0- The film Children of Men presented a future that was bleak, anarchic and violent. In this it was strikingly similar to all the other movies set in a post-apocalyptic world, which are also for the most part bleak, anarchic and violent: Mad Max, Waterworld, and many more. The film has a strong visual style that’s carried through into the publicity material. Clive Owen gazes at us ruggedly though a broken window: you can tell he’s rugged because he hasn’t shaved for a few days. Unusually, I’m going to use this tutorial not to typify a genre, but to reproduce a single example of a film poster. That’s because this poster presents several distinct points of interest – the stark photographic treatment, the broken glass, the fuzzy stencil lettering – that I think are of enough interest for us to want to see how they’re assembled. + This photograph, from the Photos.com collection, has the right kind of anti-establishment rebellion to it, and will make a good subject for the poster. But it’s too warm, having been photographed under perfect studio lighting: we need to make it more gritty. 0 Begin by duplicating the layer. Desaturate the duplicated version using *1R !1R, to produce a grayscale copy (left); then set the mode of this copy to Hard Light, which produces a stark photographic effect (right). . If we want this to look like real glass, we need to be able to see through it. Lower the opacity of the layer to around 70%, and use the Dodge and Burn tools to add some highlights to it, to break up the uniformity of the surface. 1 Thc edge of the glass has to be given some thickness. This is created by nudging the shape of the hole and intersecting it with the original glass – see More Info for details. The cracks are drawn with the Lasso tool, and filled with white on the same layer. Apocalyptic thriller 0. ! Add a little blue to the grayscale version of the photograph, and we get an image that more closely matches that seen on the original poster. To make the background, choose dark blue and black as the foreground and background colors, and choose Filter > Render > Clouds. , The ‘hole’ in the glass is selected using the Lasso tool. Inverse the selection using *1F !1F, and make a new layer: choose white and pale blue as the foreground and background colors, and run the Clouds filter again to make the glass. This filter adds a useful starting texture. / The font used here is Wunderback Mix, and it’s a useful degraded stencil design. Create each letter as a separate text block, so they can be moved around and sized independently. The shadow is painted on a new layer behind the text. % To make the headline a little softer, add a faint Outer Glow to it using Layer Styles. Be sure to set the glow color to white, rather than the default yellow. The remaining text is set in a deep blood red color to add to the sense of menace. Poster design FEK?<:; DFI<@E=F image font   The Clouds filter, used for O the background in step 3 and the glass in step 4, produces a random texture. If the first attempt doesn’t look right, keep pressing *C !C to repeat the texture until you get a result you like. You can also press *C!-C for a tighter version of the Cloud texture. In step 6, we can create O the glass edge as follows. Select the hole in the glass layer with the Magic Wand tool, then nudge this selection a couple of pixels down and to the left using the cursor keys ( q and p). Hold *1 !-1 and click on the glass layer’s thumbnail in the Layers palette: this key combination produces the intersection of the new selection with the old one, and so in this case will create a selection of just a couple of pixels around the edge. Use the Lasso tool to add the cracks from the corners to the selection, holding  - to trace straight lines. Then make a new layer, and fill the selection with white: use the Burn tool to add a little shading to it. Lower the opacity of this layer to around 50% for a convincing glass effect. J?FIK:LKJ MAC WIN BOTH 0/ At one time, every student’s wall would be adorned with posters. In the 1960s and 70s these were guaranteed to be one of two subjects: either a girl lifting her tennis skirt, or a multicolored piece of psychedelia. The subjects of these posters varied from Che Guevara to Janis Joplin, but they all had features in common: a dazzling array of colors, and an op art background image. The colors were produced from photographs by messing around with the plates in the printing process. We’ll use a simpler method directly in Photoshop, using a standard adjustment. We’ll also see how to make an eye- popping background of interfering lines from scratch, which we’ll place behind our treated image to complete the poster. + In the absence of a platinum-selling rock star, we’ll have to make do with this image of a singer from www.photos.com. I’ve recolored the shirt, which was originally black – we need some color in there to start with. 0 To make the psychedelic colors, open the Curves dialog ( *J!J). Click roughly one quarter of the way along the curve, and drag upwards; then click just before the halfway point and drag down. Continue to drag up and down, making this stepping effect. Adjust as necessary – see More Info for details. . Deselect using *A!A. Hold - as you drag a copy of the finished layer, and the two will interact to make this interference pattern. You’ll see that when you drag the copy to the side it will no longer reach that edge; scale it to fit, as necessary. 1 Recolor the new version of the interference pattern using any color that seems appropriate; then color the background using a different color. Here, I’ve used shades of blue and purple because they match the colors in the treated photograph. Psychedelia 00 ! Hide the figure so you can work on the background. With the Lasso tool, hold - and click just to the right of the top left corner, then just to the left of the bottom right corner. Click just above the bottom right, then just below the top left: fill with color on a new layer, and you’ll get this thin double triangle. , Select All (*>!