Photoshop tutorial: Fantasy digital matte painting
Professional digital matte painter Sarel Theron shows you how to create an epic, Hollywood-style scene.
Tutorials
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After Effects tutorial: Animate 3D waveforms using After Effects
After Effects ships with a couple of basic audio effects that create motion graphics based on the audio levels of an imported file. These work fairly well for the standard application of hi-fi levels, but don’t offer much in the way of customisable options, beyond the range of frequencies and colours displayed within the effect.
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Photoshop tutorial: Create fireballs and explosions
Fabio Sasso uses custom brushes and layers to create an explosive scene in Photoshop.
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Flash Pro tutorial: Create monochrome art in Flash
In this tutorial, character art guru Paul Shih shows how to create a detailed black-and-white artwork – using Flash. Shih says: “I personally find Flash’s drawing system work best for the style we are making. It’s fun and easy.”
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Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop tutorial: Get started with type art
Pomme Chan shows how to take your first steps in letter-based illustration using Photoshop and Illustrator.
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Photoshop tutorial: How to create digital collages without filters
Artist Scott Rhodes reckons that it is layers – not filters – that can create a perfect mix between illustration and digital collage.
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Adobe Illustrator tutorial: How to paint using the Gradient Mesh tool
Illustrator's Gradient Mesh is a grid-based painting technique that enables advanced colouring of vector objects with smooth and malleable colour transitions.
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Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop tutorial: Create striking photo and vector mash-ups
Neil Duerden shows how to jazz up straightforward model shots with help from stock photography, Photoshop and Illustrator.
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Photoshop tutorial: Create surreal montages
Cut-&-paste creativity has always had a bad press – but digital artist Mike Harrison shows that it can be used to generate inspirational surreal images.
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Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop tutorial: Explore new-folk illustration styles
Jonny Wan’s distinctive, fresh illustrations manage to seem both mechanical and handmade: their characters are composed of intricate, symmetrical vector shapes so that they seem almost clockwork, yet the finishes he applies remind us of woodcuts.
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Life & Style tutorial: Design a character for a T-shirt print
Speakerdog creator Ben the Illustrator, guides you through your own character creation – from screen to printed T-shirt.
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Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop tutorial: Create retro poster art
The retro aesthetic of the 1950s and 1960s is currently back in vogue and it’s set to be a great trend for 2010. It’s not hard to see why retro design is so enduringly popular: the bold, blocky colours, simple imagery and vivid typography make this a striking era of design.
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After Effects tutorial: Master particles in After Effects
Shatter and Card Dance are two of After Effects CS4’s most underrated particle effects. Both were created by Brain Maffitt’s Atomic Power Corporation, before being bought by Adobe to include in After Effects.
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Photoshop tutorial: Create dynamic lighting
Dynamic lighting isn’t new – far from it. The 16th-century Baroque art movement saw artists such as Giovanni Baglione use chiaroscuro (Italian for light and dark) to add a sense of depth, atmosphere, and emotion to their work. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how the same lighting principles can be applied to your photo manipulations.
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Photoshop tutorial: Transform lolly sticks into textures
Are you inspired by the mundane? The seemingly normal everyday things you come across? If not you should be, because what may appear to be nothing, can be turned into something unique.
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Photoshop tutorial: Create distressed textures for digital paintings
Are your images slick and polished, when you’re after a rougher, more urban feel? Mess things up a little: David and Sarah Cousens show you how.
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Photoshop tutorial: Create a children's book illustration
Learn how to give a soft edge to composited images with help from Photoshop
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Photoshop tutorial: Design striking stencil art for posters
Digital artist Ian Keltie reveals how to composite elements in Photoshop to create a striking, stencilled art poster with an industrial edge.
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Printing tutorial: Design for vinyl wall stickers
Ben the Illustrator shows how to prepare artwork for making trendy wall decals
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After Effects tutorial: Make an animated 3D pop-up book
Design a stylised, 3D-looking pop-up book using 2D elements and Adobe After Effects