A retro-style illustration needs
the correct base to make it look
authentic, so to pay homage to
80 years of iconic book jacket
design from Penguin, our
starting point is a rather
beaten-up book cover sourced
fromwww.CGTextures.com.ENGRAVER III
PLATFORMS:
m +?A -16
m5GLBMUQ
£49 APPROX
$74.99
R
etro printing styles are perennially popular,
but re-creating the look of lithographs,
etchings and engravings in Photoshop can
be a time-consuming process. To
re-create an old-fashioned print style from scratch
you need to build up a set of digital plates, which
can be almost as long-winded as real-life
screenprinting (and to be honest, less fun).
That’s where Engraver III comes in. The third
iteration of this engraving filter from Alpha Plugins
introduces multilayer support, which takes it out of
the world of simple filters and into the realm of real
creative control. You can build up intersecting layers
of crosshatching or etching lines, giving you the
look of a realistic engraving in under half the time itwould take to work up this effect from scratch.
Understandably this can increase the amount of time
it takes to render your effect, but the good news is
that Engraver III has also introduced faster
processing speeds. The new engine is powerful
enough to let you preview effects at high resolution
and only lags behind true real-time pre-visualisation
by mere seconds.
There’s a huge range of different effects in there
too, complemented by a plethora of controls that let
you manage line weight, spacing, angle and much
more. Previous versions boasted a good amount of
these, but version three has introduced even more.
Of course, one of the risks when it comes to filtering
is uniformity, but Alpha Plugins has thought of thatREVIEWS ENGRAVER III
THE UPDATED VERSION OF THIS CLASSIC PLUGIN ADDS FASTER
PROCESSING, NEW PATTERNS AND MUCH MORE
VINTAGE ILLUSTRATION STYLES MADE EASY
(/7ď4/ď53%ď%.'2!6%2ď)))ď!.$ď0(/4/3(/0ď4/ď!#()%6%ď!ď-)$˶#%.4529ď"//+ď#/6%2ď,//+ďOne of our engraving-filtered
images is placed onto the book
jacket. Some areas have lost
detail because of the filter, so we
make a desaturated, inverted
Glowing Edges layer that
replicates line art and use a
grungy brush to bring back
edges and details so the
illustration retains its bold
monochrome look.We place our second engraving-
filtered image and use a rectangle of
orange to divide the two – this will
form the book cover’s title plate later.
Use duplicates of the book cover
texture set to Overlay over the
artwork and title plate to retain the
distinctive marks like the coffee ring,
which adds authenticity to the design
by making it look old and well-loved.Retro-inspired typography and
decals finish the title plate, while
grungy brushes masked onto
texture overlays add and subtract
wear and foxing around the
design and give the look of a
60-year-old, well-loved book. A
final touch of Dodge and Burn
enhances the coffee ring and
other blemishes and brings the
whole design together.STARTING POINTPLACE ADDITIONAL ELEMENTSIMPROVE THE ENGRAVING FINAL TOUCHES