>) and use Free Transform ( *Q!Q) to rotate the shape by about 5° and press # to apply the transformation. Then press !1Q*1Q and you’ll duplicate the transformation: keep pressing that key combination to rotate in a complete circle. / With the photograph visible once more, we can see how the psychedelic lines seem to radiate from behind the head. Avoid the temptation to add any drop shadows or outer glows, even though these might improve the image: the technique wasn’t available then. % This text is set in the Ray Larabie font Velvenda Cooler, and the main color is the same blue as the background. The shadow could have been made using the Drop Shadow in Layer Styles, but it’s sometimes easier just to duplicate the font layer and recolor it. Art & Design in Photoshop Poster design FEK?<:; DFI<@E=F image texture    In step 2, when you first O drag up on the curve the whole image will simply get much brighter: that’s what the Curves adjustment is for. It’s only as you click more points along it, and drag up and down, that the colors go haywire like this. Depending on your image, the curve you get may not look exactly like this one: experiment with dragging points up and down once you have the basic curve, to see how it affects the image. In step 3 it helps to trace O with the Lasso tool just outside the Canvas area. To do this, drag the window size so it’s slightly larger than the canvas, and you’ll be able to click the Lasso in the gray area outside. The click points are numbered: If you don’t like holding  - while tracing, you could instead choose the Polygonal Lasso from the Toolbar – it’s behind the regular Lasso. J?FIK:LKJ MAC WIN BOTH + , 0 ! ('' In 1966 Time magazine devoted an edition to Swinging London, celebrating as well as fueling the explosion of counter-culture that made the 1960s such a memorable decade. As well as the psychedelia, the tuning in and the dropping out, the 1960s was the decade of cool. Music was cool, clothes were cool, design was cool; even comedy was cool, for a while. The 1960s produced an outpouring of visual styles. We’ve already looked at psychedelia; here we’ll examine a design style that used black and white photographs, bold splashes of color, and a wackiness of typography that had never been seen before. And since the 1960s saw the birth of the James Bond movie, we’ll mark the era of the spy film with a typically wacky comedy that combines some of the most common themes of the day. + It’s not easy finding models in appropriately groovy gear for the 1960s, but I came across this one on the excellent photos.com royalty-free site. Her pose is perfect, and will define the layout for the rest of the poster. 0 Desaturating the model using *1R !1R turns her to grayscale; changing the mode of the layer from Normal to Hard Light means she’ll only darken up the background. As it stands, though, the image has lost some of its power. . The text here is set in Baveuse, which captures the spirit of the 60s well. Each word is set as a separate text block, to make it easier to arrange the words: we could do it using letter spacing and leading, but as there are only three words it’s better if we’re able to drag them around as required. 1 The stroke is added using Layer Styles, which gives the words more legibility. The drop shadow is also from Layer Styles: set the Size value to zero to avoid any feathering, which would be out of character for the period. Set the opacity to 100% so we get a solid black shadow. Swinging sixties ('( ! Duplicate the layer, and change the mode of the copy to Hard Light. Now the white areas, of which there are a lot in this image, are returned to full strength: but the blue background is still seen through the midtones, such as the face and leg. , Draw irregular polygons with the Lasso tool – hold -to use it in Polygonal Lasso mode. On new layers, fill the selections with pink and yellow, or choose whichever colors you think are appropriate (but see More Info about the choice). / To add a little life to the title, and to stress that it’s a comedy, rotate the words slightly. This misalignment adds a slight wackiness to the overall effect. Another good reason for setting the text as three separate blocks: it would be impossible to rotate them if it were all one. % The names of the stars are set in Kenyan Coffee. Set each group of firstname and surname as a separate text block, then duplicate the text block to make the other names – it would be hard to try to align two lines if it were all one block. The script at the bottom is Honey Script. Poster design FEK?<:; DFI<@E=F image font   In step 4 we create two O new color panels, making three colors in all. It’s important that the colors all match in terms of density and feel. We’ve used pastel shades of pink and blue here, whose paleness matches the strong yellow. There’s quite a wide range of pastel colors that could be chosen: The yellow, incidentally, would be equally at home with stronger hues: But these colors are not only out of keeping with the era, they’re also far too strong to form a background – they’d just leap right out of the page at us, distracting the viewer from the poster’s key elements. J?FIK:LKJ MAC WIN BOTH (') I don’t know who invented the motivational poster. I don’t know who buys motivational posters. And above all, I can’t imagine how bored and unmotivated office and factory workers would have to be in order to be uplifted by these crass, corny, clumsy truisms. That said, the