How to Make an Animated Step By Step Progress of Your Artwork

This tutorial will show you a quick and easy method to make an animated gif image in photoshop showing the progress of your work.

The images used in this tutorial are from the guide of an entry named Eyecon, which finished first place in the Icon design contest of Pxleyes,

The GIF files in this tutorial are quite large, so the intermediate gifs are listed as links.

Let's get started!

End result:

Step 1

Program: Photoshop CS2 to CS5
Before Photoshop CS2, you could make an animated gif by an application named ImageReady, but from Photoshop CS2, animation was included in Photoshop.
Start by opening the animation window (the location is indicated in the figure)
There are 24 layers, each layer is the intermediate step that I saved during the time I worked on my image. The first layer I name "Step 1", the second layer named "Step 2", so on and so forth.
All layers now are in the visible mode and the output image is just the final one, you can't see the under layers.
Animation window has 2 modes: Frames mode and Timeline mode. In this tutorial I'll show you the creation of animation with Frames mode because Frames mode bases on separated layer, only changes the opacity and fill of the layers.
To switch between these modes, you can use the button on the right bottom of the animation window as I indicated in the figure.
In Frames mode you can see each frame with its thumbnail, it's the result of how you combined the layers with different opacity and fill. Under the thumbnail are some parameters that you can alter later such as delay time and looping option.

Step 2

Edit the first frame
Basically, what we will do is showing each layer by the order of time, so the first frame will show the first layer, the second frame will show the second layer, and so on.
Now we have to hide all the layers except the first one. The fastest way to do it is use the combination of Alt+Left mouse click on the eye icon of the layer you want to keep, the others will become hidden.
Now you can see, the first frame shows only the first layer, which is visible.

Step 3

Edit the second and the remaining frames
Now you need to insert one more frame after the first frame. To do that, go to the small icon on the right corner of the animation window (I indicated in the figure of step 1, which can help you expand the task bar) or just click on the icon on the left of the dust bin icon in the bottom row of this window.
At first, the second frame is just another copy of the first frame. To change it, you click on the second frame and select the eye icon of the second layer (you can keep the first layer visible or not, it depends on you, in this case it's not important because the higher layer will cover the lower layer).
So, the two frames are different in the visibility of the layers. Repeat this step until the last layer.

Step 4

Finish making the frames
I have 24 layers and make 24 frames for them.

Step 5

Edit the time delay between frames
You can choose the delay time between two layers by clicking on the option just under the thumbnail of the frame and select the standard ones or by your desire (In "Other...").
If you want to select the same delay time for multiple frames, just click on the first frame, hold Shift, then click on the last frame as you want, all these layers will be selected at the same time. Now every option you change with one frame, it will be applied to all frames that you chose.
In my case, I chose 0.2 second as the delay time between two frames, except the last frame I chose 2 second (the viewer need to look the result a bit more before the new loop started).

Step 6

Reduce the image size
My original photos are pretty large, so I don't want my animation image to be heavy with more than 10Mb or something, so I need to reduce the size.
Go to Image -> Image size (or Ctrl+Alt+I) to change the image size. I chose 400px for the width. This option will be applied to all layers and frames without selecting all of them.

Step 7

Rendering
Go to File -> Save for Web & Devices (or Alt+Shift+Ctrl+S), then you can see the new window as in the figure.
The main image is the preview image.
On the top right, you can select the format of your image, in this case we choose GIF (Graphics Interchange Format), which is the only format allows monitoring the sequence of images or animation. Beside GIF, there are different kinds of image format used for website, and all of them are compressed image. GIF image is a 8-bit format, so the maximum number of colors it can show is 256. Reducing the color number is a way to reduce your file size.
Under the format option, there are different parameters which define the distribution of colors: Color reduction algorithm, Specific dither algorithm, and color number. As my experience, you should choose Selective - Pattern, respectively, for the first two to have the best compromise between the quality of your image and file size. If you didn't use much colors in your image, you can reduce the color number to decrease the file size.
You can select the Transparency option or not, depending on you used transparent layers in your image or not. In my case, it's not necessary because every layers are solid.
The last option in the bottom (Looping option) is selecting whether your image is repetitive or not (Once or forever or any number of time as you want), and of course, we should choose Forever, otherwise viewers have to refresh the page to see the progress again, very inconvenient.
You can preview your animation by the play button.

Step 8

Now we have the first "raw" animated image. You can see, with 0.2 second of delay time, it runs quite fast. We will have to optimize that.


View the animated GIF.

Step 9

Optimizing your animation
First, I increase the delay time to 0.5 seconds per frame.
Second, I make one new layer on top of all other layers for the water mark because I don't want anyone take my SBS to prove their authority if they steal my work. If you like this water mark you can download it here http://i53.tinypic.com/svngya.jpg.
To make new layer, hold Shift+Ctrl+N, name is as Water mark or whatever you like, and put the transparent water mark from png file to the desired position on your image.
This new layer will be visible in all frames, since the default option is New layers visible in all frames as you can see in Step 3. You can deselect it, so it only visible in the frame that you currently select.

Step 10

Now we have the other version, which is smoother and more secured.

View the animated GIF.

Step 11

Increase the quality of the animation
If the created animation is not desirable to you, you can improve it by a tool called Tween effect.
Back to Step 1 you can find the location of this tool as I marked.
Tween effect will make the transition between two frames and you can define how gradual it changes from the first frame to the last one.
In my case, I will make more 2 transition frames between each two frames. To do that, keep Ctrl or Shift and select any two preceding frames, then click on the Tween button.
I selected the number of Frames to add is 2.
I did the same thing to other frames, finally I have 100 frames in total (correspondingly, the file size will be increase considerably).

Step 12

Since there are too many frames now, I reduced the delay time to 0.3 seconds per frames, except the last frame will stay for 2 seconds.
The improved animation looks much smoother now.
However, the file size is quite large now (around 900Kb)

View the animated GIF.

Step 13

To reduce the file size without considering each parameter, you can let the program optimize it for you by defining the file size.
To do that, after you Save for Web & Devices, the new box appear (as in Step 7) you can find a small button on the top right, click on it you can see the box as in the figure here, now choose Optimize to File size...
In my case I chose 700Kb, then press Enter, the program will calculate the optimum setting for you.

Step 14

Here is the animation with pre-defined size (700Kb). Obviously the quality was reduced, but it's better that many people can see it with different bandwidth.

View the animated GIF.

Step 15

Here is the last product. To make it more interesting, I made more 3 frames (it's not important with this tutorial, just my personal improvement). The first two frames are the two layer I applied the motion blur filter on my final image, to make it disappearing, and the last frame is just the black background with some words.
Hope you understand well my tutorial and be able to make awesome tutorials for everybody.

You are done............

How to Create Fake Glossy 3D Typography

NOTE: ks is short for Key Stroke, the shortcut for making the process move faster by using your keyboard.

See how to create fake 3D glossy text in photoshop. This final result, when done right can be VERY convincing... I came across this technique while I was working on a current project and wanted a cool 3D type effect, so this is what I came up with, and thought it would be fun to share with Pxleyes...

NOTE: I AM UNAWARE OF WHAT KEYSTROKES WORK ON A PC IN COMPARISON TO THE OPTION AND COMMAND KEYS ON A MAC... THOSE KEYS ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THIS TUTORIAL... but it shouldn't be that hard to follow along. :)

Difficulty- Intermediate

Required version of photoshop- ANY

Time to complete- 45 mins to 1 hour.

The reasoning it takes so long to complete is cause the techniques to get the final to look as good as it does requires a strong attention to detail. It is a very slow and meticulous process, but the results are uncanny to that of actual 3D, and once you get the technique down, its actually a fairly simple process.

!!!ENJOY!!!

End result:

Step 1

Step 1- Create a document at 800 pixels wide and 1000 pixels high at 300 dpi. The reason for this very large canvas is for 3 reasons.

The first reason is cause when you create something like this in photoshop and installing it into a project, you want it to be fairly large so that when you scale it, you wont lose the quality because it will most likely be larger than how you are using it. If it were smaller than how you plan on losing it, then when you scale it larger it will lose quality, where as if you scale down the quality pretty much stays the same. After all we are working with raster images, not vector.

Secondly is that when you work on a large scale basis you can have more detail and more room to get creative, thus having less limits. When we are done here you will have your one letter.

The third is basically that we will have more space to work in and you wont have your type hanging off the side getting cut off by the boundaries of your document.

Step 2

Step 2- First what we want to do is use a typeface that is easy to read, and fairly simple. For this tutorial I have decided to use a typeface called 'Defeqto' which you can download for free at www.dafont.com.

I will be working with the letter 'B' but you can use any typeface you like. I personally think it looks pretty cool with this typeface, and it works well with this technique, but feel free to use any typeface you like. Then right click on your type layer, and select "raterize type'. This will make it editable.

Step 3

Step 3-
(this part is just cleaning up your typeface as needed if you wish to. You can skip this step and go to step 6 and continue if you would rather just rush through this or if you don't need to clean up your type and learn the techniques more time-efficiently)

Now as cool as this typeface is, lets face it, when its blown up its obviously not that clean and a bit rough around the edges, so were going to clean that up. So I want to clean up the edges. Get out your circular marquee tool, or ks 'M'. Hold Shift+ Command to create a circle selection working from the center (where you initially click) outwards so that your selection is about the same as the curvature of the type. You can tell from figure 1 that I didn't really have the circle lined up quite right, so I want to right click, and select 'transform selection'. Then I will line up my selection with the type as shown in figure 2. Then resize your selection so that it works in to the type like figure 3. Then simply delete what you have selected. This will make the type smooth like we want. Apply this as needed.

Step 4

Step 4- If you need to get the outside edges, just make a selection like I have here, and simply inverse your selection by either going to menu tab 'SELECT/INVERSE' or ks 'Shift+Command+I'. Then grab your eraser tool both opacity and flow at 100%. Erase the edges that you want to disappear. once you have cleaned up all of that head on to the next step.

Step 5

Step 5- Pen tool time... lets round off some of these edges. take your pen tool and draw out a smooth path for your edge like I have shown in figure 1. Right click and select 'make selection'. Make sure the feather radius is 0.2 pixels. You don't want your edge to be too hard or is looks funny. Apply this to any other part of the type that may need 'treatment'. Figure 3 shows what I came up with.

Step 6

Step 6- Here is the part where we make the type 3D with that cool neon glow inside with a little bit of perspective. with your 'B' selection made, go to menu tab 'EDIT/FREE TRANSFORM' or ks 'Command+T'. With your free transform active, hold Shift+option+Command and drag the right corner (any corner) and move your curser towards the center of the outer edge between the two anchor points that you are effecting as shown in figure 1. Or you could drag outside but you will lose precious resolution...High res in work like this is key for quality.

Now, of course you can tell it looks a bit distorted... so what we want to do is grab the side anchor on the free transform box and pull it in like so in figure 2. Hit enter to finish your transformation.

Step 7

Step 7- Now to give it depth. A lot of this is up to eyeing what your working on when it comes to which direction you want your 3D view to be. You need to make sure that what you do looks real, and not some cheap 3D attempt. You don't want the depth of your object to look skewed like a messed up z axis. Haha!!! with that said, ill keep it simple.

Grab your move tool and with your 'B' layer selected (I dont know why it wouldnt) Hold 'Option+Command' and hit the RIGHT arrow key 18 times to make 18 copies of your B layer. After you do this, select the copied layers while holding either Shift or Command and get layers 'copy 8, 9, and 10' and Merge them by either right clicking on them and selecting 'MERGE LAYERS' at the bottom of the menu, or hitting ks 'Command+E'. Make sure that layers 'copy 8 thru 10' are now one single layer. Name this new merged layer "GLOW". Then go into 'IMAGE/ADJUSTMENTS/HUE AND SATURATION' or ks 'Command+U' and turn the lightness all the way up.

To see more about this tutorial Please click here............

Create a Fantastic Glowing Decorated Time Piece

In this tutorial I am going to show you all methods to create a glowing timepiece decorated with precious stones and golden insects.

