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Background FX Tutorial
- Thread starter pawwh98
- Start date
Did somebody say Displace? Hehehe.
Since he points to the folder but not a specific file, I would assume that he means to try any and all of them.
Time to step on Mark's toes. I took a quit peek at the stock D-Maps. Personally, I don't think they fit well with the tutorial. Either too sharp or too contrived (contrived in a manner best left for other things).
Blech! Let's make our own. A Stroker variation on a golden oldie.
Start a new document, around 300x300.
Hit 'd' to get the default black and white colours.
Go to the Channels palette.
In the Red channel, run Clouds/Difference Clouds to taste.
In the Green channel, run Clouds/Difference Clouds to taste.
Blue channel is up in the air. I like to fill mine with 50% gray.
Go back to the composite RGB channel.
You should now have a bunch of pretty colours. Ohh... ahh...
From here, you have a lot of options. You can run a myriad of filters to jazz it up. Feel free to experiment.
For the BG FX tutorial, I recommend some Gaussian Blur. This will give the D-Map a smooth, wavy, watery kind of feel to the distortion. I think this fits well with the tutorial.
Save it as a PSD and use it as a D-Map when you run Displace.
That's how I would go about it. 3[
Now, way back when, I did go through the BG FX tutorial. It's one of the few tutorials that I actually did. When I went through it all those years ago, I left out the Displace step. Came out fine for me.
Do you toes hurt, Mark?
Since he points to the folder but not a specific file, I would assume that he means to try any and all of them.
Time to step on Mark's toes. I took a quit peek at the stock D-Maps. Personally, I don't think they fit well with the tutorial. Either too sharp or too contrived (contrived in a manner best left for other things).
Blech! Let's make our own. A Stroker variation on a golden oldie.
Start a new document, around 300x300.
Hit 'd' to get the default black and white colours.
Go to the Channels palette.
In the Red channel, run Clouds/Difference Clouds to taste.
In the Green channel, run Clouds/Difference Clouds to taste.
Blue channel is up in the air. I like to fill mine with 50% gray.
Go back to the composite RGB channel.
You should now have a bunch of pretty colours. Ohh... ahh...
From here, you have a lot of options. You can run a myriad of filters to jazz it up. Feel free to experiment.
For the BG FX tutorial, I recommend some Gaussian Blur. This will give the D-Map a smooth, wavy, watery kind of feel to the distortion. I think this fits well with the tutorial.
Save it as a PSD and use it as a D-Map when you run Displace.
That's how I would go about it. 3[
Now, way back when, I did go through the BG FX tutorial. It's one of the few tutorials that I actually did. When I went through it all those years ago, I left out the Displace step. Came out fine for me.
Do you toes hurt, Mark?
Welcome to the forum pawwh98!For anyone interested, this is the tutorial that pawwh98 is refering to http://photoshopgurus.info/intermediate/bgFX.shtml
[stuned] One that, I confess, I haven't done yet! ;\
Ahhhhhhh Stroker, I heard "displace" and knew that I would find you here! [excited]
I'm going to give your interpretation a try, along with Mark's tutorial!
Great stuff! B7
stickdiesel
Well-Known Member
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- 0
My to do list folder in ie favourites is getting way out of hand lol. Just added that tut to it 
It's been a long time since I've been through it, so I thought I would give it a quick fiddle.
Skipped the Wave step.
Didn't mask it in any manner. Although, I did do some masking fiddles and it looked pretty wicked, but I decided to leave it out.
Just a gradient and a basic Displace technique.
Even threw in my nick just for kicks, but the perspective needs to be fixed.
Skipped the Wave step.
Didn't mask it in any manner. Although, I did do some masking fiddles and it looked pretty wicked, but I decided to leave it out.
Just a gradient and a basic Displace technique.
Even threw in my nick just for kicks, but the perspective needs to be fixed.
theKeeper
Guru
- Messages
- 2,313
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- 63
Hey nice idea Stroker. 
In all fairnness though... that tute was written back in '97. For PS4 i believe. The amount of default dMaps was less than now, and they're located in a different place now too. Guess i should change that in the tute huh? ;\
And no worries about the toes man... they're just fine.
In all fairnness though... that tute was written back in '97. For PS4 i believe. The amount of default dMaps was less than now, and they're located in a different place now too. Guess i should change that in the tute huh? ;\
And no worries about the toes man... they're just fine.
Has it been 6 years already? Man, now I'm getting nostalgic.
Back then, only 3 PS things worth reading:
1. Doc Ozone's Hands-On
2. Mark's tutorials
3. Kai's Power Tips
And one of the best resources was PhotoShop Compendium. That place kicked serious konkey dong. I almost cried when it went bye-bye.
