Photoshop 3D Part 3

In this tutorial, I’ll be showing you how to draw a shiny green apple. We’ll have a look at various painting techniques throughout this tutorial. It will be fun and you’ll learn something new – let’s started!

Editor’s note: In an effort to introduce some of our older content to some of our newer readers we have resurrected this post from October 2008 for everyone to enjoy for the first or second time. Enjoy!

Step 1

Create a new document using the settings shown below.

Step 2

Create a new layer and name it "Apple." Grab the Elliptical Marquee Tool, make a selection as in the below image. Next, grab the Gradient Tool, then pick Foreground to Background and set Style to Radial. Make your Foreground Color #88cc33 and Background Color #005522. Fill the selection as shown.

Step 3

Apply the Inner Shadow layer style using these settings: Blend Mode set to Multiply, Opacity at 75%, Angle set to -90 degrees, Distance set to 45 pixels, and Size set to 80 pixels.

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Step 4

Create a new layer and name it "Texture." Command-click the "Apple" layer to load the selection, if the selection is not still active. Use the colors from step one and go to Filter > Render > Clouds. Next go to Filter > Distort > Spherize, and set the Amount to 100% and Mode to Normal. This will give our simple texture a spheric look. Set the layer Blending Mode to Soft Light. Now we have some texture on the apple.

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Step 5

Create a new layer on top and name it "Dots." Get the Brush Tool and set the Foreground Color to #ccdd99. Also, set the Master Diameter to 5 and Hardness to 100, then create several dots by placing single clicks all around the apple.

Set the Master Diameter to 3 pixels and paint some more. Command-click the "Apple" layer to load the selection, if the selection is not still active. Go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur, and set the Angle to 90 degrees and Distance to 3 pixels. Now go to Filter > Distort > Spherize, set the Amount to 100, set the Mode to Normal, and apply it. Set the layer Blending Mode to Overlay and Opacity at 50%. Hit Command + D to deselect.

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Step 6

Create a new layer on top and name it "Dent." Grab the Elliptical Marquee Tool and make a selection, as shown in the below image, then fill it with white and Deselect. Create another layer and name this one "Dent Shadow." Make an elliptical selection, as in the image below, and fill it with black.

Alt-click on the line between the "Dent Shadow" and "Dent" layers in the Layers Palette. Deselect by hitting Command + D. This will define the "Dent" layer as a Clipping Mask for the "Dent Shadow" layer. Now go to the "Dent" layer in the Layers Palette and set the Blending Mode to Multiply.

Go back to the "Dent Shadow" layer and apply a Gaussian Blur filter with a radius of 17 pixels. Set the Layer Opacity at 75%. The size of the dent ellipse may vary in your document, so you can adjust the Radius of Gaussian Blur filter to avoid the visible top edge of the ellipse.

 

Step 7

Now we’ll make some highlights. Create a new layer on top of the layer stack and name it "Highlight 1." Grab the Elliptical Marquee Tool and make a selection, as in the below image, and fill it with white. Now make a bigger elliptical selection as shown, then hit Delete to clear the selection. Deselect and go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, and apply with a Radius of 10 pixels.

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Step 8

Create a new layer on top of the layer stack and name it "Highlight 2." Grab the Elliptical Marquee Tool and make a selection as shown, then fill it with white. Now make another elliptical selection as shown, then hit Delete to clear the selection. Also, don’t forget the select and clear the white piece below. Deselect and go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, then apply with a Radius of 8 pixels.

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Step 9

Now create a new layer below "Highlight 1" layer and name it "Black." As you can tell from the name, we are going to fill it with black. Now select "Black," "Highlight 1," and "Highlight 2" layers in the Layers Palette and merge them by hitting Command + E. Go to Filter > Brush Strokes > Spatter. Set Spray Radius to 6 and Smoothness to 14. Command-click the "Apple" layer to load the selection, go to Select > Inverse and hit Delete to clear. Set layer Blending Mode to Screen. Deselect.

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Step 10

Create a new layer above the "Dots" layer, and name it "Red." Grab the Elliptical Marquee Tool and make a selection as shown, then fill it with the color #ffbe00. Command-click the "Apple" layer to load the selection. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply with a Radius of 50 pixels. Next, set the layer Blending Mode to Hue. Now, deselect by hitting Command + D.

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Step 11

Create a new layer below the "Red" layer, name it "Yellow." Grab the Elliptical Marquee Tool and make a selection as shown, then fill it with the color #fff444. Command-click the "Apple" layer to load the selection. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply with a Radius of 50 pixels. Next, set the layer Blending Mode to Hard Light and Opacity at 75%. Deselect by hitting Command + D.

