Surprise behind the curtain in PhotoshopListThumbs
Surprise behind the curtain in Photoshop
In this tutorial I will show how to create curtains and other nice effects in Photoshop. When I was traveling I was always thinking about some ideas for wallpapers for Abduzeedo. Concepts that would show what the blog is about and of course, related to the Space subject. That was when I had this idea of an alien behind curtains.
Anyway, for this tutorial we will use some images from iStockphoto and Google Images, and as usual some neat lighting effects. You probably know how to create some of the effects but it's a good exercise on how to turn an idea into an image.
Step 1
Open Photoshop and create a new document, I'm using 1680x1050 pixels. Fill the backgroud layer with black.
Step 2
Go to Filter>Noise>Add Noise. Make sure you have black and white for the background and foreground colors. Use 10% for the Amount, Gaussian for the Distribution and set Monochromatic.
Step 3
Go to Image>Adjustments>Levels change the values to 90, 1.00, 230. Repeat the Step 2 and 3 again to to create the starfield.
Step 4
Create a new layer and fill it with white. Rename the layer to Curtain.
Step 5
Go to Filter>Render>Fibers use 20 for the Variance and 5 for the Strength. This will be the first step to create the curtain.
Step 6
Now go to Filter>Artistic>Plastic Wrap. This filter will add some nice highlights to the effect.
Step 7
Continuing the Curtain effect, go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. The blur will define the curtain.
Step 8
Now the last filter and the most important. Go to Filter>Blur>Motion Blur. Use 90º for the Angle and 800 pixels for the Distance.
Step 9
Let's just change the levels to increase the contrast of the curtain.
Step 10
Now go to Edit>Transform>Warp, move the vertices to create the effect of opening the curtain.
Step 11
Let's apply some Layer Style to the curtain. Go to Layer>Layer Style>Color Overlay, use red (#c10404) for the color and Overlay for the Blend Mode. After that go to Layer>Layer Style>Gradient Overlay use black and white for the colors, Multiply for the Blend Mode, and Radial for the Style. Move the gradient to the edge of the curtain, like a spot light.
Tip: If your colors are too dark you can change the levels or even bright and contrast.
Step 12
Create a layer beneath all layers and go to Filter>Render>Clouds. Make sure that you had Black and White for the colors. After that change the Blend Mode to Hard Light.
Step 13
Here let's add some colors to the clouds. Go to Layer>Layer Styles>Gradient Overlay. Use the blue(#13175a) and a light brown (#874a11) for the colors. Change the Blend Mode to Multiply, use Radial for the Style and 90º for the Angle.
Step 14
Create a new layer and fill it with black. Change the Blend Mode to Screen and go to Filter>Lens Flare. Use 100% Brightness and 50-300mm Zoom.
Step 15
Go to Image>Adjustment>Levels and change the values to 55, 1.00 and 225.
Step 16
To create an alien hand that will be open the curtain I used a photo of a frog from iStockphoto.com, you can purchase the photo here. After that in Photoshop, with the Lasso Tool (L) or the Pen Tool (P) extract the hand from the picture.
Step 17
Past the hand in front of the curtain and resize it, just a bit smaller. Go to Layer>Layer Style>Drop Shadow, and add a shadow to the hand. Use Multiply for the Blend Mode, 100% Opacity, 2 pixels Distance and 10 pixels size.
Right After that go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation. Change the values to turn the hand to green, I used 40, -55, -16.
Tip: Duplicate the layer, clear the layer style and change the hand's Blend Mode to Multiply. This way you will increase the details of the picture.
Step 18
Now we need an alien head. I searched on Goolge Images for one. The one I liked the most I found at http://nunoleitecastro.tripod.com/
Step 19
Place the image in the document and extract the head from the background. Put it behind the curtain like the image below, then duplicate the layer and change the Blend Mode to Multiply. Exactly as we did for the hands that will increase the details of the head.
Step 20
Go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation and change some values. The head has to have the same green tone as the hand. I used -50, 25. and 0
Step 21
Here let's just add some details to the curtain. Select the curtain layer and go to Filter>Liquify. Select the Pucker Tool (S) and reduce the brush size. Just give a few clicks with this tool over the area that is beneath the aliens hand.
Conclusion
Now you can add more details, such as some noise or change some colors. One thing I did and worked really well was I duplicated all layers and merged into one. Then I applied a Gaussian Blur and changed the Blend Mode to Screen, that created a nice glow, but it's up to you. My idea was to show an alien behind a curtain with the a space scene behind that. Also you can add textures to the curtains, like patterns and apply the displace filter if you want. I hope you like the tutorial and feel free to send suggestions.
Click on the Image to the full preview
51 Comments
haha... gr8 effect.. the curtain looks awesome
i totally love it... :)
Thanx ...
The curtain looks amazing!
Yeah, nice effect!
the curtain looks so good
Oh Great effect !
I need make it for mine <3
Really Cool!!!
