Ok, this is the image we will be eventually making:

It’s a very easy fantasy art doodle, or rather just manipulation using some basic techniques yet achieving interesting effect.

1. Make a new canvas, 500*500.
2. Get a nice picture of ocean with foam at the shore. We used this one:

3. The most interesting effect is achieved when a picture was taken at angle, but we will create this effect artificially, by pasting the ocean photo unto our canvas and pressing Ctrl + T to rotate it a little, as shown on the photo below:

4. Next, take a photo of a girl, we use Becca from deviantArt, but you might want to use your own photo. Copy the canvas.

5. Paste the girl unto the ocean layer and then press Ctrl + T to rotate the layer with the photo and place it along line with the ocean shore, more or less, same degree.

6. Using wither magnetic tool, or eraser tool, delete the background from the layer with the girl. If the edges are not perfect, don’t worry about it, as eventually it will look as the girl was just swept away to the shore, it won’t matter and we will cover it with other layers.

7. Duplicate the layer with the ocean, and put the second, copied layer, on top of the layer with the girl.
8. Take the eraser tool with soft brush (we used 80 px) and remove the top layer with the ocean from the girl, however, (and this is important!) leave the edges covered with the upper layer, which will create the illusion of the girl actually been partly covered with teh water.

You should get something like this… I’d recommend to cover the legs with the water and not her face, or whichever part of the body looks as if it lays ON the sand.

9. While the upper layer of the ocean is still selected, Go to Levels Panel (Ctrl + L) and reduce redness as shown below…

…and adjust the Green channel as well, to give the water a deeper hue.

The water should get a little darker and bluer, however, reserving their natural look.

This tutorial was originally published on loreleiweb.com and moved for technical reasons. After the huge success of the previous two fantasy art tutorials, i wanted to do something like that again, but different… hope you will like this one, feedback is as usually appreciated!

So, today we will make this:

Start off by making a new canvas, 500*500 pixels. The color is irrelevant as we will overlay it with a photo later.

Fish out a photo of clouds from somewhere. I used some free stock on DA, but since YOU will probably make a picture for private use, you can use almost any photo u find.

We are still gathering material. Next step is to find a nice girl we will turn to a fairy… As always I used liam-stock.deviantart.com but again, this is up to you, you may use your own photo just as well.

Select the clouds photo and paste it unto your 500*500 canvas. Then, crop the girl carefully, and paste it unto your canvas either, above the clouds, more or less in the center.

Make a new layer. Using a white color and a Brush Tool with a radius of about 250 px, make a “stamp” above the girl.

Now, just like we did in the Moon Eclipse Tutorial, using the eraser tool of almost the same size, cut most of the stamp you made, in order to leave a small, “young” moon.

Go to Layer >> Layer Styles >> Outer Glow, and add White Glow to your moon. See illustration HERE.

This is what you got so far…

Select the Clouds layer and go to Filter >> Renders >> Lightening Effect. Apply this lightening effect exactly on the place where you have your moon.

This tutorial was originally posted on loreleiweb.com and moved for technical reasons. Ok, yesterday I posted that old gold pic I made and Dale asked for a tutorial so here we go… in case you forgot what am I talking about, we are going to make this text effect:

So… Make a new canvas, and fill it with black color (#000000). Please note that this tutorial will only good against dark, ideally – black background. We leave a dark border around the text, which is invisible to you now, though if we take a lighter hue for the bg, you will notice that the effect looks different, a lot less interesting.

Next, type a word on your canvas. Make sure you use a very bold font. We used ‘Yikes!’ for this tutorial.

Go to Layer >> Layer Styles >> Blending Options, and apply the following settings:

You might have similar effects on the web as such effects becoming very trendy recently. Doubtlessly you didn’t know how these designs are done, do they use patterns? Textures? How many layers do they work with? No need to guess and wonder, because now you are going to:

Make a new canvas, we used here #373d40 for backgrounds. Using white color as your primarily color, and Baskerville Old font, type the word you want to render…

Once you are done, duplicate the layer and make it temporarily invisible (click on the eye in layers panel). Get back to the second layer copy, which you have on visible mode and go to Layer >> Layer Style >> Blending Options

Apply the following settings for Inner Shadow, Outer Glow, Satin and Stroke…

Pay attention to the contour you choose, it has to be Rounded Steps otherwise you will get a different result. This Countour comes pre-installed in All Recent Adobe Photoshop versions.

Finally apply a light outside stroke on the text, to give it a nice outlining.  We did 2px but if your text is very big you may want to add a thicker line, or, on the contrary, if you are making a small logo, use 1 pixel outlining.

This is what you should get by now..

8 Transparent Layer Styles & 3 Elegant Glass Text effects created by using them in combination. Works great for Icons and Buttons too!

INCLUDES :

.asl file with 8 transparent styles.
.psd (800px * 150px) file with the 8 transparent styles for easy copy and paste.
.psd file with editable text (800px * 1400px) with the 8 transparent styles layered to create the glassy text effects depicted.

FONTS USED :

Georgia, Tahoma, Snell Roundhand But these styles look great on a wide variety of fonts. Down;load these styles for only $2, sold exclusively through graphics river.

German: 8 Transparente Layer Styles & 3 Elegant Glas Text Effekte mit ihnen in Verbindung. Werke für große Icons und Buttons zu!

