tutorial 004 railway
Program: Photoshop CS3
Difficulty: Medium
Translatable: Yes
PSD Included: No
This tutorial is separated into two parts. Part 1 is all about the coloring. Part 2 is mainly about the animation.
Okay, let's get started. And well, it looks more elaborate than it actually is. ;)
part 1
0. Crop and resize your picture.
I got my picture from freefoto.com and resized it to 100x100. (Image - Image Size)
1. Duplicate your base and set the copy to Screen.
As always, play around with the opacity. The darker the picture the higher the opacity.
2. Create a Color Fill Layer: # e3b66d - Set it to Pin Light - Fill: 30 %
Initially I planned on doing some sort of vintage coloring. The color fill gives the picture this orangish look.
3. Create a Color Fill Layer: # 44405b - Set it to Difference
The last color fill layer made the picture way to bright. The new color fill layer re-emphasizes the dark parts of the picture and makes the sky slightly foggy.
4. Create a Hue/Saturation Layer (Layer - New Adjustment Layer - Hue/Saturation)
Saturation: + 10 | Lightness: + 7
This layer helps to narrow the effect of the last color fill layer down to just some parts of the picture, e.g. the rails become slightly brighter, whereas the hills in the background stay almost the same.
5. Create a Color Fill Layer: # e3db9c - Set it to Overlay - Fill: 20 %
In the course of the last steps we lost the orangish tone from the beginning. The new color fill layer will help re-emphasizing parts of the picture.
6. Create a new Curves Layer (Layers - New Adjustment Layer - Curves)
RGB: Input: 85, Output: 140
Set the Layer to Lighten - Opacity: 20 %
The Layer helps to brighten the picture. You get a similar effect by using Levels (Layers - New Adjustment Layer - Levels), eg. 0 | 1,20 | 255.
7. Duplicate your base and drag the copy to the top. Set the copy to Soft Light - Fill: 30 %
This step is going to emphasize the dark parts of the picture like the rails, trees, etc.
Again, you might achieve a similar effect by using Levels, eg. 20 | 1,00 | 255.
8. Add a brighter texture. Set the blending mode to Multiply.
I wanted to emphasize the sky in the picture so I've chosen a texture with some blue accents and erased the bottom half of the texture.
9. For a more grungy effect I added another texture, a sky texture. As in step 8 I erased some parts of the texture. Set the blending mode to Color Burn.
And you're done with the coloring part!
part 2
So, we start with the final result from 'part 1'.
Now, this step is rather voluntary. It's all about the textures. (See all! the textures below.)
Texture 1 Set to Soft Light - Opacity: 50 %
Texture 2 Set to Overlay - Fill: 65 %
Texture 3 Set to Screen
Texture 4 Set to Soft Light - Fill: 50 %
This is also the first frame for the animation.
1
For the second frame we need to darken the picture just a little bit. Therefore I re-used a texture from 'part 1'.
Texture 5 Set to Multiply - Fill: 35 %
Cause I want to narrow down the effect to the upper part of the picture, mainly the sky, I erased the bottom half of the picture.
2
Now, for the third frame, we add the lightning texture.
Texture 6 Set to Soft Light - Fill: 30 %
Again, I want to narrow down the effect to the upper part of the picture, so I erased the bottom half of the picture.
3
For the fourth frame, we're just going to duplicate the lightning layer from step 3.
Texture 6.2 Set to Soft Light - Fill: 30 %
4
With 1, 2, 3 and 4 we now have the four basic frames for the animation. For a smooth transition we're going to reverse the animation, like 1-2-3-4-3-2-1-2-3-4-3-2 ...
(If you're not familiar with organizing the animation timeline see the Guideline: Animation.)
This is my final frame list:
Once you're done with managing all the frames you're saving the file as a gif. (File - Save for Web & Devices)
And you're done!
used textures - part 2:
Texture 1
Texture 2
Texture 3
Texture 4
Texture 5
Texture 6
NOTE: All textures by me, shadedcolor. Please credit If you want to use them.
So, I hope this was somewhat helpful and not too difficult to follow. ;)
I'd love to see your results once you've struggled through the tutorial. :D
Please don't ask for a psd.. Writing this down was a hard piece of work and it's learning by doing, eh? ;)