Superb, as usual. I don't know how you do it sometimes. :D
Amazing what you can do in so few steps. When I first saw the curtain in 3 steps I was stunned. I laughed for a long time at this post. Love the idea of an alien making his debut from behind the curtain.
great ideas,always like your tuts
Damn wish you made this tutorial earlier! I was in a big need of some curtains but didn't know how to make them myself... great tutorial!
I check this site on a daily basis and I think that all of the tuts are awesome, but this one is really cool! Great job!
Hi!!! I'm a fan of abduzeedo, but i have an question???
What is the lett taht you use in all of your works.
Send me a response to jafsampaio@gmail.com please.
Thanks and continue with a good job.
As somebody already said: you are the andrew cramer of ps/illus.
I'm really a newbie with doing ps stuff.
But watching your tuts and so on is damn good for learning more and more.
Keep it on, thx a lot !
Fantastic effect and great alien XD
I have something very similar on my flickr page...
check it out here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fepagani/2669117545/
its not an alien but just a very shy stick man on the opening night!
Really cool and creative espacially the use of the frog's hand and the alien!!!!!!!
Looks great Fabio!
I love the way you guys seem to find new ways to use fibers. Such an amazing filter it really is. Thx and keep up the hard work.
You are the best.
Fantastic effect.. not sure i would go for an alien though, but cool all the same!
fibers for curtains!?
Awweesssoomme!
File can not open being damaged
Is it so my computer is ibm?
cute alien ;)
superb boss i am becomes your fan wonderful work thanks for this tut brother
How can I do that? "Move the gradient to the edge of the curtain, like a spot light"
when I move the gradient move the whole curtain.
very cute tutorial :)
Thanx
ur the best, awesome tutorial and cool idea
Hi, congratulations for your page, i like very much. I have a question:
in the step 11 you say:
"Move the gradient to the edge of the curtain, like a spot light"
i'm sorry, but i can´t do that... could you tell me how do that??
Thanks!
Oh Hi, it's me again... i'm sorry about the question of the gradient... i just found the way!!
Thanks anyway!!
man i dont know what to say your very great in photoshop thanx for sharing your knowledge!
Move the gradient:
When you have the gradient effect open in layer styles, just put your cursor on the 'picture', click and drag and you will see the gradient 'move'.
Also The lens flare needs to be moved to be seen to the right of the curtain. it will not be seen if you follow the tutorial strictly(at least for me it didn't).
thank you for the tutorial.
one thing i cannot get is the starfield effect. the screen will turn black when i did the level after noise. is there another way of doing it?
Fabio,
I want to say first and foremost this is my first post and I love your work. Your tuts are so nice and easy to follow that you make a non-artist like myself feel like a veteran designer. One question, what font do you use for your abduzeedo (and what does it stand for or mean)? Thank you and again, I love your work.
AA
Kennedy try these inputs for step 3 (40, 1, 230). When I first tried the inputs in the tut my starfield would go black as well, so I just lowered the 90 to 40 and it worked just peachy. Hope this helps.
AA
Thank You very nice topic
Awesome! I love it! Thank you very much.
Nice tutorial! I matched it with the tutorial "light effects in 10 steps".
This is what turned out. Mac-X-Mas ;)
i love this tutorial the only problem i had was that after i added the noise and did the levels it went totally black is there anything else i can do
Nice work ,great collection. Thanks for the share.
Whaaa! I love this tutorial! So easy to follow, and I tend to always lose myself halfway through! Great, thanks for sharing this
Fantastic! I was desperate to find something like this. I could combine another tutorial I found on curtain building with your steps to perfect it to what I wanted. I am so jealous of all your skills. :-D
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the time, goodwill and effort you put into describing those things. I hope and wish that some day I can be as clever as you and give you and others back what they gave me.
Great Tutorial!
Im learning new things in this website :D
I looove it! It's fun, mysterious, creative, and very well thought of! The curtain looks so real! And the alien! It's like a whole different world behind the curtain. Thanks for sharing this awesome tutorial!
You can use it also as "hair effect"!!
I tryed today and got a nice wallpaper Tks Fabio!!!
To see go to
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gWpxUvIlVpk/Sg3MXjXkLCI/AAAAAAAABJI/rKCFQTJEgw...
Its So perfect for me!
Im such a believer! :-p
thanks alot!
what photoshop do you use?
Wow, finally i've found this tutorial again, i made a "replica" by using this tutorial, here's the link ^^
http://i39.tinypic.com/15wf2x1.jpg
Thanks for the Tut man!
Saaweeet! Your Tut was incredible, literally incredible. I have never used Photoshop until this week. Thank you SO much!
cool... I like the curtain thing... I need to try this one
------------
-abney317
-My GFX Site: http://infinitystyle.com
This i loved making ^.^ n u taught me some kool tricks ....
infact i learnt soooooooooooooo much from ur fantastic site!!!
Thankyou so so much!!!! lol
my caption was ..... well lol go see for urself lol ...
@...: http://cid-9f014cac225e2f1a.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/My%20Art%20Works...
i love abdullah ji i got mush from u u r really a master piece like a genious love u dud bro lovvvvvvvvvv may u be happy al the time in happpy
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