I used Adobe Photoshop CS 4 and CorelDraw X3 to make the image but other versions are also applicable.
You can see the image in high resolution here.

At first sight the tutorial seems long, actually more of the steps contain only description of the layer style applied to the respective timepiece part. It will take you no more than three hours to implement all steps and to achieve the final result.

End result:

Step 1

Create a new .psd file of 2000px width and 3300px height, 72dpi.
Click twice on the Background to make an ordinary layer of it as you’ll need to apply layer style later. Rename this Layer 0 as Background again for your convenience.
Navigate to your Tool Bar and set Foreground color to # 290509, go to Edit menu and choose Fill. When Fill dialog box appear, choose Foreground Color from Use drop down menu and click OK button.
Now you have a nice dark background for the clock design. Let us give it some slight scarcely visible relief.
Right click on Background layer, select Blending Options and check Texture. In Texture box click on the tiny down arrow to open Pattern Picker, select Artist Surfaces and when the program asks you to Replace the Current Patterns with Patterns from Artist Surfaces, click on Append button. In the opened Pattern Picker select Dark Coarse Weave pattern from the chosen Artist Surfaces set, set Scale option to 20% and Depth to 18%.

Step 2

Create a new layer above the background and name it Dark Frame. Fill with black color, change Blend Mode to Soft Light and reduce Opacity to 40 %. Add Layer Mask (Layer, Layer Mask, Reveal All), take soft black brush of about 800-1000px size and brush while the mask is selected. Erase most parts of this black layer, leave only the borders untouched.
When satisfied with the result, highlight both layers- Background and Dark Frame, go to Layer, Group Layers and call the group Background.

Save your Timepiece file for now. We are going to work with CorelDraw in the next steps.

Step 3

Open CorelDraw X3 (Version 13) and create a new A4 graphic (from Paper Type/Size drop down menu in Property Bar select A4). You’ll need to switch on the grid in order to make your work easier. Go to Layout menu, select Page Setup and when Options dialog box appears, select Grid: check Frequency, leave Spacing unchecked, set Horizontal and Vertical Frequency to 5.08, check Show Grid and Show Grid as Lines. When ready press OK button.

Step 4

In this step your task is only to draw two circles with Ellipse Tool. Hold down Ctrl while drawing in order to make perfect circles.

Step 5

Take Rectangle Tool and draw a long rectangular shape. Its four angles must intersect the ellipses.

Step 6

Now grab Pick Tool and select all objects you have drawn so far. Press Intersect Icon on the Property Bar and you’ll see how the first intersected area appears selected (it is the right ellipse). Click with Pick Tool outside the objects to deselect everything, then click with the same tool on the right ellipse and press Delete key. The superfluous parts of the ellipse will disappear and you’ll have only the intersected part of it in the rectangle.

Deselect all objects again.

Step 7

Take Pick Tool and this time holding down Shift, select only the left circle and the rectangle. Press Intersect Icon again. Deselect everything by clicking with Pick Tool out of the objects. Use Pick Tool again to select only the left circle and press Delete.

Step 8

Now click on Fill Tool (the paint bucket icon) in order to appear the fly- out menu of fill tools. Select the second one from left to right- Fountain Fill Dialog (hot key- F11). Our task here is to fill each of the three parts with a lovely golden gradient. On the screenshot given for this step, you see the final result. Next three steps will give you detailed description of the whole color fill process.

Step 9

Select with Pick Tool the left part of our rectangular shape, from Fill Tool fly- out menu choose Fountain Fill Dialog or press F11 key. When Fountain Fill dialog box appears, set Angle at 15 degrees and Edge Pad to 20%, leave Type to Linear. To change the colors of the gradient, firstly click on the left marker, go to the color swatches to the right and choose Khaki (when you point at any color swatch its name appears). Then click on the right marker and select Chalk from the swatches.

Deselect the shape.

Step 10

Select the right shape with Pick Tool, go to Fountain Fill Dialog, set Angle at -15 degrees, Edge Pad to 20% and this time select Chalk color for the left swatch and Khaki color for the right one.