UMFASST:
. ASL-Datei mit 8 transparent Stile.
. PSD (800px * 150px)-Datei mit der 8 transparent Stile für einfache Kopieren und Einfügen.
. PSD-Datei mit editierbaren Text (800px * 1400px) mit der 8 transparenten Schichten Stile, um die Auswirkungen Glaskohlenstoff Text dargestellt.
Verwendete Schriften:
Georgia, Tahoma, Snell Roundhand Aber diese Stile sehen auf einer Vielzahl von Schriften.

Spanish:  8 Estilos de capa transparente de vidrio y 3 elegantes efectos de texto creado por su uso en combinación. Obras de grandes iconos y botones también!

INCLUYE:
. snm archivo transparente con 8 estilos.
. psd (800px * 150px) archivo con los 8 estilos transparente para fácil copiar y pegar.
. psd archivo de texto editable (1400px * 800px) con las 8 capas transparentes estilos para crear el vidrioso efectos de texto representado.
Fuentes utilizadas:

Georgia, Tahoma, Snell Roundhand Sin embargo, estos estilos ves muy bien en una amplia variedad de fuentes.

French: 8 Transparent Layer Styles & 3 Elegant Glass effets de texte créé à l’aide de leur combinaison. Travaux grand pour les icônes et les boutons aussi!

COMPREND:
. asl fichier transparent avec 8 styles.
. psd (800px * 150px) fichier transparent avec les 8 styles de simple copier-coller.
. psd fichier texte éditable (800px * 1400px), avec les 8 niveaux de transparence styles pour créer le miroir des effets de texte illustré.
Les polices utilisées:
Georgia, Tahoma, Snell Roundhand Mais ces styles fière allure sur une grande variété de polices.

The trend to add glowing lines and stars seized the web design scene already a few years ago, but not as much as it is popular now. Now we can recognize the “glow” effect in many ways — digital art, HDR photography,  and many other ways, including, of course, web design graphics. During our life, we take hundreds of shots, most of which are rather dull and unappealing, we are used to the fact that photos, by default, never turn to be truly amazing, if they are taken spontaneously with non-professional camera and even those of us who are equipped with a pro-camera, are not always able to capture a breathless moment. Therefore, each time we see an image with beautiful glow effects, juicy and vibrant colors, great contrast and incredible use of proportion, what do we say? “WOW!”. Today I gathered a few photos for your inspiration, which will make you say “wow” and inspire you to aspire for taking better, vivid photos yourself! Here are a few examples of wise, neat and beautiful use of Glow effects..

Mild Glow Practice In Photography

Waianapanapa Sands – Maui photography

Purple Euphoria photography

If at first you don’t succeed…

August 18th 2008 – Inspiration pt2 photography

Summer Night City… At Home

Exaggerated Glow Practice in (HDR) Photography

This tutorial moved to loreleiwebdesign.com due to technical reasons.

This tutorial will show you how, in a few easy steps, to turn a simple photo into a “pure glamor”, just as in most of the commercial shots. Of course, here we used a good photo already, but using this technique you can take the most ordinary picture and turn it into a professional shot.

This is what we will do:

Start of by taking a good quality photo of a face. Don’t use blurred pictures, or ones that were taken from a big distance, else your result wont be sharp enough.

Multiple the amount of existing layers, just in case you do something wrong, u will have a few spare.

Using the Magic Wand tool, select the hair, using the “Add to selection mode”

Go to Image >> Adjustments >> Hue / Saturation and apply these settings, making the photo truly dark and brownish

Press Shft + Ctrl + I to invert the selection, and using the Eraser tool with soft edge, remove everything (only the deselected hair will remain)

Select the Burn Tool, 5 px size, with a soft edge, and enlarge your image on the screen (only zoom it for the view, leave the image size intact).

Make sure you work with the layer that is underneath the “hair” layer. Go over the edges of the eye… this will be easier to women, as they know exactly where to draw a line under and above the eye, but guys can also give this a try.. just try not to over do it and not to turn the picture of a woman into a vampire (unless this is your purpose, of course).

Those of you who ever took interest in macro photography, knows that it takes a great deal of skills and patient, to take a close-up shot of that little flower in your garden.

There is a lot of trail and error ahead of you and since I also learnt the hard way how to make proper macro images with digital camera, I am happy to share with you 10 tips that will hopefully make your macro shots much, much better!

1. Go Steady
Camera shake can be a real problem at high magnifications due to longer exposures and shallow depth of field. Use a tripod or assume a sturdy position. Have the mirror lockup mode activated and preferably use a cable release.

2. Windy Conditions
Shooting macros of delicate subjects is impossible on a windy day so go equipped with a makeshift windbreak. A small clamp and stand may be enough to steady flowers and plants.

3. Props
Add impact to the shot and create an early morning feel with a water spray to imitate dew or rain. You can use a droplet and simply lay a few drops on the leaf or flower, or simply spray with water. If you then take photos at sun light, it will sparkle and give your photo a nice unique touch.

4. Sharp as Possible
Maximize the depth of field by using an aperture of f/11 – f/22 and keeping your camera parallel to the subject. Use your depth of field preview button to see the result and if the preview is too dark, take a test shot and check the shot on your LCD.

5. Get Close
Ordinary lenses won’t let you get close to a subject. There is no substitute for a macro lens that can reproduce 1:1 or life-size reproduction. A focal length of 100 or 200mm will give a good distance to work from.

6. Manual Focus

Auto focus is a wonderful time saving addition to