Photo Extremist: Creative Photography Tutorials, Photoshop Tutorials, Instructional Videos

29Sep/094

How To Make A Photorealistic Pixelated Animated GIF in Photoshop

These animations are great for avatars and ID's for websites.

Ok, so here is how you make these things.

Open up your image in photoshop.
Resize the image (Image > Image Size) to something similar to the examples. Animated GIFs aren't supposed to be huge. I'd say no more than 500x500 pixels.
Crop the image if necessary.
Sharpen the image if you want to (Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen)
Here is the fun part. In order to get the pixelated look, go up to Image > Mode > Indexed Color. Select Local (Adaptive) for the pallet. 3 for the Colors. Then set your Dither setting and the dither amount:
Now, change the color back to RGB mode. Image > Mode > RGB Color
If you want to make the image have a transparent background, erase the background to be completely white. Then Select the Magic Wand Tool, set the Tolerance to 0, and untick Anti-Aliasing and Contagious. Click on the background and hit the DELETE key.
If you want the dissolving animation look, go up to Window > Animation. Duplicate your frame by clicking the little page icon on the bottom right of the Animation window.
Select the FIRST FRAME, make it invisible by unticking the little eye icon by the layer in the Layers window.
Now select just the SECOND FRAME, and make sure the eye icon is activated.
Now, select both frames by holding down the CTRL key while clicking on both of them. They should both be highlighted.
Next, click the Tween button on the bottom of the animation window.
Depending on how long you want the dissolve effect to last, a short number amount of frames (like 10) will dissolve the image quickly. A larger number (like 30) will make the dissolving effect last longer. Set the frame rate by selecting all the frames and then there is a button in the lower right.
Select the second frame, then, while holding down the SHIFT key, select your last frame (this will select all your frames except the 1st one)
In the layers window, set the blending mode to Dissolve.
You're pretty much done! You can add other things as well, like multiple frames.
To save the animation properly, click File > Save For Web... Make sure "GIF" is selected in the second drop down box in the top right.
Save it.

Tagged as: animated gif, animation, avatar, gif, Macintosh 128k, photo, photoshop, pixel art, pixelated, transparent 4 Comments

24Sep/091

Make Symmetric Symmetric Faces in Photoshop: Cat

This image was easy to produce, and can be used on faces and other things as well. The original picture from the camera was kind of dull and dark, but adjusting the levels fixes that right up. It was taken outside on the grass on a sunny day with a basic digital SLR.

DSC_2245fyk

Straighten the image so the nose isn't slanted (use the ruler tool and then hit Image > Image Rotation > Arbitrary)
Crop out the empty space after the rotation
Adjust the Canvas size (Image > Canvas Size...) to 200 percent with the left or right arrow selected. Duplicate the layer and then mirror it by hitting CTRL+A, CTRL+T, Right click, Flip horizontally. You can also just use the QuickMirror plug-in.
Adjust levels, curves, tones, etc. Dodge/burn if you want.
Resize for web
Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen twice

Tagged as: cat, easy, face, how to, image, kitty, photo, photograph, photoshop, quick, serious, symmetry, tutorial 1 Comment

5Sep/098

How To Photograph A Floating Person

Model: NIKON D50 Shutter Speed: 1/4 second F Number: F/3.5 Focal Length: 18 mm ISO Speed: 200 Date Picture Taken: Aug 23, 2009, 9:48:42 PM

How did I get this shot? Let me explain the physical setup first. It was at night time, obviously. I used a Sunpak auto 433 D Thyristor flash on a tripod that was directly to the right of my body. I used hotshoe slave trigger with the external flash that was on a tripod. This allowed me to flash my on-camera flash and have it sync up with the external one so they both flash at the same time. My on camera flash was at 1/16th power, and the external one was probably at 1/2 power.

My Digital SLR was on a tripod, directly in the middle of the road. My tripod was on the lowest setting possible, and I would recommend doing the same with yours. I focused the lens on a stool that was also in the middle of the road, about 10 feet in front of the camera, then just turned off auto-focus. It is unnecessary to use it after you have the stool in focus. Then, I put the self-timer on 10 seconds, ran to the stool, sat on it, pulled up my shorts, put the pillowcase over them, got into a pose, and waited for the camera to take the picture.

Yep, that's me sitting on a stool in the middle of the road. That's a white pillow case by the way, I thought it looked more aesthetically pleasing and less contemporary than green shorts. I actually took about 20 different shots of myself in different poses, but this was my favorite.

Then, I simply took the stool out of the road and took another shot making sure the tripod+camera had not moved, and the flash was in the exact same place as it was before. And sense my auto-focus was turned off, I wouldn't have to worry about my camera screwing up the focus setting.

Now that we have the 2 essential shots we need, lets open them up into Photoshop.

Have the image with the stool on the top layer, and the image with no stool on the bottom. Now, erase the stool by using an eraser brush or a layer mask. Ta-da! The stool is gone, and it looks like you are floating. Then, after that, I went up to Image > Canvas Size and made the image square.

Then, I selected my body using the Rectangle Marquee Tool, right-clicked and selected Free Transform. I rotated my body so it was facing downward, and also moved it upward a little higher from the road. And that's it!

Here are some other floating levitating jumping zen pictures, click to enlarge them: