PRACTICALPHOTOGRAPHY.COM 101
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ANYTOOLSINPHOTOSHOPAREN’T
designedto helpus makephotorealistic
adju stmentsto pictures– they’refor
graphicdesignor illustration,suchas drawinglines
ontoanimage.Twoof thosearetheSingleColumn
and SingleRowMarqueeTools.Theselivein the
ToolboxalongwiththeregularRectangularand
EllipticalMarqueeTools,butthey’reso rarely
usedyoucanonlyfindthemin theMarqueeTools’
fly-outmenu.So whydo youneedthem?Well,like
manythingsin Photoshop,if we blurthelines
betweenphotographyandillustration,we canuse
themto addstrikingeffects.In thiscase,theSingle
ColumnandSingleRowMarqueeToolsareused
toselecta singlelineof pixelsacrosstheimageand,
al ongwiththeFreeTransformTool,theymake
a lo okcalled‘pixelstretching’.Whatis pixelstretching?
Ofcoursewe don’tliterallystretcha pixel– all the
li ttlesquaresthatmakeup theimagestaythesame
si ze.Whathappensis thatwe takethe1 pixel-thick
selectionandcopyitscolourandtoneverticallyor
horizontallyacrosstheimage,seemingto extend
the pointsof colourintoa line.Theeffectlooks
amazinglystrikingon itsown,butappliedin the
ri ghtway,usinglayers,we canalsothenuseLayer
MasksandOpacityto makethestretchedlines
workwiththeimage.In thiscaseit givesa high
energy,comicbooklookwithspeedlinesshowing
the aircraft’svelocity.BEFORE
AFTER
PHOTOSHOP
Above This RAF Typhoon looks a bit stuck in the middle of the sky,
but by using a pixel stretching technique, we can give it comic
book-style speed lines and have it moving with purpose.