genre is ripe for parody. There’s a distinct look to these posters that’s seen nowhere else: the black frame, the serif white text with oversized first and last characters. But there’s more to these posters than the obvious. They tend to have very high production values, since they’re stared at (in theory, at least) for days on end: glossy sunsets, warm glows, and a sense of overall perfection mark these posters out. + We’ll begin this poster by drawing a frame to hold thie image. Draw a rectangle with the Marquee tool to the size of the ‘window’, then inverse this selection using *1F !1F and fill with black on a new layer. Use Edit > Stroke to apply a 1 pixel outside stroke. Here, I’ve also added a sunset – the first element of the montage. ! To make the reflective surface, we can begin by making a copy of the sky layer. Flip it vertically using Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical, and move it down to the bottom so that the reflection butts right up against the original sky. Don’t lower the transparency yet – we’ll do that later. . Select the reflected sky, kitten, and both parts of the tray, and choose New Group from Layers from the pop-up menu in the Layers palette. We can now lower the opacity of the group as a whole: around 30% produces this subtle sense of reflection in a black surface, which adds an immediate sense of luxury and sophistication to the image. Motivational ('* 0 The sunset needs to be strengthened to make it more impressive: I used the Brightness and Contrast controls to do this, setting the Brightness to zero and the Contrast to 100 (recent versions of Photoshop only; smaller values before CS2). The cat is placed to fit well within the frame; the litter tray is moved right out of the picture, since it should only be noticed on second glance. , The kitten is duplicated and flipped vertically as well. The tray needs special treatment: first, the bottom section (below the rim) is selected, copied to a new layer, then flipped and sheared using Free Transform so that it fits beneath the original. Then the rim is copied to a new layer, and moved without being flipped behind the copied lower section. See More Info for how this works. 1 The text here is set in Optimus Princeps: it’s an elegant and tasteful traditional serif. The first and last characters are enlarged by selecting them and using *1 !1, then shifted down using 1p -1p. Finally, I turned a copy of the cat’s eyes upside down to make it look down – and to make it look slightly worried. Art & Design in Photoshop Poster design FEK?<:; DFI<@E=F image font   Creating the reflection O of the tray is the only tricky part of this job. To begin with, select the bottom of the tray and copy it to a new layer, and flip vertically: Then enter Free Transform, and hold *! as you grab a side handle to shear it to meet the original: Then select the rim of the tray, and copy it to a new layer. No need to flip this: just drag it down beneath the previous layer: Once the opacity is reduced, any errors will be hidden, and the result will look like a convincing reflection. J?FIK:LKJ MAC WIN BOTH ('+ Some exhibitions sell themselves. Any showing of Tutankhamun, for example, will draw enough crowds to be a guaranteed sell-out in just about any city in the world. For everything else, it’s a hard sell. Getting the paying public interested in a possibly minor art form requires skill, tact and a good deal of persuasion. We may think of museum curators as dusty, kindly folk who spend their days polishing fossils, but behind them there’s the publicist whose job it is to keep these curators in work. Museum posters need to convey sophistication and elegance. After all, they’re appealing to a rather select portion of the community, and the posters need to flatter their sense of intellectual achievement. They also have to include a large amount of information, making the job harder. + Every poster begins with an image. It’s been decided that this figure should feature on the posters, but which angle should we use? While it might seem that the head-on view is more immediate, it’s also more confusing. The three quarter view is clearer. 0 A red background is sampled from the elephant’s ear, so we know it will be a good match for the original item. We have to place the mask on the right, facing into the page, so that the text can appear in its proper place on the left. . The drop shadow helps to position the object in front of the wall. Hold *! as you click on its thumbnail to load it as a selection, then make a new layer behind; use *A-!A to Feather the selection by, say, 8 pixels, and fill with black. Reduce the opacity of the layer, and move into place. 1 The font needs to be authoritative, traditional, and elegant. It’s quite a tall order: we certainly can’t set this in Times, because it’s too staid and clunky. This is called Timeless, and has that extra refinement that makes it a good choice for this job. Museum exhibitions (', ! The shadow is painted on a new layer behind the mask, using a very large (around 500 pixels) soft- edge brush. This gives the impression of a spotlight being shone on the object in a darkened room, which enhances the sense of mystery and discovery. , We can’t modify the object, but we can adjust its lighting. Here, the mask has been duplicated, and the mode of the copy changed to Hard Light. This is a little strong, so I’ve reduced the strength of the copy to 50% which gives a good compromise. / Once we’ve included the exhibition description, the logo of our fictional museum and the date of the exhibition, we’re starting to fill up the space. The description can go in a less strong color – here, I’ve reduced the opacity of the layer to 50% – so that it fades more into the background, strengthening the headline. % It’s a painful fact that just about every serious artistic endeavor needs commercial sponsorship. Painful for the designer, that is, since they’re the ones who are going to have to fit all those clashing logos in at the bottom of the publicity. There’s no way around it; just grit your teeth and get on with it. Art & Design in Photoshop Poster design FEK?