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Step 12

Create a new layer on top and name it "Reflection." Grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool and make a selection as shown, then fill it with white. We’ll make a window reflection out of this rectangle. So select two rectangular areas as shown, then clear them.

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Step 13

Go to the Layers Palette and add a Layer Mask to the "Reflection" layer by clicking the Add Layer Mask button. Grab the Gradient Tool, set it to Linear Gradient. Fill the layer Mask with the gradient, as you can see in the below image.

The Layer Mask is selected at the moment, click the "Reflection" layer thumbnail to go back to the layer. Now, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply with a Radius of 8 pixels. Go to Edit > Transform > Warp, and select Arc from the presets list, then set the Bend to -20%.

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Step 14

Create a new layer on top and name it "Backlight." Command-click the "Apple" layer thumbnail and fill the selection with white. Make sure the Marquee Tool is selected, then move the selection about 10 pixels left using the Left Arrow key. Now, hit Delete to clear.

Command-click the "Apple" layer again to load the selection, then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, and apply with a Radius of 7 pixels. Hit Command + D to deselect. Grab the Eraser Tool, then set the Master Diameter to 270 pixels and Hardness at 0%. Erase the lower part of the backlight, as you can see in the below image.

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Step 15

Create a new layer and name it "Stalk." Grab the Pen Tool, set to Paths in the tools options. Draw a curve for the stalk of the apple. Now, grab the Brush Tool and open the Brushes Palette. Under Shape Dynamics, set the Dynamic Control for Size to Fade. Set the Steps for Size Fade to 70 and set Minimum Brush Diameter to 20%. Under Brush Tip Shape, set the Diameter to 14 pixels and Hardness to 100%. Now, set the Foreground Color to #884411.

Go to Paths Palette, open the Paths Palette pop-up menu (click the triangle in the upper right to open) and choose Stroke Path, set the Tool to Brush and hit OK. Click somewhere outside the path in the Paths Palette. Command-click the "Dent" layer thumbnail in the Layers Palette to load its selection.

Grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool, then while holding the Shift key, make a selection that covers the upper part of the stalk. Go to Select > Inverse, then hit Delete to clear the lower exceeding part of the stalk, and deselect.

The path you have drawn is stored in the Paths Palette as a "Work Path." It stays there until you draw another path, then the new path you draw will be your "Work Path." If you want to keep the existing path before you draw a new one, you can give it a name by double-clicking on the path. Thus you won’t loose it when you draw a new one. If you want the path to disappear in your document, then go to Paths Palette and click somewhere outside the path in the Paths Palette.

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Step 16

Create a new layer and name it "Stalk Highlight." Grab the Brush Tool and set the Master Diameter to 5 pixels. Set the Foreground Color to white. Now go to the Paths Palette, make sure Work Path is selected, open the Paths Palette pop-up menu, then choose Stroke Path, set Tool to Brush, and hit OK.

Command-click the "Stalk" layer thumbnail in the Layers Palette to load its selection. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply with a Radius of 1 pixel. Set the layer Opacity at 40%. Select the "Stalk" layer in the Layers Palette, then go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise. Set the Amount at 3%, set Distribution to Uniform, make sure Monochromatic is checked. Now, deselect by hitting Command + D.

Grab the Burn Tool, and using a soft brush (I set Master Diameter to 65 pixels and Hardness to 0%), make the bottom part of the stalk darker.

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Step 17

Create a new layer below the "Stalk" layer and name it "Stalk Shadow." Grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool and make a selection, as in the image below. Fill it with black and Deselect. Go to Edit > Transform > Perspective and tweak the perspective of the layer as shown.

Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, set the Radius to 7 pixels, and apply. Grab the Eraser Tool, and using a soft brush, clear the top part of the shadow. Next, Command-click the "Dent" layer to load the selection. Grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool, then while holding the Shift key, make a selection that will cover the top part of the shadow. Now go to Select > Inverse and hit Delete to clear. Deselect and set the Layer Opacity to 60%.

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Step 18

Now we can make the finishing touches before we merge the layers. First, I’ll fill the background with the color #004400. Next, I made some minor changes. I set the Opacity of the "Highlight" layer at 85%, "Yellow" at 35%, "Red" at 85%, "Dent Shadow" at 95%, "Backlight" at 60%, "Reflection" at 55%.

I applied an Inner Glow Layer Style to the "Apple" layer to make the edges a little bit darker using these settings: Blend Mode of Multiply, Opacity set at 30%, Size set to 20 pixels, and Color set to #003300. I also changed the "Apple" layer Inner Shadow Opacity to 45%.

