RoJo wrote:
Hi
Is there any way to make something look as if it has been spray painted with silver spray In photoshop.
I want to make an effect like this one:
http://www.computerarts.co.uk/gallery/gallery_2/march_2005?r esult_page=1
… But can’t find a way to make it look cool.
Exactly what you have to do depends on the type of image you’re working with. The image you link to, of a leaf, seems to work especially well because of all the delicate veins.
I tried this with a picture of a rose and did the following:
1. convert to greyscale
2. duplicate the image on a new layer
3. emboss the image and set the mode to multiply (this layer may need its opacity reduced if things look too dark or too bumpy)-don’t go nuts embossing – just do enough to wake up the detail and add a little depth
4. duplicate the original image again and placed it on a layer above the
embossed layer and applied a "metallic" curves setting (it’s hard to describe but you can find a lot of tutorials for such settings if you Google "Photoshop metallic curves"-it often looks like 3 little "hills" in the curves box). The results of this should make for an extemely silvery-looking image on that layer.
5. Set the metallic layer to 50% opacity and the mode to multiply
6. Create a levels adjustment layer and adjust as needed to bring out
highlights and shadows and lighten the image.
You may also need to apply an unsharp mask to one of the layers (depending on how the embossing turned out and the level of detail you want). Sharpening will be necessary to bring out detail (which will show reflectivness in the "metallic" parts. Also, you need to play around with the opacity quite a bit to tweak how reflective things look.
It’s not an exact science because the type of image has a big effect on the outcome. There also may be a simpler way to do it with curves and other blending modes or with lighting effects. This is just what I came up with in about 10 minutes and it looked pretty much like the leaf you showed. The effect is also better with the background removed or blurred because there’s better contrast along the edges.
The main "problem" I had (and this may be related to the type of image) was some areas being blown out by highlights (as if it were highly reflective) and showing no detail in that area. However, that didn’t stop it from looking metallic. It just stopped it from looking like the leaf in your example. This could probably be fixed by being more careful with curves and levels though.
Orchid
