Zebraceros

Using the transform, liquify filter and some shading, were going to effectively dress up a rhino in zebra fur.

In this tutorial, we're going to combine 2 animals:

And this:

To make our final product below:

First and most important is to find the proper source images. I chose these 2 since the angles and stances are very similar.

Since I liked the high contrast color of the zebra, I decided to use the actual fur and "mold" it over the rhino's body. So with that said, I extracted the zebra from its background and pasted it into the rhino file on a new layer.

NOTE: It's a good idea to use a hi-res image because when you're stretching pixels, a low resolution file is going to lose its realism.

Test Fit

Okay, let's see how similar or different these two images are.

Lower the opacity of Zebra and compare it to the Rhino background. Using the Transform tool, stretch and compact the image as needed so that you could get the best fit possible. The better match now means less work later.

I found it important to match up the legs first and then the head for this image.

Liquify is your friend

Since my goal is to cover the rhino's body completely with the zebra, I decided to use the Liquify filter to make the rest of the adjustments.

You need to have quite a bit of patience with the Liquify filter to get the best results. I'm going to assume that you have some experience with this filter so I'm gonna get to the point.

1. Decreased the the Zebra's opacity to about 70% This will help you get better results matching up the two animals.

2. Start off by using a fairly large brush (about 1/3 the size of the animal) and with small strokes, pull the Zebra's main torso to match the rhino. Try to avoid making looong pulls because you won't get desired results. Using the large brush, I basically stretched out the top, buttocks, belly, chest and then I repositioned the head.

3. Once you're happy with those results, you're then going to fine tune the rest of the body using smaller sized brushes. For the Zebra's head, I used small, even strokes to match the shape of the underlying Rhino.

Since the legs are so close together, I had to use the Liquify filter's built in mask tool to protect one leg as I shaped the adjacent one.

Once you have matched the entire silhouette of the Rhino, save your adjustments and get ready for the next step.

Shading

Okay, the shaping looks ok but our new animal friend is looking a bit flat. We're going to add more depth to this image by adding shadows. I'm not going to be using any blending modes because I want to keep as much detail and contrast as I can -- so with that said:

Make a new layer atop the Zebra and select a soft brush set a 15-30% opacity.

TIP: Hold down the OPTION key and move the cursor in between new blank layer and the Zebra layer. When the cursor changes it's shape, click the mouse button and you have now effectivley made a clipping mask. All your shadows will now be contained inside the zebra.

To get the best shading, I occasionally turned the visibility of the Zebra layer on and off used the Rhino background as a reference as to where to add new shadows.

Yeah, that looks better.

Now for the head:

If you look at the original rhino picture, you'll see that the head has a distinct shape under the horns. It looks like its beefed up.

Okay, add a new layer

Using a smaller, soft brush at around 30% opacity, draw out the distinct lines under the horns (again, use the rhino background image as a reference). With some patience you should get the desired results.

If you find that the shading is a bit too dark, you could adjust the layer opacity of your shadows.

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Motion Effect

Making it mmmmmmove

After seeing several of the Mmmmotion contests, I think most of the mistakes have to do with incorrect subject focus or just plain "overdoing it." I tried to address both issues here. Hope some of you find this useful...

For starters, there are several perspectives you can take when setting a picture to motion. Take the following race car pic in its original form...

You can choose to set yourself in motion but the result is usually not appropriate for what we are trying to do.

While realistic... this would be the view if your head was traveling at 100 mph.

Instead, consider how things would look if you were actually taking a picture. You would set either the car (foreground) or the road and trees (background) as the focal point of

the image.

Focusing on the car, your background would appear to move like this (note: your wheels would still be moving, and thus... radially blurred)

If your focus was more distant (the trees perhaps), then the car would appear as the moving component in the image, like this

For this tutorial, we will go with the background as our point of focus.

Using the polygonal lasso tool, crop out your car from the background

Cut and paste the cropped car into a new layer so that only the background remains

Since a true moving object appears semi-transparent around the edges, we will need to clone in some of the edges where we cut the car out.

Select your cloning tool and set the opacity to about 75%. Begin carefully cloning in the egdes so that you have a smaller exposed (cleared) area with somewhat fuzzy edges.

Our last step is to select the car shape we originally cut out and use the motion blur tool to set it in motion.

Make sure the direction of the blur is consistent with the direction the car is actually traveling in. Be cautious not to overdo things here... your car is not traveling at light speed! A setting of 15-20 pixels will probably be enough.

That should get you started with a laterally moving object. Now what do you do if the object is coming at you??

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Vintage Clouds | Photoshop Creativity

Step 1

As usual, start by opening any photo into Photoshop. Of course, the photo should have a sky with some clouds.

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Step 2

Create a selection of the sky. To do this, you can use any selection tools such as the Quick Select tool or the Magic Wand tool.

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Step 3

With the selection still active, in the Layers palette, click on the button and choose Levels.

 

This should bring up the levels tools.
You should also see in Levels adjustment layer that the selection applied to the layer mask.

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Step 4

In the Levels tool, select Blue from the Channel drop down menu. Then, move the black input slider towards the right until the skies start turning yellow. Don't click OK yet!

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Step 5

Then, select the Red channel from the Channel drop down menu and move the white input slider towards the left just a little. Don't click OK yet!

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Step 6

Finally, select back the RGB channel from the Channels drop down menu. Move the black input slider towards the right to increase the contrast of the clouds. Now you can click OK when you're done.

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Step 7

If you want, you can also add a lens flare. Select the Background layer then choose Filter > Render > Lens Flare.

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Final Results

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Before and After

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