Finally, I applied an Outer Glow layer style to the "Dots" layer with these settings: Blend Mode set to Multiply, Opacity at 60%, Color set to #2b2b2b, and Size set to 8 pixels. Now select all the layers except the "Background" layer in the Layers Palette, then go to Layer > New > Group From Layers, and name the group "Apple."

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Step 19

Create a new layer below the "Apple" group and name it "Shadow." Grab the Elliptical Marquee Tool and make a selection as shown, then fill it with black. Deselect and go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, and apply with a Radius of 40 pixels.

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Step 20

Create a new layer above the "Background" layer and name it "Light." Grab the Elliptical Marquee Tool and make a selection as shown, then fill it with the color #338833. Deselect, then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, and apply with a Radius of 75 pixels.

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Step 21

Now we have our apple ready but it looks too much like a sphere, but you can give it an apple shape using the Warp transform. Right-click the "Apple" group and merge it. Go to Edit > Transform > Warp and distort it to give it an apple shape.

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Conclusion

You’ll see some distortion on the edges which are caused by the Warp transform. To get rid of them Command-click the "Apple" layer, go to Select > Modify > Feather, and set the Radius to 1 pixel. Next, go to Select > Inverse and hit Delete three or four times to clear the distorted area from the edges. And you finished!

 

Thanks to  Eren Goksel

Age Progression - Photoshop Tutorials

Hi, United Designers..Now I'll share you a nice tutorial about "age-progress a person".
This is a amazing trick. So, here it is..



Men and women age a little bit differently but since I've only aged female celebrities thus far, I'll just focus on women for this tutorial. I’ll be using the image of Katie Holmes that I did for a past W1K contest, as an example.
Step 1: Choosing an Appropriate Photo
When deciding to age-progress a celebrity’s face, I try to select a picture that is touched-up as little as possible.



I find that candid shots, or any shots that have not been taken in a studio, work best because the resulting harsh lighting reveals more of the skin’s details i.e. slight bags under the eyes and faint wrinkles. The appearance of such details makes it all that much easier to visualize how your subject will age. Visualizing what the end result will look like brings you one step closer to aging her face realistically.



In Katie’s case, we can see very faint horizontal lines on her forehead, fairly obvious lines under her eyes and lines bracketing her mouth.
Step 2: Collecting Reference Material
Reference material is key in my method of aging. Keeping Katie’s face in mind, I scoured the Web, looking for faces of old women who either resemble Katie and/or share the same facial expression. Here, Katie is smiling with her face positioned at a 3/4 angle so I tried to gather as many pictures of old women who are smiling in the same manner or close to that. I then opened up the picture of Katie in Photoshop and pasted the found images around her face on a separate layer, spread out to provide easy visual access.



Another kind of reference I like to use but is usually hard to find, is pictures of the subject’s parents. I managed to find a couple of reference pictures of Katie’s mother online and they really helped me to decide whether or not to give Katie a double chin. Since her mom has quite a bit of mass under her chin, I decided I would apply that to Katie too.
Step 3: Thinning Brows
Now the fun begins! The first thing I like to do is to thin out the subject’s eyebrows and eyelashes. The older people get, the thinner their hair gets - either because hair falls out and/or because it dries out as it greys.



So to achieve this, I like to use the Clone Stamp tool at 100% with a relatively small brush size depending on the size and resolution of the image. I sampled the surrounding skin to thin and reduce the number of hairs.
Step 4: Mold the Face
Next, I like to add the basic sags to the skin. I do this in the Liquify mode. I tried to create sagging effects to the cheeks, jowls and the cliff just above the eyes by using the Push tool. For the eyes, I tried to be subtle; otherwise she may end up looking somewhat ghoulish.



From what I’ve learned about the aging process, I know that while bones cease to grow, and in fact shrink, cartilage does continue to grow. As a result, the end of a nose may appear larger as a person grows older. So while I was still in the Liquify mode, I used the Push tool to extend the length of the nose slightly. Then I used the Bloat tool to also enlarge it slightly, being careful not lose the essential quality or character of the nose. Go too far and it may not look like Katie anymore.

Step 5: The Aforementioned Double Chin


Based on her mother’s pictures, I then added a fairly massive double chin. I initially used the Airbrush tool with some fairly broad strokes, sampling the colors that were already in the area of her neck. I then worked in the details with a finer brush size. Also, keep in mind that I was also using the other reference photos of older women to guide me.
Step 6: Wrinkle Up the Eyes
For me, the most important parts to get right are the eyes. They can make or break the project. Done wrong and the picture may no longer be identifiable as one of Katie Holmes anymore. I sought out the fine lines around the eyes and I tried to imagine how they would progress into wrinkles. I then extended them in length and width accordingly. Referencing the pictures of old women helped a lot with this step.



I used a combination of the Stamp tool and Brush tool. I wish I could explain my technique at this point in a more clinical manner but mostly I relied on my artistic instincts. I emphasized the wrinkles around the eyes by widening and deepening the lines slightly and increasing the contrast by darkening the recesses and lightening the edges. Also, I extended wrinkles to the cheekbone areas. I then applied the same technique to the wrinkles around the mouth and to the forehead.
Step 6: Reducing the Lips
In this step, I work on the lips. As people grow older, the outline of the lips tends to recede. Using the Stamp tool, I sampled the skin surrounding the lips and thinned them out.



While I was at it, I also added a few vertical wrinkles above the lips to give her a bit of a "prune" effect. We just want a hint of that, so don’t carve out deep lines; deep lines would only be necessary if she was puckering her lips.
Step 7: Planning Out More Wrinkles


Here, on a separate layer, I faintly outlined or sketched, with a relatively thin brush size, areas that I may or may not add more lines and wrinkles to. It’s easy to get carried away with the addition of wrinkles. So, I stopped, took a step back and assessed where to take to image. For me, it's essential and a great test to see what best works.
Step 8: Touching Up the Wrinkles
Based on the previous step, I added wrinkles where I thought they were needed most.



Overall, I found that the wrinkles and lines seemed a little flat in comparison to the rest of Katie’s features. They needed more definition so that they could pop out more. So, I highlighted the raised edges of the individual lines with the Brush tool and with a lighter skin tone.
Step 9: Hairy Lips
Facial hair becomes an issue with most women as they age. For some strange reason they lose it in the brow area and grow it back around the mouth area. I didn’t want Katie to be the exception so with a very fine brush size and the Brush tool, I added hairs to her upper lip.



I tried to make it as subtle as possible. Hairs too thick or dark would draw the viewer’s attention straight to her mustache and I didn’t want that. I also added more wrinkles to the area below the corners of her mouth.
Step 10: Refining the Neck


I decided that the neck was too smooth for a woman of 75 years of age. So I added finer wrinkles to that area. Also, I added more mass and weight to her jowls with the airbrush by increasing the value of the tones in those areas thus creating more contrast between surface planes.
Step 11: Adding Age Spots
A key component to effective aging of a face is the addition of age spots.



So at this point, I sampled one of the darker skin tones on her face, and on a separate layer that was set to Multiply and 30% opacity, I brushed them in and tried to create irregular shapes (there IS no perfect age spot). You can add as many as you like; the amount varies from person to person. I decided to be conservative with Katie.
Step 12: More Refinements
I took a little break from it and came back to it later to possibly get a better perspective on it. When I looked at it, at this point, I decided that certain areas needed refining and added detail. This is the beauty of working with a high-resolution file; I can zoom in real close and deal with a wrinkle up-close and personal.



Unless their teeth were subjected to regular whitening, most people’s teeth yellow with age. Gums also recede, showing less gum and more bone. And so with that in mind, I sampled a yellowish-brown color and on a new layer that was set to Multiply and 30% opacity and painted that color to the teeth with the Brush tool. Her gums didn’t show to begin with, so receding the gums here wasn’t necessary.
Step 13: Preparing the Hair


The finishing touch here is greying the hair. I began by creating a mask defining the area of the hair. I used the brush for this and tried my best to define as many loose strands of hair that I could.



With this mask as a selection, I then created a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and reduced the saturation to –63.



I then created a new adjustment layer based on the same mask and adjusted the Brightness/Contrast to brightness +9 and contrast –36. As a result, I found that the darker areas were too pale and caused a loss of depth and so to adjust that, I then selected the mask and scratched out the darker areas with a 5px brush size at 50% opacity so that they could show through from the original image.
Step 14: Hair Raising
The next step was to raise the hairline and thin out the hair. Hair loss is common with both sexes.



I sampled the area at the top of the forehead and extended the skin area above the original hairline.
Step 15: Greying the Hair
A lot of details of the hair were lost in the previous step so with a thin brush size at 80 percent opacity I drew in fine grey hairs, sparsely laid out.



Patiently, slowly, stroke by stroke I added more and more hairs until I was happy with the amount of grey I had added.
Step 16: Finishing Touches
Finally, I took a step back, refined a few wrinkles here and there ET VOILA!



I hope this tutorial was insightful. It may not be the most technically detailed tutorial but it gives you a good idea of the process I go through to get the job done. Hopefully, it will help you create your own trophy-winning images for future Fountain of Age contests! 

thx to : http://www.exguides.org