LIGHTING AND DETAILS
CREATE A 3D LOOK USING LIGHTING AND SHADOWSTECHNIQUES CREATE A 3D INFOGRAPHIC
QUICK TIP
Know, use and love different adjustment layers.
They allow you to do some fine-tuning without
any losses to the source image. This approach is
very helpful in a real-life workflow when you
always have to change things that you’d thought
you’d already finished.HAVE A FRESH LOOK AT YOUR WORK
From time to time check your illustration using these handy tricks. The first one is the flip trick. Merge
all layers on the top, Alt+Shift+Cmd/Ctrl+E, flip it horizontally and you will see any flaws that you hadn’t
noticed before. It works because your brain can recognise a rotated image as an already-seen one but
when an image is flipped it sees it as a new one. Next is the contrast trick. Desaturate the merged layer
and you will see any trouble in the contrast. And last but not least is the zoom trick. Zoom out of your
work a lot and you’ll be able to catch sight of any weaknesses in the composition.14
LIGHTING OF THE PIE
As you can see on the source photos the
sun is on the right. To create a 3D look add some
highlights and shadows to the pie. Go to the soil
groups and create in them new layers in Overlay
and Normal modes. Draw shadows on the left
sides using a huge soft black brush with a low
Opacity of 5-10%. Do the same for highlights using
a white brush. Now add some aerial perspective on
the surface. Make a group with a black and white
gradient mask (white on the top) and lighten the
distant parts of the pie using a Brightness/Contrast
layer. Add a bit of blue with Color Balance.15
DROP SHADOW
Create a group below the pie. Make a
selection from the mask of the ‘Soil’ group. Blur it
using the Gaussian Blur filter with a small radius of
1-2. Create a black ellipse looking like the bottom
of the pie. Rasterize it then blur it using Motion Blur
filter (0° and 30-70 distance) then blur it with
Gaussian Blur (10-30). Move it a bit to the left.
Group the shadows and remove any shadow at the
crevices using a mask and black brush. Make a
copy and blur it with a huge radius. Tune the
opacities to reach the best result.16
SOIL TRANSITION
Next you need to make the borders between
the soil layers more natural. Improve the soil masks
using rough black and white brushes with Opacity
70-100%. Don’t think too much, just follow your
instincts. In order to join the soil layers, copy the
texture from the top layer and group below it.
Desaturate it and turn the layer mode to Overlay.
Tune the intensity of the folds with a Brightness/
Contrast layer. Then curve the edges of the side of
the pie using the Smudge tool with 50% strength.17
STONES GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT
If an illustration whets the appetite it
means it’s a realistic piece of artwork. You have
created a pie; so let’s add some tasty details. Create
a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer above the
soil groups but below the Lighting one. Lighten the
soil and enhance the contrast in such a way as to
make the stones look like nuts good enough to eat.
Mask the layer with black, then grab a rough white
brush and reveal some yellow stones on the middle
soil layer. Yum!18
ADD SOME ROOTS
It’s a detail that can bring more life to the
illustration. But it’s hard to find a good tiled photo of
real grass roots so let’s try to find something similar.
Go to http://www.cgtextures.com and download
‘GrassDead0042’ tiled texture. Open the file, select all,
Cmd/Ctrl+A, and define new pattern. Create a Pattern
Fill Layer below the ‘Lighting’ group and tune the
colour of the roots using Brightness/Contrast and
Hue/Saturation layers. Then mask the pattern layer
with black and reveal roots using a rough white brush.