05 November 2010

Deep Freeze Tutorial


Deep Freeze © Roberta Murray

I know I have a few photographers who are regular readers, and there has always been interest in me discussing how I create my images. I've encouraged readers to speak up and ask questions, but nobody ever really does. For the past few years I've sold tutorials through Etsy. I've also offered texture packages and have always intended to make more of my textures available individually. Because of the hassle of selling digital content through Etsy, and never really having found a reasonable alternative, that project has always sat on the back burner. After looking at Zenfolio, I found they are able to offer a reasonable solution and fit in with my plans to streamline my online presence. So finally, I'm able to offer individual textures and will be writing some basic tutorials to help you work with them.


Deep Freeze was a fairly straight forward image to create. I simply added the Jack Frost texture (below) on top of the base image of the poppy blossom and changed the blend mode to Overlay. Because the texture was too heavy in the flower area I created a layer mask and using the paintbrush with the color set to black and opacity at 60%, I brushed over the flower area to reduce the texture effect in this select area. I ended up going over the flower again, so could have set my opacity at 100%, but I always like to work at a lower opacity first and build up the mask gradually. Often I start really low, like at 35%, and build up certain areas more than others. With this type of masking it's often desirable to apply a 40 or 50% Gaussian Blur to the mask to soften the edges.

Never worked with layer masks before? There's a good tutorial on the Lunacore website.


Jack Frost (9x13" 300dpi) Texture $4.00

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