No EyeCandy or Layer Styles just yet. Both made drop shadows and embossing a one-button trendwhore effect. Not to mention EC's Fire.
Back then, just to be different, I was using some of EC's filters in a lateral manner. One of my favorites was to use Fire as a Layer Mask instead of just plain ol' fire.
Kids. Gotta go.
When I get the time, I'll right a quickie for the D-Map I used for Forum Tutorials.
Back then, only 3 PS things worth reading:
1. Doc Ozone's Hands-On
2. Mark's tutorials
3. Kai's Power Tips
And one of the best resources was PhotoShop Compendium. That place kicked serious konkey dong. I almost cried when it went bye-bye.
No EyeCandy or Layer Styles just yet. Both made drop shadows and embossing a one-button trendwhore effect. Not to mention EC's Fire.
Back then, just to be different, I was using some of EC's filters in a lateral manner. One of my favorites was to use Fire as a Layer Mask instead of just plain ol' fire.
Kids. Gotta go.
When I get the time, I'll right a quickie for the D-Map I used for Forum Tutorials.
Man! Now you got ME daydreamin of daze gone by! 
:\Only a few more minutes right now.
Mark, we should go through your tutorials and try to find some more outdated references and things. After all, you don't have nearly enough to do already. :snicker:
I want to point out an important concept/idea in Mark's BG FX tutorial. In there, he uses Wave on one layer, then immediately on another layer. This makes the Wave on the two different layers match each other. I call it "Filter on Layers in Tandem". I've used this idea many times.
Kudos to Mark for identifying and exploiting that trick.
Here is another example of using that trick.
Let's say you have a photo and you are going to use an Artistic filter on it. On top of that, you want a border to match Artistic filter.
1. Photo all ready to go.
2. New Alpha channel.
3. Make a big white square in the Alpha to act as a starting point for the mask
4. Gaussian Blur the white square
5. Go back to the photo and run your Artistic filter
6. Go back to G-Blurred Alpha chann and run the same filter (ctrl + f)
7. Apply it as a Layer Mask to the Artistified photo
If all went well, you should end up with a photo that looks like a painting of some sort with cool Layer Mask. It should look like the border was also painted on in a manner consistant with the colours and what-not in the photo.
It's always a good thing to see beyond the written tutorial. Find the ideas themselves and use them.
edit: Actually, that's a bit of a very crappy example, but don't let that stop you from experimenting. Add this to my Great Big List of Things to Babble About.
Mark, we should go through your tutorials and try to find some more outdated references and things. After all, you don't have nearly enough to do already. :snicker:
I want to point out an important concept/idea in Mark's BG FX tutorial. In there, he uses Wave on one layer, then immediately on another layer. This makes the Wave on the two different layers match each other. I call it "Filter on Layers in Tandem". I've used this idea many times.
Kudos to Mark for identifying and exploiting that trick.
Here is another example of using that trick.
Let's say you have a photo and you are going to use an Artistic filter on it. On top of that, you want a border to match Artistic filter.
1. Photo all ready to go.
2. New Alpha channel.
3. Make a big white square in the Alpha to act as a starting point for the mask
4. Gaussian Blur the white square
5. Go back to the photo and run your Artistic filter
6. Go back to G-Blurred Alpha chann and run the same filter (ctrl + f)
7. Apply it as a Layer Mask to the Artistified photo
If all went well, you should end up with a photo that looks like a painting of some sort with cool Layer Mask. It should look like the border was also painted on in a manner consistant with the colours and what-not in the photo.
It's always a good thing to see beyond the written tutorial. Find the ideas themselves and use them.
edit: Actually, that's a bit of a very crappy example, but don't let that stop you from experimenting. Add this to my Great Big List of Things to Babble About.
theKeeper
Guru
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- 2,313
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- 63
Thx for the kudos... just seemed 'logical' to me at the time.
Hey i like your image border example Stroker... very creative. And an excellent way for people to create artistic photo edges WITHOUT having to buy a special plugin!
Kudos to you for that.
Oh ya... and i agree about revitalizing my old tutes. If anyone cares to scan through 'em and take note of old references and stuff, be my guest. I'd really appreciate any help with this. I myself don't have a whole lot of free time right now to do that. But i can make whatever changes/alterations that can be found by others. :B
Hey i like your image border example Stroker... very creative. And an excellent way for people to create artistic photo edges WITHOUT having to buy a special plugin!
Kudos to you for that.
Oh ya... and i agree about revitalizing my old tutes. If anyone cares to scan through 'em and take note of old references and stuff, be my guest. I'd really appreciate any help with this. I myself don't have a whole lot of free time right now to do that. But i can make whatever changes/alterations that can be found by others. :B