Instead, I decided on a stock image which seemed manageable to remove the background easily enough… Or so I thought at the time. My plan was to use the Pen Tool to create a Mask and remove it from the background. I realized quickly (well, actually not that quickly) that this particular item was way too complicated for the Pen Tool treatment.

Here's the Tree Stock Image I started with.

All I wanted was the tree; the sky and ground had to go, including the sky behind the tiny little branches. Now, because this was for a printed poster, the image is large, and has to be very detailed even when viewed close, so there wasn’t much room to fudge the details; I needed to remove the sky from behind each and every branch…

My first attempt was to use the Pen Tool and try to mask out the tree. But after 3 hours of work, this is all I had done…

Cellphone photo of Tree Mask using Pen Tool.

This was just ridiculous, at this rate I would have been masking out this tree for 6-7 hours and been less-than-satisfied with the final result; because of this, I gave up immediately on this method (scratch 3 hours from my life… but better to save the rest than continue on with a poor method).

I ended up using Channels to do the task, and it turned out better than I thought it ever would!

How to use Channels in Photoshop:

I’m using Photoshop CS3 to explain this, but the method is very similar across the entire CS – CS5 tree (no pun intended).

Step One:

With an image (preferably the one you are trying to remove an object on) opened in Photoshop, choose Window – > Channels if it’s not already open. By default, the panel is tied in with the Layers panel.

Click on Window -> Channels to open Chennel Menu

Step Two:

Find which Channel gives the most contrast between the foreground and the background by clicking on each one Red, Green and Blue one at a time; the more contrast there is, the better your results. In my case, Blue turned out to have the most contrast.

Find the Channel which offers the most contrast

Step Three:

Using the Magic Wand Tool with a tolerance of 50 I clicked on the tree. The tolerance settings may need to be adjusted depending on your image, however this worked well for me. It did though also pick up the ground:

Select the Tree using the Magic Wand Tool with a 50 Tolerance

I simply used the Rectangle Marquee Tool to unselect the ground, leaving the tree the only selected object.

Step Four:

Head over to the Layers Panel by Clicking on Window -> Layers. You will see the image has returned to full color, yet the tree is still selected. Then it’s just a quick click of the Mask icon in the Layers Panel.

Click on Layers Panel and your object, in full-color is now selected.

Click the Mask Icon and watch the background disappear

That’s it! 5 minutes of work beats hours and hours every time!

I was then able to use the tree in my final composition, and the space between branches showed the design elements behind it!

Final Composition

Today I’m going to walk you through the steps to create a StickyNote paper with realistic shadow using Photoshop CS3. This tutorial will work with any version of the Creative Suite too, you’re tools may be located slightly different however. I also have the Photoshop CS3 file for download at the end if you’d prefer to work on the original.

Steps to create StickyNote:

Step One: Creating the Document
1. Create a new document (File -> New), make the dimensions 800×600 pixels (72 dpi is fine for this tutorial).
2. Create a second layer, fill the first layer with white, and in the second layer create a rectangle as shown.
3. I used #f9f498 for the Sticky Note color.

Step Two: Adding a Drop Shadow
1. Double-Click on the Sticky Note layer to open the “Layer Style” dialog box – Or select the layer and choose Layer -> Layer Style -> Blending Options to open the dialog box.
2. Click on Drop Shodow on left, and make settings similar to image below.

Step Three: Separate shadow from Sticky Note layer
1. On the Layers panel, with the FX expanded, right-click on Drop Shadow and choose Create Layer

Now you will have 3 layers: A background (white) layer, a Shadow layer, and a Sticky Note Layer:

Step Four: Curving the Paper
1. Select the Sticky Note layer in the Layers Panel
2. Choose Edit -> Transform -> Warp
3. Click and drag the individual vertices to pull and push the “mesh” until the bottom two corners look slightly longer and higher than before.

This is about what yours should resemble:

Step Five: Changing the Shadow
1. Select the Shadow layer in the Layers Panel
2. Change the Fill percentage to 40% in the Layers Panel
3. Choose Edit -> Transform -> Warp
4. Click and drag the individual vertices like before to change the shadow slightly.

This is where you should be:

Step Six: Adding a sheen to the paper for the “bend”
1. Double-Click on the Sticky Note layer to open the “Layer Style” dialog box – Or select the layer and choose Layer -> Layer Style -> Blending Options to open the dialog box.
2. Click on Gradient Overlay on the left side
3. Click the default Gradient color (not the drop-down arrow though) to open the Gradient Editor window.
4. In the Gradient Editor window, the Type should be Solid, the Smoothness should be 100% as shown
5. Click in the gradient panel area to create a third keypoint in the gradient
6. The outside 2 keypoints should remain #f9f398
7. Change the color of the middle keypoint to #faf7c1
8. Drag the middle keypoint to the left to Location: 24%
9. The Smoothness Transition diamond should be at Location: 30%

Click Ok, and Ok again to lock in the effects. Here’s how yours should look:

Step Seven: Adding some text
1. Create the text “Buy Milk” – I used Comic Sans in a dark blue color and enlarged it to fill up more of the note paper.
2. Rotate the text slightly so it appears to be hand written. To rotate the text, select the Text Layer in the Layers Panel and either CTRL + T (CMND + T on a Mac), or choose Edit -> Transform -> Free Transform. Then hover the cursor over the corner until the cursor changes into a rotate icon. Simply click and move the mouse until the desired rotation is obtained; let go of the mouse.

You could stop here, but I wanted to make the text look less perfect, like a ballpoint pen with ink issues

Step Eight: Distressing the Text
1. Rasterize the type by clicking the Type Layer in the Layers panel. Either right-Click the layer and choose Rasterize Type, or click Layer -> Rasterize -> Type. This makes the layer a bitmap image rather than an editable type layer.
2. CTRL + Click (CMND + Click on Mac) the icon for the text in the Layers Panel to select all the contents of that layer (in this case it selects around the lettering).
3. Click the Mask icon on the bottom of the Layers Panel, or choose Layer -> Layer Mask -> Reveal Selection.

Step Eight (Continued): Distressing the Text
1. Select the Brush tool
2. Right-Click on the art board – the Brush Tools window will open, I chose the Brush “Dry Brush Tip Light Flow” Leave the size at default of 66.
3. Make sure the foreground color is black.
4. Lightly click, and drag in short lines to create the effect of the ink being thin. You are removing the mask in small scratches, revealing the Sticky Note below. The reason to use this method is that if you don’t like the results, change the foreground color to white and brush again to re-reveal the ink. his is the preferred non-destructive way.

Final Result:

And as promised: Download StickyNote source file (641) – Zip .PSD 400KB

I started by taking all the images I had taken, and used Photoshop to photo-merge them into a single panorama; the graf art is very wide.

[TIP] To Photo Merge many files into one, with all the files open inside Photoshop, click File -> Automate -> Photomerge and choose the type of layout, then click “Add open files” … The box will populate with the filenames of all open documents -> Click OK

I have the finished piece available in 300 dpi JPG image at 11,629 x 1,707 pixels, and the rest available in 3 separate sections in 2,500 pix wide, 300 dpi PNG files with transparent backgrounds.

Get Graffiti Wide JPG (341) 3MB
Get Graf 01 PNG (296) 4MB	Get Graf 02 PNG (290) 3MB	Get Graf 03 PNG (276) 3MB

Check out Media Militia for a great Graffiti Brushes/Texture resource.

I quickly lost interest in the tutorial as it was overly complicated and spread across 5 pages with little visual aid. Having lost interest in their way of creating this effect, but still wanting to do the effect myself, I set about figuring out the fastest way of achieving the same result.

Below is the final result of my tutorial; click through after the jump to learn the process and download the final PSD file if you prefer that way.

Create multiple Polaroid collage the simple and easy way:

This tutorial is of an Intermediate skill level in Adobe Photoshop. You should be familiar with the core functionality of Photoshop before beginning this tutorial.

• You will need the Polaroid Image template I use: Polaroid Image template (625)
• And a stock photo to use as the background:  Surfer Stock Photo

Step 1:

Open Photoshop (I use CS3 for this tutorial, however any version CS and newer should work the same).

Create a document 800 px wide x 600 px high

This is your document once created:

Add a new layer and make the bottom layer filled with white:

Step 2:

Open the included Polaroid Image and copy it into your document:

Add your stock image to the document (the surfer image will reduce to 800×600):

Move the stock image down below the Polaroid image, but above the white background layer:

Step 3:

Create a dropshadow for the Polaroid:

With the stock image layer hidden, this is how your shadow looks:

Step 4:

Copy the Polaroid layer several times, moving and turning the images so they appear to be scattered across a surface (you could also resize the images to create a different effect as an alternative).

This is what your image should resemble with the stock image layer un-hidden:

Step 5:

Select all of your Polaroid image layers (don’t select any other layer), and right-click and choose Merge Layers. After this, all of your Polaroid images are on one layer (no longer movable independently). Before you merge the layers you may prefer to duplicate them and turn off visibility of the 2nd set; this will allow you to go back if you want to change the layout of the Polaroid blanks later.

Using the Magic Wand tool Shift click the black areas of the Polaroid blanks:

With only the black areas of the Polaroid layer selected, copy by hitting CTRL+C (CMND+C on a Mac), then CTRL+V (CMND+V on a Mac) to paste:

Step 6:

You now have a layer with both the screen AND border of the Polaroid, and a layer with just the screens of the Polaroid. You will want to drag the layer which contains both below your stock image. Top to bottom in layers you will now have Polaroid Screen layer, stock image, Polaroid screen/border layer:

Select the Polaroid screen layer (the top layer) and CTRL+Click (CMND+Click on a Mac) the window icon in the Layers panel (This selects everything on the currently selected layer):

Click the stock image layer in the Layers Panel -> click the Mask icon in the lower section of the Layers Panel -> Turn off visibility to the top layer as shown in the image:

And that’s it! Your results should like this:

I hope you find this tutorial useful; if you have any questions please comment below and I’ll be happy to answer them!

If you’d prefer just to snatch the PSD file – I have the PSD file for you here:
Polaroid Collage PSD (336)

Here’s another example of how you can use this effect dramatize an image

My daughter’s favorite movie (right now) is The Parent Trap (remake) with Lindsay Lohan (debut film). It was actually pretty hard explaining to my kid that Hallie and Annie are actually the same actress… So what better way to convince her than to make a twin out of an only-child?

This was actually a pretty easy setup; I took the first picture of her, taped the area and had her go change clothes. We then snapped the second picture and later I laid the two images on top of one another, then using the layer mask and the paintbrush I carefully masked one picture into the other.

Pretty fun experience actually. But now my kid thinks Mary-Kate and Ashley are the same ha!

I told Susan what I wanted to do (with a “cartoon” version of her) for the banner and she loved the idea! So voila – it’s my boss in vector cartoon format!

The girl is Khaos (stage name of course), and she’s sporting a black spaghetti strap shirt featuring the branding of Big Daddy graphic design company; he makes custom shirts for any occasion (especially the NSFW ones!). This is one of my favorite shots after two days of shooting; of course I can’t show the “other” ones – this isn’t that kind of blog! I like this one because the angle, and her expression are just awesome.

Of course, I had to shoot these while the girls were working, so the backgrounds and the general lighting wasn’t ideal. I decided to use Photoshop to do some tweaks, clean up some blemishes and blur out the background. Hope you like!

[UPDATE 05/30] I had a lot of fun doing Khaos’ photo (above), so wanted to do some more! Just finished doing Lyla’s pic (below); a little more racy but nothing compare to what else is in the stockpile.

I’ve created a new Photoshop brush for making Water Bubbles. Click the image for larger view!

This file is free to use, credit is always appreciated for my hard work, but not required. However, this may not be sold or traded for goods or services by anyone other than the creator – me.

The Photoshop Brush is an .abr extension. Created with 300 dpi for high-res painting. Free for use in your projects or for playing around. Set for Scattering and size variation out of the box – All you have to do is start brushing!

Download: Photoshop CS3 Brush: Water Bubbles (537)

Also check out my Soap Bubbles!