Until the End-Stocks, Textures, coloring and Filters
This piece focuses on technique, lighting and stock usage, all to bond together to form a portrait-esque final product. As always, with every piece, the steps and filters will vary and I encourage everyone to only use this tutorial as a stepping stone into beginning to use and understand the filtering tools. They can add depth and deminsion as well as artistic characteristics that I obtain in some of my work.
For this I began with making my manipulation, which at this point I won't go into detail with, and then copy and pasted it into a new 1280x768 canvas.
I knew I didn't want it to span the whole canvas, I wanted a very small, centered image, that was more like a portrait. I then proceeded to mask the edges of the image.
Next, I began to add some stocks and texturing. Because of the way I wanted the main image to stand out, I added all the stock images below the main manipulation. I began with this image of wood from Resurgere. The flow of the wood helped lead into the main image and added some loveley texturing. I desaturated (Ctrl + Shift + Alt + U) the image then masked away the portions I didn't need and set the opacity to 35%.
Next, I added this ice stock, again from Resurgere. I used the lines of the curves to emphasize the directions of the masked image, which added some nice lighting and flow. I desaturated the image, and set it to Lighten at 35% opacity. And to add more light, so I used this image of fire, again from Resurgere. Again, I desaturated the image, went to Blur More, to make it more like a light blur, and set the layer to Hard light 100%.
Now, at this point you may notice, that I didn't fully mask my main image. So, a little explanation before I continue. It wasn't necassary. With all of the layers of textures, stocks, gradients, and filters, the blending won't be an issue. However, if you are making a brighter piece, you would want to be more careful about that. One of the many benefits of working with a darker piece!
And now, I finally add a layer on top of the main image. I used this texture from Aldieb. Since it is in the color scheme that I want for the entire piece, I leave the natural coloring. Overall, I loved the cloudy atmoshpere this texture sets up for my piece, as well as the interesting shapes and shadows. I set this to Lighten, again on the top of the main image, to 33% opacity.
And now the fun begins! Time to add the gradients. Before I continue, I should just mention that all gradients were from Daydreaming, that way I don't have to keep repeating myself later. Which leads me to something I tend to forget to mention often. When I chose my gradient, I do so by going to the Gradient Map option, and select the Reverse Gradient Option. A lot of people ask about my painted effects, that has a lot to do with it.
Now, with my gradient map chosen, I set the layer to Soft Light at 78% opacity. I then add my second gradient using the above mentioned methods and set this to Soft Light at 13% opacity.
And since I like to have rich dark coloring, I added a Brightness/Contrast Adjustment Layer with these settings:
Usually, my guidlines for this are simply to make the black true black without making the entire piece overly dark or contrasty. Simply rich.
Now, it's time to add filters. Again, with every piece these tend to change, as do the settings, so when making your own art, you will have to use your own preferences. I copy and pasted the entire piece into a new layer and begin with Filters>Artistic>Paint Daubs, with a Brush Size and Sharpness of 1. Don't worry about the harsh sharpening, with the next step that will be lessened.
Now, I copy merged again and paste into a new layer, then I go to Stylize>Diffuse and set this to Anistropic.
This simply makes the piece smoother. I set this layer to 50% opacity. Why, you might ask do I use the Diffuse filter when there are other ways to smooth a piece out? Well, I like it because it doesn't add a lot of noise. It simply blurs the piece, without moving the image. It gives a clean effect that I find simple and effective. All I ever have to do is fiddle with the opacity until I get it to my desired finish.
And to bring a little more sharpness back, so I again copy merged in new layer, and I again use the Paint Daubs filter, with the same settings, and make this layer 70% opacity. From here, I paste into a new layer then I added Artistic>Poster Edges with an Edge Thickness of 0, Intensity of 2, and a Posterization of 1. I masked away the pieces I didn't want, around Sookie and Eric's faces. And then lowered the opacity to 15%.
I then copy and pasted the layer yet again, and go to Image>Adjust>Threshold. The setting vary depending on your piece, so I won't talk about setting, simply give you an idea of what I went with. Once I have my settings, I also go to Filter>Blur>Blur More because of the harshness this effect can have adding unwanted noise.
I set that layer to Overlay at 8% opacity. Why bother? Well, this adds shadows back into the images that Brightness/Contrast and curves can't. It also brings back some brightness and color. If set to soft light, it will add a washed out appearance to the coloring. If set to darken or multiply, it increases the shadowing without messing with the color or brightness. So again, this is something that depends on your tastes. For this, I wanted more color, brightness and shadow so I chose overlay. And the lower to opacity the less intense this effect will be, which I want something subtle, which is another reason I use this effect.
From here I add text, for this piece, I used the song 'A Quiet Mind' by Blue October, and layered it. And finished it off with a Stroke border of 2 pixels in black and got this as my end result:
