On this seven-part superior Photoshop compositing course, you may learn to create a extremely artistic music album cowl design. You may be compositing a number of photographs collectively, adjusting the lighting, submerging half of the design in water, and including loads of visible results.
On this lesson, we’ll begin with making ready and composing the property we’re utilizing within the course. Our property come from Envato, an infinite artistic subscription service the place you’ll find and obtain high quality graphics, templates, images, fonts, and extra.
If you happen to choose video tutorials, watch the entire Advanced Photoshop Techniques course from the Tuts+ YouTube channel. Moreover, you possibly can take a look at the Advanced Photoshop course page.
To observe alongside, obtain the objects used to create an album cowl in Photoshop from this assortment:
1. Organise your property in layers
Step 1
Create a brand new doc at 120 mm x 120 mm and 300 dpi. These had been the size of a CD again within the day.
If you happen to’re designing solely for print, you possibly can go together with CMYK for the colour mode. However as a result of we’ll be presenting this on-line in a wide range of completely different locations, we’ll maintain this as RGB, which is extra appropriate when designing for screens. If unsure, select RGB for the colour mode. You get just a few extra colours in that spectrum. Click on Create, and you’ve got a clean canvas to work on.
Step 2
Now go over to Envato, the place you possibly can seize the artistic property used on this Photoshop composite lesson.
Envato’s 3D library is nice for photograph compositing in Photoshop as a result of you possibly can view a 360° render and transfer objects round to seek out the angle that is best for you. Then you possibly can obtain it as a PNG or a PSD file, each of which include transparency, so that you needn’t lower out any objects.
Step 3
Add all of the property to your doc in Photoshop as separate layers. Identify every layer to maintain your recordsdata organised and straightforward to determine.
2. Create a tough composition utilizing your photographs
Step 1
Now it is time to work on a tough composition utilizing your photographs. Flip off all of your property and switch them again on one after the other as you’re employed in your composition. A few of your property could also be bigger than you want, so it’s possible you’ll must scale them down (Management/Command-T).
Let’s begin our composition with the ocean. You need the floor of the ocean to divide the design in half, so use that as the place to begin.
Step 2
Activate the underwater picture layer, and dimension it up in order that the solar rays coming by way of are excluded and simply the blue a part of the water is seen. Flip off the layer once you’re executed.
Step 3
Subsequent, activate the layers for the tall rocks, the guitar, and the eagle, and scale them down as within the picture under.
Step 4
Now, we’ll construct a seabed simply by duplicating a single rock. Activate the rock photograph layer and scale it down. It has a white background, so the very first thing to do is take away the background by utilizing the Object Choice Instrument and including a layer masks.
Subsequent, duplicate the rock 4 occasions and rotate every of the duplicated photographs in order that they give the impression of being completely different from one another. You’ll be able to add a little bit of distortion if you would like to distinguish them much more. After all, you may also obtain completely different rocks and add them for further realism in order for you.
Step 5
Activate the wave layer, add a layer masks, be certain that black is chosen, and use one among Photoshop’s default smooth brushes within the Brush Instrument to brush away the ocean above the wave and under it. All we’d like is the precise floor wave after which a little bit of the blue beneath.
Step 6
Let’s add some bark texture to the guitar now. Resize the bark, rotate it sideways, and transfer it to cowl the underside of the guitar. Now, duplicate it and use the Remodel Instrument to flip it the wrong way up. Transfer the duplicated picture as much as cowl the neck of the guitar. Merge the 2 items of bark by urgent Command/Management-E.
Hover between the bark and guitar layers, maintain down Alt/Possibility, and click on so as to add a clipping masks that clips the feel to the guitar.
Uncover extra Photoshop sources and tutorials
On this tutorial, I confirmed you find out how to put together and lay out the photographs we’re utilizing in a photograph composition for an album cowl. Within the subsequent tutorial, you may learn to create underwater results in Photoshop. Be sure you take a look at our upcoming articles on Envato Tuts+ and the Envato blog to find extra Photoshop tutorials. And for the digital subscription that can cowl all of your artistic Photoshop property and desires, go to Envato!
Listed here are some nice sources to get you began:
