Sundial Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to create a cool edging effect. Use your own image or the zip file I provided below.

 

Before we start this tutorial I would like to others see and understand masking with Alpha Channels.

With this in mind, I have provided an Exercise Tutorial.

About Channels

 

I have always thought of them as the back side of my file.

Like web page editors that give access to the code. The more you know about code, the stronger hold you’ll have on your design.

Of course there is much more to Alpha channels then just making and storing selections.

It is the only thing we will be using them for in this tutorial.

Alpha Channel as a Selection Tool (Exercise)

 

I’ll ask that you do a quick exercise to better grasp the idea of what is to come.

Create a new file. 500 x 500 is fine. Click on the Channels tab and tick the create a new layer tab at the bottom right of your Channels Palette.

You see a new layer named Alpha1 now and it’s black.

With white as your foreground color, choose your marquee tool to select a circle on this channel and alt+backspace to fill your selection.

Ctrl-D to deselect.

Now you have a null background with a white circle. Anything (not) black on a Channel can be selected. Ctrl+Click your new Alpha1 channel.

What happened? [deselect] Grab a brush and paint on your new channel with white. Ctrl+Click for your trophy.

Try painting with a soft brush or gray color. Then, Ctrl+Click on the Channel. You get a feathered type selection.

You must go to the layers palette to fill your selections in order to fully see their effect.

If you have followed this Exercise correctly you should now have an understanding of Channel Selectors.

Creating a Line Drawing from a Photo

Sundial.Zip 208KB

I know three ways to do this. I’ll show you one way and then I’ll show you my way.

I have provided a photo for this tutorial in order to work together side by side. Open sundial.jpg in Photoshop.

Step One: (Mask out the Sun Dial)

 

We are going to mask out the unwanted areas of our photo first.

Choose the Marquee selection tool and starting at 10 o’clock and holding down your Shift key select a circle around the Sun Dial.

With your Marquee still active, right click the center of your selection and choose Transform Selection from the menu.

Now stretch your selection to fully cover your your Sun Dial.

If your image isn’t a perfect circle, try right clicking inside the selection one more time and choosing Warp feature to tweek it a bit.

Click Okay to continue.

With your selection still active, pull your background layer down to the new layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette to duplicate.

Tick the Layer Mask icon at the bottom of your layers palette to add a Mask to your Duplicate layer.

Create a New Layer and drag it below your mask layer and fill this new layer with Black. Name this new layer Backdrop.

(hint: try ctrl-clicking your new layer icon)

Step Two: (One Way)

 

Duplicate your Duplicated Background layer and name it (One Way).

Filter >Blur >Smart Blur

Radius 12 >Threshold 15 >Quality: High >Mode: Edge Only >Click Okay.

With your One Way layer active select Layer from your top menu >Layer Mask >Apply.

Ctrl-A to select all Ctrl-C to copy the One Way layer to your clipboard.

Go to your Channel palette and create a new Alpha Channel. Name it something like One Way.

Ctrl-V to paste into your new One Way Channel.

You now have One channel selection. Let’s make another.

Step Three: (My Way)

 

Delete your One Way layer and create a new Duplicate of your Duplicated Background layer and name it (My Way).

Drag the My Way layer to the top, above the Backdrop layer.

With your top layer active, tick the Create a new Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette.

Choose Threshold >Click Okay.

The default setting on the Threshold layer is fine for this.

Click on your My Way layer to activate it and choose from the top tool bar Filter >Other >High Pass >Radius: 10 px.>Click Okay.

Looking Good! Now we need to copy what we see on the screen to a Alpha Channel.

Create a new blank layer at the very top of the layers palette and name it Merged Copy.

Ctrl >Alt >E to create a merged copy of your layers.

Ctrl-A >Ctrl-C to select all and copy your Merged Copy layer. Return to the Channel Palette and create a new Alpha Channel.

Name it My Way. Ctrl-V to paste into your new Channel.

You now have two Channels to select from. Let’s try them both.

Step Four: (Using a sketch for a mask)

 

You now have two line selectors in your channel palette that can be used to fill a layer with any color above any color backdrop for a line drawing effect.

For this tutorial we will be using these selections to fill a mask. The choice of which one to use is entirely to your own liking.

You will only need two layers for this. Your background copy layer and your Backdrop layer.

Delete the My Way and Threshold layer from your Layers Palette.

Click Layer >Layer Mask >Apply from your top tool bar to apply your original mask. We’re going to make a new one.

Ctrl-Click your My Way Alpha Channel layer to bring up your selection. Remember white is your selected areas

With your Background Copy layer chosen in your Layers Palette, tick the Add a Layer Mask button.

This automaticly adds your selection to the mask. There you have it!

You can leave it as it is or create a new Hue Adjustment layer above the Layers Palette

Tick the colorize button and use the Hue an Saturation slider to change tint.