tool to save time
  • Create custom shapes with the Pen Tool

Magazine Cover Design

Design a Super Cool Retro Poster in 10 Steps (Ps)

  • Create custom type in Illustrator
  • Use textures to add depth to your artwork

Retro Poster

Create a Five-Color Magazine Cover using a Spot Metallic (Ps, Ai, Id & Acrobat Pro)

  • Learn how to print spot metallic inks
  • Create custom shapes using the Shear Tool
  • Use textures to add depth to your artwork

Magazine Cover with Spot Metallic

Create a Grid Based Resume/CV Layout (Id)

  • Use grids to create a professional page layout
  • Work with text settings to align paragraphs to grids

Grid Based Resume

Create and Print a Business Card with UPrinting (Ai)

  • Use templates to assist in setting up documents for print
  • Create outlines of text to prevent problems in pre-press

Envato Business Card

Create an Impactful Magazine Headline (Id)

  • Learn the process of designing a page layout
  • Use several tools to learn professional page layout techniques

Impactful Magazine Headline

Designing for Print – Setting Up Crops and Bleeds (Ps, Ai & Id)

  • Correctly set up bleed margins in Adobe CS
  • Correctly set up crops in Adobe CS

Designing for Print

Combining Special Finishes (Ps, Ai & Id)

  • Turn sketches into process ready vectors
  • Design complex sculpted embosses
  • Prepare artwork for foil-blocking

Combining Special Finishes

Create an Intense Movie Poster (Ps)

  • Use curves, color adjustments & the burn tool to manipulate photographs
  • Use brushes & the Pen Tool to create new light sources
  • Work with different blur tools to create a spooky text effect

Intense Movie Poster

Design & Print Bold Promo Cards in 60 minutes (Ai)

  • Set up Illustrator print documents with bleed margins
  • Learn about different kinds of blacks used in CMYK printing

Bold Promo Cards

Design a Print-Ready Business Card Design for Designers (Ai & Ps)

  • Set up CMYK documents in Photoshop with bleeds
  • Use Illustrator vector images in Photoshop
  • Exporting files as print-ready PDFs

Print-Ready Business Card

Business Card Design Walkthrough (Ai)

  • Set up CMYK documents in Illustrator with bleeds
  • Use the Gradient Mesh Tool to add depth to print products

Business Card Walkthrough

Design a Print-Ready Beer Label (Ai)

  • Work with Warp Tools to create realistic shapes for labels
  • Use the Threshold and Live Trace Tools to create interesting vectors

Beer Label

PreparingMultiple Instances of a Bumper Sticker for Print (Ai)

  • Add Crop Marks to your artwork
  • Set up a page of multiple copies of the same artwork for print

Bumper Stickers

Designa Print-Ready Ad (Id)

  • Learn how to correctly place images into your InDesigndocuments
  • Use the Placeholder Text Tool to fill areas with mock-text
  • Add custom CMYK swatches to InDesign

Print-Ready Advertisement

CreateStunning Printwork using Overprinting (Ps)

  • Experiment with unique CMYK color combinations
  • Learn how to create an overprinted composition

Overprinting

Howto Create a Music Magazine Cover (Id)

  • Set up CMYK documents in InDesign with bleeds
  • Use the Rectangle Tool to make your work more interesting

Music Magazine

Createa Grungy Poster (Ps)

  • Work with textures to create interesting backgrounds
  • Use the Brush Tool to add depth to your artwork
  • Combine stock photos to produce the images you want

Grungy Poster

Design an Abstract Business Card (Ps & Ai)

  • Set up CMYK documents in Photoshop with bleeds
  • Use vector shapes from Illustrator in Photoshop
  • Use textures to increase your artworks visual interest

Design an Abstract Business Card

Create and Print a Brochure (Ps & Id)

  • Learn why you should export PDFs in InDesign
  • Set up CMYK documents in InDesign with bleeds
  • Work with text and character styles in InDesign

River Brochure

Design a Ready to Print Brochure (Ps)

  • Set up CMYK documents in Photoshop with bleeds and column guides
  • Work with images to create grungy textured backgrounds

Tutorial Brochure

Designa Six-Panel CD Package (Ps & Ai)

  • Use cloning, burning and dodging to manipulate photographs
  • Work with TIFF images and text in Illustrator

Six-Panel CD Package

Gig Poster Design: The New Sex (Ps & Ai)

  • Combine stock photos to produce the images you want
  • Use the Live Trace Tool to produce vector images
  • Produce custom patterns to add distress to your artwork

Gig Poster

Inspiration & Further Resources

To get your imagination running wild we’ve collected a few round-up links which are all jam-packed full of stunning print work! You’ll also find a link or two for the beginners just stepping into the world of designing for print.

About the author

Callum Chapman is a freelance graphic designer and illustrator based in Cambridge, UK. He is also the creative blogger behind Circlebox Blog a design related blog offering articles, inspiration, tutorials and free, high-resolution textures.

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