How to Cheat in Photoshop

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Posted on 23/07/04 08:50:42 AM

Steve Caplin
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Contest 4: Return of the dragon

Here's a junk model I made some years ago, before I first got my hands on Photoshop and realized there was a better way of building montages. It's made of pieces of polystyrene, plastic bottles and asorted household junk, and frankly, it's looking a bit the worse for wear.

Your challenge this week will be to return the dragon to its natural habitat. You'll find a higher resolution version of the dragon here, and the forest here. Once again, I'd appreciate it if you could reduce your work before posting it to the forum.

Happy wildlife preservation!

Posted on 23/07/04 4:05:30 PM

tabitha 1
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Re: Contest 4: Return of the dragon

Heres a quick entry I've done this afternoon, while trying to avoid the sun (I burn way too easily!), to see if this is what you had in mind Steve.
It was really difficult trying to get a sense of perspective as the image of the dragon looked very 2D, and I know the lighting is not that fantastic as I have never done flames before.
Not sure if I will get the time to do another in the following week, so I will submit this warts an all!

Have fun guys
Tabitha
x

Posted on 23/07/04 4:07:58 PM

tabitha 1
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Re: Contest 4: Return of the dragon

Not sure if anyone else has this problem, or maybe I am doing something wrong. When I save the image as a Jpeg in photoshop, I ensure that it is under 100kb, but when I try posting it I have to get the image under 85kb to be able to post.
Is this me doing something stupid and chick-like?

Posted on 23/07/04 4:14:56 PM

Steve Caplin
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Re: Contest 4: Return of the dragon

Great entry! those flames are fantastic, and the horseman's angle is exactly right. Well done getting the first entry in, you even beat Maiden (and she was lurking around here earlier today).

Photoshop has a habit of making files bigger than it says it's going to, and I really don't know why. On the Mac, I use a freeware utility called Small Image, which makes Photoshop JPEGs less than half their original size, with only minimal loss of quality. I'm sure there's a PC equivalent - Trinity? You seem clued up on this stuff.

Posted on 23/07/04 4:31:19 PM

tabitha 1
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Re: Contest 4: Return of the dragon

Thanks for the suggestion Steve. I have just searched for Jpeg compression on Google and found several different freeware utilities to try.
Hopefully my images wont appear so small on here in future

Posted on 23/07/04 4:44:01 PM

Steve Caplin
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Re: Contest 4: Return of the dragon

That's good. Let us know which one works the best, so I can recommend it in future!

Posted on 23/07/04 5:16:21 PM

trinityofone
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Re: Contest 4: Return of the dragon

Tabby, are you using save as or save for web, the latter compresses and drops to 72dpi, it seems to be more accurate with sizing.

_________________
It must be Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays

Posted on 23/07/04 5:18:16 PM

russ davey
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Re: Contest 4: Return of the dragon

Nice one Tabby, the flames are very cool. I too am having difficulty making the dragon 3D, wonder if the 3D transform tool used correctly would rectify that, Maiden would know

Wish i could have included Keira Knightley from King Arthur, but it would have got too complex, Sir Lancelots armour will just have to do. The temptation to use boiled eggs instead of dinosaurs eggs was also overwhelming, but I thought better of it in the end!!

Here's mine -

Posted on 23/07/04 5:23:07 PM

russ davey
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Re: Contest 4: Return of the dragon

Forgot to say, nice sculpture Steve - although the human hands are a little disturbing!

Posted on 23/07/04 5:26:20 PM

tabitha 1
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Re: Contest 4: Return of the dragon

Love the way you have added the scales to the dragon Russ. I only got round to adding a little noise to make it have a little depth, and as for the eye

V.scary! Are those dragon hatchlings in the centre?

You have certainly given us a challenge this week Steve

Posted on 23/07/04 5:26:58 PM

Steve Caplin
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Re: Contest 4: Return of the dragon

OK, OK, I give in! I've taken another photo of the dragon from a different angle. But you'll have to clean the cobwebs off yourselves, this time - I'm shutting my computer off for the weekend. (Actually, to think of it, the time I spent cleaning up the original in Photoshop could just as well have been spent cleaning the real thing...)

You'll find it here.

Posted on 23/07/04 6:11:06 PM

maiden
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Re: Contest 4: Return of the dragon

It would seem Tabitha and I had very similar ideas. Very nicely done Tabitha

As for Russ's question about using 3D Transform, in this instance it wouldn't have worked the image shape is too complex for the basic transform vertices in 3DTransform.

What I did was to use the Free Transform Tool to create the dragon in perspective and then make a selection of it to a new layer and filled with black, I then moved this silhouette behind the dragon layer and moved it isometrically to a point where the depth would be just about right - then I duplicated this layer and moved the duplicate 2 nudges towards the dragon and repeated the process until the dragon had it's depth. I then merged the silhouette layers and using the Clone Tool copied across some detail from the dragon layer to flesh out the silhouette and make it look 3Dish. By-the-way your dragon is cool

Posted on 23/07/04 6:30:08 PM

joshspazjosh
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Re: Contest 4: Return of the dragon

Is that a pot on Steve's head?

Sorry if it isn't....the knight armor is very blurry...

-Josh

Posted on 23/07/04 6:32:23 PM

maiden
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Re: Contest 4: Return of the dragon

No it's proper helm - however if I had thought of it a saucepan would have been funnier.

Posted on 23/07/04 7:31:15 PM

tabitha 1
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Re: Contest 4: Return of the dragon

You certainly know Photoshop Maiden, I just made the image dark and hoped that this would hide the fact that the image didn't have any depth after I had Free Transformed the Perspective.
Are you gonna try another with the new Dragon image?
I am tempted but my family are looking at me imploringly, in the hope that I will leave this PC today