Force Bubble: How to make it…

Some folks have wondered how I did the ‘force bubble’ in my previous piece, so I decided to create another wallpaper using it and give a link to the tutorial I used create the bubble, which can be found Here. The tutorial goes into a lot of detail and is somewhat different than the overall effect that I use, but if you follow steps 6 through 14, you can achieve the same style.

Here is the finished piece:

In this piece, I wanted to create a foreshadow into the future.

Thanks to B-Squared-Stock on Deviant art for the stock desert scene, found here.

The city scene can be found here.

April 29, 2009 at 10:37 am | Design, Tutorials | 1 Comment »

Forceful Emotion

When I designed this one, it took a while to get just right. Things didn’t fit in certain places, and it just didn’t feel the way I wanted it to feel. A few accidents later, everything just kinda fell into place and it was finished.

I really like the raw emotion that emanates from the center of it all. The force of emotion in humans is very powerful, and the effects ripple out causing unintended consequences much of the time. Overall, I think it turned out really nice.

The stock images used in this piece can be found at www.deviantart.com. As per request and under the license for usage, the composition is Copyright 2009 by Ian Stradling, all rights for the composition are reserved. The stock images are not owned and were not created by me. Please do not distribute or re-post this piece anywhere. Special thanks to Colourize_stock, spiked_stock, and M47R1X on DeviantArt who created the stock images, I am very happy to be able to work with their fine creations.

April 28, 2009 at 7:20 am | General | 2 Comments »

Another new wallpaper

Have you ever had a dream that you were so sure was real? I created a photomanipulation that you can use as a wallpaper for your desktop. It’s a surrealistic depiction of a grieving girl. I felt that the water pouring out of an empty picture portrayed a never ending sorrow for something she lost.

I hope you like it!

April 21, 2009 at 9:38 am | General | No Comments »

Typography Design

I created a wallpaper that really takes typographical design literally. I tried to go with a theme for each letter, and overall it turned out really nice.

What do you think?

April 17, 2009 at 3:19 pm | General | 1 Comment »

Blip.fm

What a fantastic idea! Streaming music from just about anywhere…this little wonderful social networking tool allows you to be a DJ for any of your friends that choose to follow you.

Check it out!

April 15, 2009 at 3:52 pm | General | No Comments »

May Wallpaper

With the release of my latest blog design, I’ve also created a wallpaper for your downloading pleasure.

This is a special edition wallpaper though, because is specifically tailored with a calendar for the month of May. I will be happy to take special requests for specific months for those interested.

Without further adieu…

April 15, 2009 at 11:30 am | General | No Comments »

Update!

So, I decided that the first rendition of my blog was much too dark.

I’ve updated my blog with a much cleaner look and things feel alot better. If you find any issues, please let me know!

April 15, 2009 at 9:29 am | General | No Comments »

Playing with Color Saturation

Have you ever looked at one of those cute cards that have the two little children being portrayed as adults? One of the kids usually has some kind of flowers, usually roses. In full color, they really don’t have that much impact on the viewer, but the real effect that draws you in is that they tend to be done in black and white. However, the flowers are colored still.

Many Photoshop users already understand how color substitution works, but for those of us that do not, getting this type of effect can be a daunting task. Thankfully, this type of effect can easily be done in just a few simple steps.

In today’s tutorial, we’ll be exploring the art of color substitution using adjustment layers, with the intent of course to preserve the pixels in the original picture.

Here is what our final result will look like:

Step 1:

Select the picture that you want to create this effect on. I chose a lovely picture of a rose and some baby’s breath that I found on http://www.sxc.hu.

Step 2:

Open the photo in Photoshop and while pressing Alt, double click on the layer to unlock the layer. Add a Hue and Saturation layer, and reduce the Saturation to -100 as shown below. This essentially removes all of the color information from the picture, but because we created a layer mask to do this, the integrity of the original layer is left intact.

Step 3:

Click on the mask portion of the Hue & Saturation layer. Select the brush tool and remembering the rule “White allows, Black suppresses” unmask the portion of the picture that you would like to allow the color to show through.

Step 4:
Finally, add a Color Selection layer. Notice that there is a drop down that you can change all the different colors with. The only one we need to be concerned with is the Reds. Adjust the values as shown below.

There you have it! A desaturated ‘old style’ photograph. Feel free to stylize the photo in different ways to achieve different results. I hope you enjoyed today’s tut!

April 6, 2009 at 10:34 am | Design, Tutorials | 2 Comments »

Wallpaper in Two Flavors

Here’s another:

April 3, 2009 at 3:46 pm | General | No Comments »

Apocalypse Wallpaper

Just a little something I whipped up.

April 1, 2009 at 10:00 am | General | No Comments »