TECHNIQUES CREATE A 3D INFOGRAPHIC
QUICK TIP
In photomanipulation, having good source
photos is half the success. If you can’t take some
photos by yourself be patient when searching for
them. Study all of the search features on your
favourite photo stock site. Use proper tags and
you will find stunning pictures really quickly!04
DRAW A SKETCH
Now the fun begins! Your task is to create the main composition. Grab the Brush tool and draw your
ideas! In this case a pen tablet was used but you can use any kind of technique, drawing, photo-compositing
or whatever else you want. Don’t forget about the bubbles. It’s very important to create them at the sketch
step because they influence the composition and if you forget about them you probably won’t be able to find
room for them on your final illustration.05
DRAFT OBJECTS
So, now you need a pile of photos of a cow,
a sheep, a harvester and a farm. Go to your favourite
photo stock site and collect as many appropriate
photos as you can. Or you can use ‘31172838’,
‘10122563’, ‘50984500’ and ‘21186493’ from http://www.
istockphoto.com. Make sure that they fit the
perspective of the sketch and they have the same
light direction. Place preview photos on the sketch
using rough masks.06
DRAFT SURFACE TEXTURES
It’s time to select photos for the surface. You
can find any other photos of grass, wheat and potato
bushes or use ‘17130460’, ‘19639229’, ‘17827429’,
‘17404693’ and ‘19549044’ from istockphoto. Make a
group for each surface. Create rough masks for
them just using the Magic Wand tool on the sketch.
To make mown wheat behind the harvester just copy
the grass photo and make it yellow using Hue/
Saturation. Don’t forget the perspective and the light.07
DRAFT SOIL TEXTURES
To make the soil look good, use different
textures for the soil layers. Let’s make three soil
layers. You’ll need something like rich soil, gravel
and rock. Go to http://www.cgtextures.com, find the
‘Gravel0159’ set and download it, do the same for
‘SoilRough0067’. Then find and download the
‘RockJagged0018’ photo. Create a group for each
soil layer as well. You don’t need to fill all sides, just
make sure that the textures look good. Don’t forget
about proportionality.08
COLOUR CORRECTIONS
Your task on this step is to harmonise the
photos with each other. Begin with the soil layers.
Bring them together using brown Solid Fill Layers
in Soft Light Mode, Brightness/Contrast and Levels
Adjustment Layers. Then make the surface photos
a bit brighter. Strongly enhance saturation of the
wheat using Hue/Saturation layer. Don’t worry
about the potatoes, we’ll get to them later. To make
objects more natural, tune them slightly using
different adjustment layers. You can hide their
masks, Shift+Right-click on the mask, to be guided
with the grass colour.