<:; DFI<@E=F image font   In step 5, we add the O shadow below and to the left of the mask. Normally, we’d choose to add a shadow on the outside, rather than the inside of a composition; but the mask here is so clearly lit from the right that to put the shadow anywhere else would be confusing. To make the National O Museum of Antiquities logo, I began with the main words in Optimus Princeps: The ‘OF’ and ‘THE’ are set in smaller type, placed appropriately in the text: Tracking on the words helps them to fill the space; the lines accentuate the regularity of the form. If we wanted to reuse this logo, we could convert the layers into a Smart Object and scale it as a single layer. J?FIK:LKJ MAC WIN BOTH [...]... There are many handwriting fonts available, but they always look just like fonts and rarely like real handwriting Far better to write your own, on a new layer; or, if you find writing on the screen that hard, write on paper and scan it in Art & Design in Photoshop Turn the text into a regular layer by using Layer > Rasterize > Text, then shrink the layer down to tiny size Select All, and hold as you... dating from 19 05 Color printing, cheap production and reliable postage have all contributed to the huge explosion of the form Postcards have had a long and fairly checkered history The British postcard artist Donald McGill begain drawing postcards in 1904, and continued to produce his unique brand of saucy, irreverent cards – packed full of double meanings and suggestive phrases – until the 1 950 s In. .. Art & Design in Photoshop Works on paper Works on paper Printed matter assails us today as never before Even in the age of email and the paper paperless office, we’re besieged daily by junk mail, magazines and newspapers 1 a material made of We’re handed flyers in the street, we’re sent leaflets in the mail And every single one of these has been designed to catch our attention, to make us buy into... promoting The one thing all these disparate items have in common is that they’re printed on paper In this chapter we’ll look at how to design a range of printed material, from medieval manuscripts to ransom notes Partly, we’ll be exploring the design process, to find out why certain designs work and show how to implement them But we’ll also be looking at how to create the textures we need for parchment and. .. convincing shadow method for curved paper, and it depends on the shadow being straight With the Polygonal Lasso, mark the four corners of where the check would lie if we hadn’t curved its surface Feather using (about an 8-pixel feather) and fill with black on a new layer Art & Design in Photoshop Works on paper image There’s only one control for this distortion, and it’s the tiny handle about a quarter... surface This is a far more convincing approach than merely adding an automated drop shadow using the Layer Styles dialog MAC WIN BOTH Postage stamps Postage stamps are unique in that their design is virtually identical in every country in the world There are varying sizes and colors, of course, but the perforation principle and the appearance of an engraving or photograph remain largely the same We’ll feature... easily Art & Design in Photoshop Works on paper texture font The torn-edge effect is easily created by making selections using the Lasso, and deleting them Make the edges uneven, then take out a few tears that rip into the manuscript itself – but don’t go too far, or you’ll interfere with your artwork area Use the Burn tool, set to Midtones, to add a little shading around the edges, going up into the tears... certificates, and how to make flat artwork into a three-dimensional object cellulose pulp derived mainly from wood or rags or certain grasses 2 an essay (especially one written as an assignment) 3 a daily or weekly publication on folded sheets; contains news and articles and advertisements 4 a medium for written communication 5 a scholarly article describing the results of observations or stating hypotheses... almost always black and white They do have a certain power that way – but we’ve recognized the fact that large words may well be found in glossy magazines, and the likelihood is that headlines in these magazines are more likely to be in color than in black and white The choice is yours Painting the glue at the end of step 7 adds a subtle touch that most viewers would barely notice; and yet the difference... tool, and choose the Polygon option Set the number of sides high – I’ve used 60 – and set the Indent value (click the arrow to open the dialog) to around 5% , so that the star is barely indented at all Adding a small amount of embossing using Layer Styles makes it look more three-dimensional Art & Design in Photoshop There are many script fonts available; we’ll use Dieter Steffmann’s font Chopin Script . guaranteed sell-out in just about any city in the world. For everything else, it’s a hard sell. Getting the paying public interested in a possibly minor art form requires skill, tact and a good. layer, I’ve painted the word Deus in red each time it appears for added effect. Art & Design in Photoshop Art & Design in Photoshop Works on Works on paper paper (() Earlier in this chapter. parchment and certificates, and how to make flat artwork into a three-dimensional object. Art & Design in Photoshop Works on paper paper 1. a material made of cellulose pulp derived mainly