Before you start to assemble your image you need all of the components. This should include the base image, all of the textures that you are going to add and an idea of the palette that you are going to work in. In this case I have a file of about twenty textures, but only intend to use about three. It is best to keep your options open. I shot them all, and the image of the lily on the same camera in RAW and processed them together. This means that I know that they are all the same resolution, size and format.
If you are using images from multiple sources you must make sure that they are all at least the same resolution. Any variations will give unpredictable results. Size can be adjusted during the composition.
The first texture that I added was a shot of concrete. This gives the image an overall texture. The wall had dappled shadows from a tree and there were semi-circular brush marks on the surface.
The second was a shot of paint peeling off rusted metal. The
shape didn’t quite suite the base image so I rotated it through 90 degrees.
shape didn’t quite suite the base image so I rotated it through 90 degrees.
The rust layer was blended using Multiply and an opacity of 100%, while the rust was blended with Soft Light, also at 100% The edge of the rust bisected the flower in places. To fix this I added a layer mask to the rust layer by clicking on the grey rectangle with the white circle in it at the bottom of the layers palette. I selected black as the foreground colour ad painted onto the mask, using the brush tool, covering the flower where I didn’t want the rust and paint to show. The black stops the rusted paint showing through, while white allows it to show. If you make a mistake you can either use the erase tool to correct it or paint white onto the mask.
The next step is to enclose the image. To do this I selected the background and duplicated the layer by pressing CMD and J (Control and J on a PC). I then selected the graduation tool, this may be hidden beneath the paint bucket tool. I then selected black to transparent from the menu bar a the top of the screen. I the simply dragged the tool in from each corner of the image. The stating point that you drag from will be black, while the end point will be transparent. By starting outside the image, and finishing part way into it, you can vary the density of the graduation.
I decided that I needed to lighten the centre. To do this I selected the circular marquee tool, probably hidden beneath the rectangular tool, and selected the centre. I added a feather of 100 pixels from the menu bar to soften the edges. After ensuring that white was the background colour I deleted the selection. I blended this using multiply with an
opacity of about 50%
I decided that the shaft of light had now gone a little dark. I again duplicated the background and using a curves adjustment layer I lightened it. I then flattened this curves layer to avoid it altering other layers (CMD and E). I added a layer mask to this lighter layer but this time I filed it with black using the paint bucket tool. I then painted white where I wanted the ray of light to show through. The blend this time was Hard Light to give the ray some punch.
The Image so far
T
he text was originally silver on black so this was inverted (CMD and I) and was added using Colour Burn at 35% opacity. A layer mask was added again and the text was painted out with black where it covered the flowers and leaves.
The final step was a Hue and saturation adjustment layer to alter the overall hue.
There are quite a few layers to keep track off so it is a god idea to name them as you go along, just double click the text (layer 1 etc) ad name the action.
Save your image as either a PSD file or a TIFF to preserve the layers. You can now flatten your image (Shift CMD E) and now save it under a different name as a JPEG. You now have an archive document ad a re-workable one.
There is an additional set of notes on my website here
