In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to achieve the Hollywood Highlights effect, that you can find in my latest group of actions.

1.  If you have retouched the image and made density corrections, press crtl-shift-alt-E to make a merged copy of the image. If you are working from the original image, skip this step.

2. Press crtl-alt-tilde (~) to load the highlights in the image.

3. Press crtl-J to duplicate the image and name the layer highlights.

4. Press crtl then click on the new layer to load the selection. Click on the background layer and press crtl-J again. Name this layer Shadows.

5. Change the blend mode of the Highlight layer to screen and the blend mode of Shadows layer to Multiply and you’re done!

You can also adjust the opacity of the shadow and highlight layers to suit the image that you are working on. In the example image, the opacity of both layers is left at 100%. the action also leaves both the layers opacity at 100%.

Here’s the final image:

Here you can download the action on its own:

The Hollywood Highlights Action is also available for download at the AllyKatDesign Shop.

Been a little while since I have written a tutorial, so I thought I would make it a good one

I’ve been thinking again about the earlier Dave Hill tutorial that I have written and I don’t think that I did his work justice, so here’s take two Again I’m using the Topaz Adjust Filter to speed things up a little.

I looked at the Dave Hill website again (nice upgrade btw!) and carefully studied all the elements again:

• Everything is usually in focus and sharp, so foreground and background and of course the people.
• High contrast of colour
• Faux HDR look of everything

So lets get to work Firstly I thought about the kind of photo that I wanted to create and for some reason I came up with a street fighter styled idea. Here are the three stock images that I used:

Each image above links to the stock images that I used.

And here is what I ended up with:

So let’s break it down.

1. Cut out the two fighters in each of the stock images. I used the pen tool and then channels for the hair. Save the two original files with the layers and the mask in case you need to make adjustments to them.

2.Drag the two fighters to the new canvas  and resize to make them fit the background image.

3. Create two folders and name them Fighter 1 and Fighter 2. Drag each fighter layer into its own folder. This will make it easier to edit them both later on. Turn both of there folders off for now.

4. Duplicate the background layer. Now its time to make it a bit more detailed. Go to Filter>Topaz Labs>Topaz Adjust 3. From the side menu, choose the preset Crisp, then click ok.

5. Turn on Fighter 1 folder. Create a layer below the cut out  in the same folder and with the brush tool, with the opacity set at 25%, draw in a shadow.  Start darker at the foot, the lighter as it end. Apply a guassian blur of about 5px, then turn the layer opacity down to 50%.

6. Add a curves adjustment layer. Create a gentle S to bring up the contrast. Right mouse click on the curves layer and select create clipping mask from the fly out menu.  On the mask of the curves layer, mask out the pants of the fighter.

7. Add a hue/saturation adjustment layer. Lower the saturation to -50%. Right mouse click on the hue/saturation layer and select create clipping mask from the fly out menu.

8. Alt-click on the fighter layer so its the only layer active. Then hold crtl-alt and press the tilde (~) key. This will select the highlights in the image. Set this layer’s blend mode to screen and opacity to 65%. Apply a layer mask. On the mask of this layer, mask out the pants of the fighter again. Then turn the background layer back on.

9. Repeat steps 4 to 7 for Fighter 2 folder.

10. Now its time to blend the fighters a little bit more into the background. Press Ctrl-Alt-Shift and E at the same time to create a new merged layer of all the layers below. Go to Filter>Topaz Labs>Topaz Adjust 3. From the side menu, choose the preset Neutraliser_by_JorgeDiaz, then click ok.

11. Create another Curves Adjustment layer and pull it down in the middle to darken the whole image a little.

12. Create a blank layer and select the elliptical marquee tool and draw a big oval. Then press crtl-alt-i to invert the selection and fill it with black with the paint bucket tool.

13. Apply a Gaussian Blur of 70 px and lower the opacity of the layer to 65%.

14. Create another blank layer and fill it with 50% grey. Turn the layer’s blend mode to soft light. With the brush tool, set to 30% opacity and 30% flow and with black as the foreground colour, go over all the shadows on the two fighters and darken them a bit more. Switch the colour to white and go over the highlights to bring them out some more.

15. Press Ctrl-Alt-Shift and E to create another merged layer copy. Then hold crtl-alt and press the tilde (~) key to select all the highlights of the images. Now press crtl-alt-i to invert the selection and hit crtl-j to create a new layer from the selection.  Change the layers blend mode to multiply and lower the opacity of this layer to 65%.

16. All done

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of shooting with one of the most wonderful models that I have ever worked with! He was an absolute inspiration and is now my muse. It was incredible to work with someone, where every photo and pose were just perfect. Imagine sorting through those photos and trying to pic out the best! It was very difficult, but I prevailed and offer now just a small sample from the shoot. Enjoy!

Lately I have been searching for some interesting ideas for business cards as its time to order some more. Of course I’ll be ordering them from Moo.com again as the quality was unsurpassed the last time.