Step 11

Select the rectangle with Pick Tool. Press F11 to open the Fountain Fill Dialog box. For the left swatch choose Olive Drab color, select Khaki for the right swatch and to add a third color, double click between the two swatches to add a new one. Move it so that in Position box to appear 58%. Choose Chalk color for this swatch.

As you can see, all black outlines are missing in the screenshot given for this step. In the next step you will learn how to remove them.

Step 12

For the purpose of this tutorial you should get rid of the black outlines which spoil the smooth and dainty look of our golden rectangle.
Select the whole rectangle with Pick Tool, click on Outline Tool and from the fly-out menu choose No Fill.

Now our golden rectangle is ready and all the work in CorelDraw completed.

All you have to do it is to export the shape in .png type. Go to File, Export to call the Export dialog box. Click on the Save In drop down menu and find the folder with your Timepiece .psd file. In File Name enter Rectangle and from Save As Type drop down menu choose PNG (Portable Network Graphics). Click on Export button. Now you can close the CorelDraw .cdr file.

Step 13

Move the .png rectangle shape created in CorelDraw into your Photoshop document, place its layer above Background group. Resize the shape with Edit, Free Transform to look as on the screenshot to this step. Call the layer Rectangle and while highlighted go to Layer menu, select Group Layers and name the new group Rectangle.
Right click on Rectangle layer, select Blending options and check Bevel and Emboss layer style. Change the settings in Bevel and Emboss box like this:

Style: Inner Bevel
Technique: Smooth
Depth: 100 %
Direction: Up
Size: 250px
Soften: 0px
Angle: 120 degrees
Use Global Light- checked
Altitude: 30 degrees
Gloss Contour: linear
Anti- aliased: unchecked
Highlight Mode: Screen
Highlight Color: # feee96
Opacity: 100%
Shadow Mode: Multiply
Shadow Color: 736711
Opacity: 68%

Step 14

Take Rounded Rectangle Tool from the Tools Bar, navigate to the Options Bar and set Radius to 360 pixels, choose Shape Layers Mode. Change Foreground Color to a lovely light yellow # e3e371 and draw the rounded rectangle shape. You should have Shape 1 layer in Layers Palette. Leave it above the previously created Rectangle group.

Step 15

While Shape 1 layer is highlighted, right click on it and select Rasterize Layer. Hold down Ctrl key and click on the layer thumbnail to load a selection. When the rounded rectangle appears selected, go to Select menu, choose Modify, Contract. In Contract Selection box enter 80px and press OK. Press Delete in order to make a chain segment shape. Keep its layer highlighted as we’ll continue to process the shape in the next steps.

Read more about it........... Click here

Create a Beautiful Fan Surrounded by Magic Shapes, Runes and Plants

In this photoshop tutorial I am going to show you all steps taken to turn a pair of wooden mallets into a gorgeous looking fan surrounded by magic shapes, runes and plants.
To achieve the final result we shall practice and apply lots of transformations, Displacement Map, layer styles, actions and also dry brush smudge used to make amazing scattered effects and flying debris.

To implement successfully all steps of this tutorial, firstly we need to download the source image in high resolution from here.

End result:

Step 1

Open the source image Wooden Malets. Click twice on the Background to turn it into an editable layer and switch it off for now as we won’t need the original source in the following steps.
Create a new layer on top of the Layers palette and change its name to Background Gradient.
Go to your Tool bar and change Foreground Color to # a4b3b8 and Background Color to # 899496.
Select Gradient Tool, choose Linear type, Foreground to Background gradient and draw it from bottom to top of the canvas.
While Background Gradient layer is selected, go to Layer, Group Layers and call the new group Background.

Step 2

Create a new layer called Light Spectrum and place it above Background Gradient layer in Background group.
Take Gradient Tool again, but this time choose radial Light Spectrum gradient. Draw it from bottom to top of the canvas and when ready, change the layer’s Blend Mode to Multiply.

