Mirror Close-Face

Hey guys, how about playing with mask like a crazy Photoshop driver. Ok in this tutorial I’m going to show you how you can make a nice mirrored and manipulated close face just by some simple examples. It’s not that simple as I told you, but it should be after more practicings. For continue this one, at least you must know a little about layers and masks.

First of all, open your close face photo by Photoshop. Then Duplicate your photo and make another layer by duplicating. Click on layer that you made and then choose (Menu > Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal). Now you must add “New Layer Mask” to this layer. (Example No.01)

Tip: For faster duplicating layer, you can drag the layer to icon “Create New Layer” at the bottom of layer window.

Example No.01: Make new Layer, Duplicate Layer, Flip image horizontally

Now click on “Gradient Tool” and in the Gradient option bar, go to Gradient Option and Gradient Editor. (Example No.02)

Example No.02: Gradient Editor

In Gradient Editor, in lower portion, you will see two arrows. These are called color stops. (Example No.03)

Example No.03: Color stop alter the characteristic of the gradient.

The closer you move these together, the sharper transition between the colors of gradient will be. For the stop color on the left, click on it and set the location 48% and for the one on the right, 52%, (example No.04). Also you can save it as new gradient color or just click OK.

Example No.04: Reposition the stop for a harsher transition between colors.

Now click on mask then draw the gradient from left to right. And take a look at your image. (Example No.05)

Tip: In mask, by having most one whole side mostly white and the other mostly black, the white side is mostly revealed and the black mostly hidden, showing the face beneath and resulting in mirror effect.

Example No.05: Image after using gradient on mask.

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Abstraction

In this tutorial I’m going to show you how can you draw a nice and beautiful abstract shape in Photoshop. Also I was shocked about something like this, because I didn’t know about this ability before.

First you need to create new page (Menu > File > New). Then choose your option manually. Then you need to make a new layer in layer option at right of workplace. (Example No.01)

Example No.01: Making New Layer

After clicking “Layer 1”, click on “Paint Tool” and choose “black” from swatches and then click on photo. The color will turn to black. Again make new layer which will be named “Layer 2”. Click on “layer 2”, after that choose “Rectangular Marquee tool” and draw a column shape selection at center of photo. (Example No.02)

Example No.02: make “layer 2” and draw a selection shape

Then Click on “Gradient Tool” and choose any range of color from gradient option. I choose gray color for “Linear Gradient” and I will click at center of selection inside the photo. (Example No.03)

Example No.03: First choose “Gradient tool” and then fill the selection area with “gray Linear Gradient”.

Now you must on (Menu > Edit > Free Transform) or press buttons “Ctrl+T”, after that the selection lines will change into transformation area.

Example No.04: Changing the selection area to “Transformation Area” by pressing “Ctrl+T”

So you can Right-Click on this area and choose “Warp”. By choosing “Warp” the transformation area will change into another small selection which every one of them has its own two arms for changing the shape. As you can see in Example No.05, you can change the direction and the shape of selection area to anywhere that you want. By this ability, you can create lots of beautiful abstract shape by just click on this special option in “Free Transform” menu. (Example No.05)

Example No.05: change the direction of every arm can move a selection to any direction.

For background color you can choose any color that you want. But first you should change the transparency of the layer. For changing the transparency you need to choose “Screen” mode at top of “Layer Option”. Deselect the photo, then choose your color from “Swatches” and click on “Paint Tool” and then “Layer 1”. Now by clicking on photo the color will change to that one you chose before. (Example No.06)

Example No.06

Finally, you will see a beautiful abstract with nice color which you made by Photoshop. Also made a copy from my shape and change them horizontally by "Free Transform" and combine the layers together.

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Assignment One - "Wacken Open Air Festival" Project

In this Photoshop tutorial, we'll learn how to use the Displace filter and a displacement map to add an interesting texture to a person's face in a photo. The displacement map will allow us to wrap the texture around the shape and contours of the face, rather than having it look like we simply pasted a flat texture on to the photo.

Wacken Open Air (W:O:A)
source: From Wikipedia

Wacken Open Air (W:O:A) is one of the leading summer open air heavy metal music festivals. It takes place annually in the small town of Wacken in Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany. With 80,000 festival visitors, and including personnel a total of roughly 82,500 attendees in 2010, it attracts all kinds of metal music fans, such as fans of black metal, death metal, power metal, thrash metal, gothic metal, folk metal, and even metalcore and hard rock from around the world.

