Hosted by Bert Monroy.
Be amazed and learn as master digital artist Bert Monroy takes a stylus and a digital pad and treats them as Monet and Picasso do with oil and canvas. Learn the tips and tricks you need to whip those digital pictures into shape with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Read More
Corey Baker of Layers TV and PlanetPhotoshop.com joins Bert Monroy as a guest host this week from Photoshop World. Learn how to convert flat images to 3D and create fire!
We take the example of flat images of butterflies, copying the individual butterflies and placing them in a new 16 bit, 100 dpi image.
To set up the 3D shape, we'll use gradients and darker tones for depth. Find the center of the canvas by turning on the rulers and dragging to snap to grid. Use the marquee to select half of the canvas and apply a black and white gradient. Put this gradient in it's own layer, and duplicate for the other side of your canvas after rotating.
To create a 3D bulge for the butterfly's body, select the boundaries of the butterfly, and in a new layer, use a brush to paint at 5% opacity in black. We merge this with the gradient background and blur the image a bit to get rid of the hard edges.
Apply 3d > New Mesh from Grayscale > Plain. This is a CS4 feature only. Use your 3D rotation tool and give your object a look. Drag the butterfly onto the original gradient layer, turn the gradient off, and save your file.
Now your butterfly has become a 3D object!
Use a large, soft white brush tool at 25% opacity, and change the mode to dissolve. This will give you a scattered brush. Apply a warp to distort the image, and drag the nearest corner of the spatter to the match. To fix the noise, use the smudge tool at 15% strength and smooth out the jagged lines.
Add layer styles to the spatter to make fire. Use a red Outer Glow, and a yellow inner glow. In a new layer, use the elliptical marquee tool and fill an oval selection with white, then add a Gaussian Blur with a strength of 20. Add the Outer Glow and Inner Glow to the white oval, then warp again.
Use a stronger smudge tool (65%) and smooth out the hard edges. Add a light colored drop shadow with a dissolve blend mode to create more fire spatter. To create streaks of sparks, use a high strength smudge tool (98%) and a small brush.