Step 3

Take Lasso Tool and select random shapes from the background of the Wooden Mallets source photo. Arrange the selected portions to cover the background leaving a small distance between each of them. Merge all layers consisting selected portions of the mallets background and name the new layer Liquify as in the next step we are going to apply that filter. Place it above Light Spectrum layer.

Step 4

Whilst Liquify layer is selected, go to Filter menu and select Liquify. From Liquify tools select Turbulence tool, change its Brush Size to 66 and leave other settings by default. Start liquifying each ”tile” of the background but try to leave a little space between the tiles.

Step 5

Change Blend Mode of Liquify layer to Multiply and reduce Opacity to 59%. In order to give some relief to these liquified shapes, right click on their layer and Select Blending Options, Bevel and Emboss. Change the settings as follows:

Style: Inner Bevel
Technique: Smooth
Depth: 276%
Direction: Up
Size: 51px
Soften: 16px
Angle: 30 degrees
Use Global Light: checked
Altitude: 30 degrees
Gloss Contour: Linear
Anti-aliased: unchecked
Highlight Mode: Screen
Color: # d9c705
Opacity: 3%
Shadow Mode: Multiply
Color: #000000
Opacity: 9%

Step 6

Duplicate Liquify layer and keep its Bevel and Emboss style. Place the duplicate below Liquify layer and call it Liquify_Lens Blur. With the layer selected go to Filter, Blur, Lens Blur and only move the Radius slider to 30, leave all other settings by default.

Step 7

Create a new empty layer placed below Liquify_Lens Blur then highlight them both, right click and select Merge Layers. Thus you’ll apply the Bevel and Emboss. The only inconvenience is that you should again rename the new layer as Liquify_Lens Blur as it loses its name after the merge.
As you see on the following screenshot, you should have one Background group with four layers within- Background Gradient, Light Spectrum, Liquify_Lens Blur and Liquify.

For details tutorials click here...

GIMP - Dust Demon Signature

Final Preview:

Quote:

The Background:

Quote:1) Create a new document 450x150 pixels

2) Filter >> Render >> Clouds >> Difference Clouds
We are looking for some contrast, one way to create some right off the bat is by checking the "Turbulent" box. Play around with the X and Y sliders to properly scale the clouds. Check the "Randomize" box. Hit OK


3) You will see a similar result:

However we are looking for more black, so let's invert the colors by going Colors >> Invert


4) Select the Smudge Tool and make sure you check all Brush Dynamics and most importantly the "Apply Jitter" check box:

Start smudging the clouds with an abstract brush such as the Glaxy, Big brush:

Notice how the jitter creates some nice hard and abstract edges.

Creating Flow:

Quote:5) Create a new layer and select the brush tool . Use a regular round brush and paint white stripes in one dirrection:


6) use the Smudge Tool with the Galaxy, Big brush again to blend these lines in:

And now repeat this step with paralleling plack lines:

Bringing In The Render:

Quote:7) Insert your render into a new layer and position it using the Move Tool and scale it appropriately :

If your image has a background (like mine) remove it using a round soft eraser tool:

Blending In Your Image:

Quote:8) Before you continue it's important that you make your render layer the same size as your image by going Layer >> Layer to Image Size

9) optional: go Image >> Mode >> Greyscale to keep the entire image in black&white. Color is usually the last step to worry about.

10) Highlight your Render layer and duplicate it then hide the duplicates by clicking on the eye:


11) Use the smudge tool with the setting you've been using all along to smudge the viable layer in the direction of your flow:


12) Click to create a new layer and use the brush tool to create new flow lines near your render:

Use your Smudge Tool again to blend these in:

Light Source And Lighting:

Quote:13) Create a new layer and select your brush tool and choose a very large soft brush. Set your color to white.

click to create an appropriate light source. You may leave blending mode on normal or change it to screen, lighten, etc,.

14) Bring a new duplicate of your render to the top but make sure that it's under step 12's layer:


Drop the opacity of this layer to around 50%

Color:

Quote:15) Create a new layer and select the gradient tool then select the following gradient:


16) Drag from left to right to apply the gradient to the new layer

Set the blending option to overlay and drop the opacity down to around 75%

Congratulations, you've completed the tutorial



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