I came across a website that will create tag clouds out of random phrases and words that paste in. It gives you the option to change the fonts colours and layout. The site is http://www.wordle.net/

Some other ideas that I have had for this is to make the tag clouds into canvases, printed art and t-shirts as it allows you to save as a pdf which you can convert to a vector and resize it to any size that you need or want. I have included a few examples for you to look at.

Have fun creating your word art 

Phew has it been a busy start to the year!!!

A few restorations, a wedding, retouching jobs and websites to do and I don’t know where the time has gone!

I have finally added a restoration section to my portfolio which will be updated again shortly. You can check it out here.

There is a new site added to AllyKatDesign portfolio – superhealth-fitness.com.

This has been designed for personal trainer Matt D’Angelo, so that existing and new clients can benefit from his expertise. You can visit his site here.

Ausbeauties is getting a complete overhaul, with all the images being retouched by yours truly with a fresh new look that will showcase the girls and photography beautifully.

Peninsula Hapkido maybe getting a new look shortly as well, moving over to a Joomla cms, making it easier for the owners to update their site.

So all in all its been a busy start to the year, but I think it will just keep getting busier and busier as it gets along, but one of my new years resolutions is to update my website much more often!

Today I finally set up my second monitor for my computer.

A bit of a kerfuffle as I needed to get a DVI To SVGA/VGA adapter in order to plug it into my graphics card. Half hour wait at the computer shop got me the adapter and I was on my way home to set it up.

The second problem that I ran into was the fact that the new monitor calibration was completely out. :S I tried calibrating it visually – nearly but no dice! So I went to the trusty google search for answers. The following method that I found was extremely helpful and hope that you find it just as helpful

If you are able to distinguish all the different shades of black, then your monitor is properly calibrated. The shades should also be neutral and not tinged with other colours ie: magenta, green, blue, yellow, red or cyan.

Colour Bars

The first chart shows the graduations of neutral colour, as with the first  chart above, you should be able to distinguish the different shades without any colour casts to any of the different levels.

The next charts are similar to the above grey scale chart. They show the graduations of pure red, green and blue. You should be able to distinguish each graduation at the bright end. Although you should be able to distingush the different levels at the dark end, they may blend together.

This method that I have described above is fairly accurate if you don’t have a monitor calibration kit.

You can also do a search for monitor calibration images that you can set as your desktop and calibrate your monitor visually.

If you are serious in regards to calibrating your monitor for photoshop or creating print designs or photography, the best way is to use a monitor calibration device.

Phew xmas is over!! What a turbulent time. I apologise for my silence as of late, but it seems that everyone needs a rush job done before xmas!

So I have organised a little treat for my loyal readers and gathered up all the popular t-shirt designs by AllykatDesign.

RedBubble

From the RedBubble Collection I have included the four top sellers: Inspired by Dexter and Gothic themes.

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If you would like to see more t-shirts you can have a look here: view all t-shirts designs or for all artwork you can have a look  here: RedBubble Portfolio.

CafePress

From the CafePress Collection I have included the four top sellers: Inspired by Dexter blood Spatter, Punky Skull and Gothic inspired by Abbey themes.

If you would like to see more t-shirts you can have a look here: view all t-shirts designs

B-Town Clothing

From the B-town Clothing Range I have included the two AllyKatDesign designed t-shirts that are exclusively sold by B-Town Clothing.

I have also inlcuded photos of the t-shirts being worn at B-Sound 2 that was held at Revolver 2008. Its very exciting to see the designs being worn by real people!!

To see more of the B-Town Clothing Range that is expanding all the time just have a look here: B-Town Clothing.

AllyKatDesign can also create personal unique t-shirts as custom orders. Click here to send an enquiry or to request a custom design.

The new look Brendan B Photography website has been rolled out!!

Not much has changed for those of you have visited the site previously, except it has become more polished and sleek. It still features the same easy to navigate menu and gallery, and the mailto link has been upgraded to a contact form, which of course thanks the user for taking the time to send an email.

The new Peninsula Hapkido website has been rolled out!!

There isn’t much content yet, just a home page and a contact page, but its slowly filling up with more content soon The form has also been updated to thank the person that submitted it, which is quickly becoming an AllyKatDesign trademark for  contact forms.

Its good to see the new layout up and running finally!

Stay tuned for more updates.

I just recently ordered some new business cards and thought that I would go for something a little different.

I went to www.moo.com and ordered their mini cards.

I uploaded the above 7 different designs and put my details on the back of the card. Also couldn’t resist the little moo business card holder so I added that to my cart too.

Expecting to wait up to two weeks for the cards that were coming from the UK I was pleasantly surprised when they arrived in just over a week! I am extremely impressed with the quality of this company’s customer service! Its just the little things that make them fantastic, like little stickers on the packaging that say Yay! and Oooh Hello, we hope you like your new moo mini card holder. It does all feel very personalised.

It might also be the fact that I have had problems ordering from os companies (that shall remain nameless!) and have been disappointed with their printing quality, customer service and how long it takes for delivery.

I have already recommended moo to clients and I definitely have no qualms recommending it again!

Yay! I love moo!