25 QUICK FIXES FOR PRO DESIGNERS
- QUICKLY MODIFY ARTWORK WITH
TRANSFORM, LIQUIFY AND WARP TOOLS
THE CONCEPT
“This concept design is part of a personal project
exploring mecha design through the female form. I
used a combination of photo compositing and digital
painting techniques to create the design. Here I will go
though some tips for modifying character pose and
proportions using the various Transform tools and
filters. My main focus is to capture a readable pose to
the character design.”THE WARP TOOL
“I use the Liquify, Transform, Warp and Puppet Warp
tools to modify the pose and proportions of my
character design. The combination of these tools helps
to speed up workflow by spending less time
re-creating certain elements. To transform a layer I
press Cmd/Ctrl+T to active the layer’s Transform
mode. I [then] Ctrl/right-click on the layer, then select
the Warp option in the drop-down menu. I warp the
image by moving sections and the borders of the
image around to accommodate the pose.”LIQUIFY TOOL
“I press Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+X as a shortcut to activate the
Liquify filter. I then tweak the proportions of the
character with the Move brush, modifying the shapes of
the design. I also use the Twirl Liquify with a large
brush size placed at the centre of the joints to tweak
some angles to the pose.”PUPPET WARP TOOL
“I use the Puppet Warp tool for more control when
modifying the pose of the character. I create a selection
with a Lasso tool to isolate a part of the design. I then
select the Puppet Warp function in the Edit menu to
create a temporary mesh from the selection. I place
pins to allocate joint orientations, to help when posing
a specific part of the design. Then start to pose the
character by moving the pins into place accordingly.”&2%%,!.#%ď!24)34ď2)9!($ď#!33)%-ď˴WWW.RIYAHDC.WIX.COM/RIYAHD˵ď3(/73ď53ď
(/7ď(%ď-/$)&)%3ď#(!2!#4%2ď0/3%3ď!.$ď02/0/24)/.3ď).ď()3ď7/2+&,/7ďď- USE ADVANCED
COLOR RANGE
SETTINGS FOR
SKINTONE SELECTIONS
If you work a lot at retouching portrait or beauty images,
then it is likely that you will need to make adjustments to
the model’s skin – whether giving it a subtle glow or
smoothing it. It is quicker if you can treat all of the skin at
the same time, but selecting the skin in the first place
can be more time consuming. The Color Range tool is
the perfect tool for this job, as it is designed to recognise
skintones and help you make an accurate selection.
Open your image in Photoshop and then go to Select>
Color Range. From the Select drop-down window,
choose Skin Tones. This will now give you the option to
Detect Faces if you wish. The tool should have already
picked up skin tones in the image, but you can tweak
them with the Fuzziness slider. You can use the
Selection Preview option to view your selection on your
main document for a better view, and you can also use
Save to save your preset for future use. - USE THE RIGHT QUICK
SELECTION METHODS
José Paulo Reis (www.zepaulocreation.blogspot.
co.uk) says that the best way to speed up a typical
photomanipulation or photo editing workflow, is to
know which selection technique is right in each
situation. He uses mainly three tools in his work:
Color Range: “To quickly select a
specific part of an image that is mostly one colour, I simply go to
Select>Color Range and pick the color I want to select. I usually
use this to select skies”Quick Selection tool: “I often
use this when I don’t need a lot of precision in my selection.
It’s a quick and simple way to select a certain area of the
image. It’s a great tool!”Shift+F6: “This is not exactly a selection
technique, but a selection modifier. Once you have your selection ready, you may
need to tweak some details to make it more natural. By simply clicking Shift+F6,
I can feather my selection according to each situation, instead of going to the
menu, which saves me a lot of time”© José Paulo Reis© Riyahd Cassiem