Ok, in this Tutorial I will be showing you how to create a similar image to my Tree poster. I'm going to give rough settings for everything, but these change depending on what you want it for. I did a poster the first time, but this one will be a background for me for my new computer, so I will be working with low values. Getting it right for your purpose takes a bit of experimentation, but the principles stay the same.
Step 1: Preparing the background
1st step is giving yourself a nice background to work on. This method is adapted from one I learnt doing the “illuminate” picture, although perhaps more refined in a sense.
Start by opening a new document the size you want your picture to be. As I said, this is going to be a background for me, so I am using 1024x600, which is my screen resoloution.
Afterthat pick a grey primary color and black as your secondary color. The grey you choose depends on how dark you want your background to be in the end, dont use white because it messes with the tree later, but anything darker than 20% (Brightness value of 80% or lower, your call) should be ok. Use this to make a liner gradient with black ofer the top of the image and
your grey at the bottom.
Create a new layer and select a rectangular marque over the bottom section, to between a quarter and a third up the page. Again, this depends on the proportions of your
image as to how much you chose to take. Fill this with the same gradient as a radial, from the top-centre of the marque, as shown below.
After this, Dupilacte the layers and merge the coppies. Set the blenging mode to overlay and shift it down a bit. I used about 80 pixels for mine. Apply a motion blur as below.
Allright, thats the background more or less done. For neatness, put these layers into a new group called “background” and lets get onto the tree.
Part 2: Tree Body
Before I did this I adjusted mybackground from those I showed above to give me more “sky” space, didn't want to much of a sunted tree.Start by swithing to the brush tool. This is the section that will require the most individual tweeking, and also the most dedication. It can be tedious but if you are looking this far you must think the effect is worth it.
Ok, with the brush tool set to white, open the brush engine. Use settings similar to the below, where “?” means to set your own value close to the given and play arround. Unless otherwise specified they are default settings.
Shape Dynamics: Control – fade –80?; Minimum diameter – 0;
(for an interesting texture effect set the background color to grey and in color dynamics set
forground-background jitter to 100%, control off)
Onces that is done, set your brush size to about what you want the final trunk thickness to be, and create a new layer. At this stage I put all the background layers into a new group called “background”.
Start at the centre of your canvas and paint your trunk shape, then add thick branches by reducing the size of the brush. You may need to tweek the value of the fade control.
After this, work with smaller and smaller brushes to expand the detail of the branches and twigs. Mine looks a little bussy but its not to bad.
Once you have done all this it should look something like the one below. Note that I tried to keep it balanced on both sides as much as possible without making it seem too symetrical, and that I also avoided it going off the edges.
Now its time for the roots. Same principal as the branches, and probably a good idea to work on a new layer. I am NOT going to worry about keeping them on the screen. This is easiter in full screen mode (Hotkey F) as you can zoom and still scroll off the edge.
Part 3: Leaves
Now is when you decide the finishing color of your tree, in a way. You can avoid this by using shades of grey and color adjustment layers but I'm not going into how to do that here, so for now, pick a color. I'm using green in this case, so I have set my foreground color as a dark green and background as thelightest shade of green I want to have (dark: #1f9e01, Light: #a5f198).
Go into the brush engine again, andthis time use settings similar to these:
Scattering: Scatter – Both axis – 650%; Count 1 – Count Jitter 100%;
Color Dynamics: Foreground background jitter – 100%; all other sliders 0%
Now make a new layer and start to paint the bigger set of leaves, and then go over with some more vivid colors smaller.
Alright, one final touch, go and make duplicates of the roots and branches, and merge them, putting the new layer above the roots and branches but below the leaves. Control/comand click the new layer to make it a selection, then add a layer mask to it using that selection. Select the layer again (make sure it is layer not the mask) and render clouds with black foreground and white background (filter > render > Clouds), then use the find edges filter (Filter > Styalise > find edges)
There, its done, feel free to tweek, my final image is below.
Posts
