Advanced Photoshop magazine, in association with Springleap.com, brings you a competition that challenges artists from around the world to set the tone for design in 2010.
Use your design power to chart a course for the direction of forward-thinking design trends for 2010. It’s time to be motivated by the cutting-edge world of commercial design! Release your own creative influence by drawing inspiration from popular culture, advertising, product design… the list is endless. It’s all about the trends that are making the most impact worldwide right now. Your designs must speak to people from all walks of life. Let the world’s most popular styles come alive through your design!

***Closing Date: 20 April 2010

What you can win…

We’ve joined forces with design
lovers Springleap.com and provided entrants with cash prizes, personalised T-shirt prints and generous subscription incentives. But for that something extra, every entrant will receive a 40 per cent discount to a year’s subscription to Advanced Photoshop magazine. The prizes for the winner are:

What you can win…
• 4 T-shirts of the winning design (sizes selected by designer)
• A year’s subscription to Advanced Photoshop magazine
• A cash prize of approximately $500 (subject to current exchange rate)
• Showcase in the magazine

Requirements…

Theme
Trends 2010

Colours
Create your design using this specific palette only. Any other colour inclusions will see your design rejected

Rules
• Artists can use any style of design
• Only truly original designs will be accepted; if you copy, we release the hounds
• Springleap.com design rules and regulations must be strictly adhered to

Regulations….
• Product shots of any kind are unacceptable
• No company trademarks can be incorporated into designs (eg, Adobe, Photoshop and Advanced Photoshop)
• No nudity, offensive imagery or foul language

Visit www.springleap.com for how to enter and image requirements

One fun use for Photoshop is to re-create traditional photographic effects, especially the ones that give photos a special finish. In this tutorial here, we are going to look at how to mimic a copperplate effect. The copperplate process dates back to the 1850s, when a printing plate was created from the image and then used to create the paper print. It shares some similarities with a lithograph. The process is rarely used today due to high costs. Traditionally, most of these prints ranged from dark black to brown to copper and orange. While the process can be easily accomplished using the Duotone dialog, we will explore a different approach through adjustment layers. The advantage is that you can easily switch the colours used to create new unique image recipes.

Click here to download the start image

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Desaturate and separate the highlights

Start by duplicating the start image layer and then desaturate the copied layer (Image>Adjustments>Desaturate). Go to Select>Color Range, and in the Color Range dialog use the Select drop-down to choose the Highlights. Click OK. Now save this selection (Select>Save Selection) and name the selection ‘Highlights’. When done, be sure to deselect to remove the marching ants (Ctrl/Cmd+D).

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Separate the midtones and shadows

Go back into the Color Range dialog and create/save two more selections – one for the midtones and one for the shadows. Be sure to deselect (Ctrl/Cmd+D) after saving each selection, otherwise you may get a warning message indicating no pixels are selected. When you’re finished, click on the Channels palette. You should see your three selections as alpha channels.

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Blur the channels

Select the Highlights channel and blur the channel (Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur). Use a setting that matches your image resolution. Since this is a large image, a large blur setting of 15 pixels is used. Apply the same blur to the Midtones and Shadows channels as well. When done, go back to the Layers palette and select the desaturated layer.

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Load each selection and map colours

Go to Select>Load Selection and select the Highlights channel. Click OK. Now with the selection active, create a Color Fill adjustment layer (Layer>New Fill Layer>Solid Color). Use the following colour: R:241/G:203/B:141. Repeat this process for the midtones and shadows selections. Use the following colours for each Color Fill adjustment layer: midtones: R:188/G:145/B:90 and shadows: R:102/G:67/B:35.

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Blend and add some grain

Change the blend mode for all three Color Fill adjustment layers to Color. To add texture, create a new layer at the top of the layer stack and fill it with 50% grey (Edit>Fill). Then apply some grain (Filter>Texture>Grain). Use the Clumped grain type with Intensity: 22 and Contrast: 73. Desaturate this layer and change the blend mode to Overlay.

This LIMITED EDITION 8.5″x11″ calendar consists of artwork from some of the
best of digital artists from all over the world. These digital artists
contribute to DEPTHCORE collective, the KDU, EvokeOne, Desktopography and
many other new wave collective groups.

They also have an impressive list of clients including big players such as
HP, Mazda, Orange, Comcast, Rebock, Nike, Orange County Choppers, Google,
Microsoft, Motorola, Absolut, ESPN, Puma, Vans, AMP Energy, Honda, Ford,
Audi, Maui Jim, Virgin, Starbucks, Ericsson, Smith-Micro and that’s just to
name a few.

These artists have been featured in important magazines like Advanced
Photoshop, Photoshop User, Computer Arts Projects and Photoshop Creative.

Each month features a different artist and a different style.
Use the calendar this year and keep the prints as collector’s items forever.

As the end of the year is approaching this will make a great Christmas gift.

Here is the artist list by month:
January – OLLI-PEKKA JAUHIAINEN ouwenz.com
February – PETE HARRISON aeiko.net
March – ADAM SPIZAK spizak.com
April – JOEL SHAKESPEAR isotope13.com
May – BEN THOMAS ben-thomas.com
June – RADIM MALINIC brandnu.co.uk
July – JONATHAN WONG artofwong.com
August – MIKE CAMPAU seventhstreetstudio.com
Septembe – JUSTIN NASH jnashportfolio.com
October – CHUCK ANDERSON nopattern.com
November – JEREMY BIGGERS vivalapaloma.com
December – NIK AINLEY shinybinary.com

Full information can be found at: http://www.behance.net/Gallery/The-2010-Exhibition-Calendar/366697

Buy it now from: http://www.theillustrati.com/?p=1

Hopefully you will have seen our calendar templates posted earlier today. In order to keep file sizes down, we have saved all calendar templates as a .png file. The marked areas can be easily selected for you to then import your images or flood with colour. To help you on your way we’ve created this short tutorial to show you how to add elements to the templates. Remember to label your layers as you go but if you forget and get in a pickle, Ctrl-click (Mac) or Cmd-click (PC) on an item to see what layer it sits on.

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Open the template

Once you have downloaded the template, open it in Photoshop. You’ll see a host of coloured shapes sat on a transparent background. We’ve coloured the shapes so they can easily be selected.

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Select an area

You control the template using the power of selections. And because the shapes are clear and simple, you only have to worry about using the Magic Wand. Bonus! Decide on the area you want to use and click on it with the aforementioned Magic Wand. You should see some marching ants dancing merrily around your selection.

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Pick an image

To place an element in your selection, open it up in Photoshop and select the area you want to feature. It’s worth checking the PPI of the image against that of the document. If they are different, it might import teeny tiny. The calendar template has a PPI of 300. Check your image by going to Image>Image Size and make any changes that are needed. Then pay a visit to the Edit menu and scroll down to Copy. Click back on the calendar template document.

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Paste Into

Head back up to the Edit menu and scroll down to Paste Into. Your image will appear in the selected area. If you need to make adjustments to the size, go to the Edit menu and pick one of the Transform options. I like Free Transform as you have all the commands available to you. If you want to scale proportionately, hold down Shift as you drag.

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Continue to build

Repeat this process for everything else you want to add to the template. Select the coloured areas from the main template and then use Paste Into to import the goodies. Name each layer as you go and play around with the layer order and also the opacity to get even more effects. Add some text, dab some brushes around and generally just have a good time!

Fix white balance

Don’t let annoying white balance blight what is an otherwise excellent image. Simply bring the Levels palette into play

When you have white balance issues, you will see a colour cast occur when one of the RGB colours is stronger than the others and usually happens when photos are taken under artificial light. With fluorescent lights this is often green and with tungsten lighting it will be yellow. If the flash is involved, you’re looking at a blue cast. However, as this example shows, you can also suffer from colour casts even if the photo is taken outside. Natural daylight is far from consistent and changes depending on location and time of day. For example, photos taken early in the morning will appear more ‘bluish’ than those taken at midday. As the day ends, colour will become redder and warmer. But in addition to the natural light, you have to think about location. Photos taken under a canopy of trees, for example, can suffer from a green colour cast.
Photoshop provides the perfect tools for removing these colour casts and bringing back your neutral, natural colours. We’re going to use the Levels palette here to restore this photo to its rightful glory, by neutralising and defining the black, white and middle grey points. Use this tutorial on colour faded or old pictures; you’ll be amazed what it can do.
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01 First things first

Click here to download the start image. Open it up Photoshop and take a good look where the problem areas are situated. The most obvious problem is the white in the car that has a yellow, greenish cast. Duplicate the layer by going to Layer>Duplicate Layer. Name the first layer Original and call the duplicate Retouch.

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02  Prepare the workspace

Pick the Eyedropper tool and set the Sample size to 3 x 3 Average. Bring up the Info palette and go to View>Fit On Screen. Now we’re ready for optimising the image.

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03  Levels

In the Image>Adjustment menu, bring up the Levels palette. In this dialog box, beneath the Auto button are three eyedropper tools; these are used to set the black, grey and white points of the image. Double-click on the Eyedropper at the left to set the black point.

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To see Daria’s work in print grab a copy of issue 55. Check out her website.

Click here to listen to the interview.

Here is the first installment of our divider scrapbook pack. These make excellent backgrounds for your photos and other embellishments, or why not try some of our past freebies? The coffee stain brushes would be good to dab around, as would any of the pencil scribble ones.

Part two will be posted on Monday but for now you can download these high res files using the link below. Please note that these are for personal use only and cannot be distributed without our permission.

Click here for the dividers!

Group paths
When you make multiple paths on a layer with the Pen tool, these paths are a law unto themselves and can be moved individually. But sometimes it’s useful to group paths into one. To do this, pick the Path Selection tool and hit the Combine button. As you may have guessed, the paths are now combined as one unit.

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Fix over/underexposure
A great way to sort out exposure in an image is to bring blending modes into play. With a photo open, duplicate it and then set the Multiply blending mode. The image will be darker – suitable for overexposed images. If you’re working on an underexposed image, set the blending mode to Screen and things will lighten considerably. If the effect is too harsh, try reducing the Opacity slider slightly. The first image above shows our start file. As you can see, the underexposed faeries have definitely paid this photo a visit. After applying the Multiply blending mode to it (see below) the colours and tones were boosted for a far more pleasing effect.

Sharper images

You can use the High Pass filter for sharpening. With your photo open, duplicate the layer. Go to Filter> Other>High Pass. Enter a radius setting in the dialog (start low) and hit OK. Change the blending mode of the High Pass layer to Soft Light and the photo edges will be sharper. Hard Light gives a stronger sharpen. As you can see here, we began with a blurred photo that’s typical of a wobbly macro shot. Below you can see the result of applying this High Pass filter technique.x