The festival was first held in 1990 as a small event for local German bands. By 1998 the event had become the major festival on the European metal calendar and has included over 70 bands from all over Europe, North America and Australia. W:O:A is usually held at the beginning of August and lasts three days, during which the festival-goers camp on several large camping grounds surrounding the actual festival area. The 70 or more bands perform across four separate stages over the course of the event.The 2009 edition set a sales record; it sold out on 30 December 2008. All 70,000 tickets were sold over 200 days before the opening of the festival. 

Review of Wacken Open Air 2010
Source : Review Stream

This year's trip to Wacken Open Air was my second. My debut as a W:O:A virgin was in 2009. Wacken is the greatest metal festival in northern Europe and it is really quite massive. Some say 85.000 ticket holders.
The camping grounds are huge which means there is plenty of room for tents and camps. The music area is however not that large and it actually becomes a problem at some of the greatest crowd pleasers like Iron Maiden and Slayer. They really should value comfort for the crowd higher than cold profit which I know will never happen.

Livescenen is the buscompany that I travelled with just like the year before and they do a very professional and great job. The first evening they even hosted a great BBQ party and there's a lot of cool metalheads and guides travelling every year. If you are going from Denmark I will surely recommend to go by bus with Livescenen (unless of course you have your own autocamper with built in electricity, tv, bath, toilet and air-con...) This year I was aboard the special Iron Maiden bus mainly filled with hardcore Maiden Denmark fans. It certainly ensured great music all the way to Wacken!

Immortal blew me away (again.) There is something so dark and cold and beautiful about their black metal that simply hits me deep within. I've only seen them live twice (Roskilde 2003, Wacken 2010) and both times I've been in a trance. This time they mostly played newer stuff especially from their excellent 2009 album "All Shall Fall". Most impressive was however the song "Beyond The North Waves". It was the first song that I ever really connected with on an Immortal album, so to hear this live was more than I'd ever dared dream about. This concert alone was worth all the pain it involves surviving a week at a festival (obviously mixed with a lot of joy and fun.)

Cannibal Corpse was without a shadow of doubt the funniest gig. Their leadsinger Corpsegrinder is a bastard in his very own class and he threatened to break everybody's necks if he didn't see some more (devil)horns. He banged his head like a fucking propella and it was so much fun witnessing this insane display of pure aggression and extreme energy from the entire band. Obviously the crowd were very much into it as well. Quite an experience and so are some of the lyrics.

Iron Maiden was too crowded and they played way too many newer songs for a festival gig (but sadly enough only one from "The Final Frontier"), Alice Cooper couldn't sing (on the day) and the soundlevel was way too low, Slayer was way too crowded to even bother. W.A.S.P., Mötley Crüe, Arch Enemy and 1349 all played good gigs that were enjoyable. I saw a few more gigs than these but let's just stop here.

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Selection Tools

In this Tutorial I will show how to create abstract design by selection tools and filling it with paint tool.
At first, click on “Rectangular Marquee tool” and draw a rectangular selection shape at the center of photo. (Example No.01)

Example No.01: Creating a rectangular selection shape.

Then you can use “Elliptical Marquee Tool” and draw an ellipse selection shape. Also you can add some selection shape to main shape by using shortcut key. First click the selection tool and on keyboard press “Shift” for add multiple selection shape and “Alt” for deletion from main selection shape. (Example No.02)

Example No.02: Add or deletion selection shape by using keyboard shortcuts.

Then, for filling the selection area, you can use Paint tool which is in tool bar. Click on “Paint Tool” and choose your color from switch color and after that click inside the selection area. As you will see just inside the selection area will be filled by selected color. (Example No.03)

Example No.03: Filling selection area with color by paint tool.

In Addition, you can add another shape to current shape which you filled it with color. So outside the main shape create another selection shape and fill it with color and click on “Move Tool” from tool bar and move the new shape into main shape. I chose pink color for main shape and green color for new one. (Example No.04)

Example No.04: making new shape Filling it with color and 

adding it to main shape by “Move Tools”.

Moreover, by click on “Magic Tool” you can select a vast area by the same range of color and again using keyboard shortcuts “Shift” and “Alt” help you to select you area better. So I clicked on “Magic Tool” and then clicked on pink color area. As you can see in example it just selected the pink area and not green one. (Example No.05)

Example No.05: Selection a vast area in the same range color by using “Magic Tool”.

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