Dieter does Photoshop!

[∬: Erik Schneider]

Liam looks cross-eyed.

And bat-sh*t insane.

I applaud your work, PuNk.

[PuNk! ™]

Thanks for the compliments, but now I feel bad that I've stolen Dieter's thread. Oops! But yeah, Dieter inspired me completely, I've never attempted a poster, movie poster piece of work before.

So yayz!

And yeah, he does look cross-eyed now you mention it, just makes him look all the more crazy anyway! Hehe. I'll have to see about making a similar poster for Tyler and whomever else will be joining the Jackals when it gets kickstarted.
~Danny

[Dieter "Iceman" Rentz]

Lol, that's pretty great, PuNk! ;D

Anyway, yeah, thanks for the people with comments on my work. The poster was made with three images, that of the priest, a picture of Kiefer Sutherland (well, dur!) and the church interior that's on the background. Then I added a bit of angelic wings and lighting and colours somewhere there. Maybe next time I'll make a small tutorial showing how these things come together.

[Dieter "Iceman" Rentz]

Max got his own poster-thingie. It's kind of dark, might have made it even too dark... But thieves like the murky shadows, anyway!

I was going to make a very comprehensive guide on how I ended up with this result, but... then I got very lazy. This one was pretty simple, since it didn't require me to edit the clothes or decapitate anyone, so the image was created from these three images:

The actor | The background | A random texture

Here's a list of some of the things I did at the pictures, but it's not a comprehensive list because I tend to do a lot of tweaking. All of this was done in Photoshop, of course.

1. Cut the background from around teh dude.
2. Clone the text away from the actor's picture using the awesome-o clone tool.
3. I was too lazy to cut the background away properly from around the hair, but then I zoom in and use the eraser tool, first a bigger size and then a smaller one for details.
4. Very nice, the hair looks better now, also added some shadows around the entire image, which I then tone down a little.
5. Added some strange lighting as a base.
6. Adding the text in at this phase already, just to see how it looks.
7. Adding the green texture, setting the layer to "exclusion" and opacity to about 20-30%.
8. Didi, you ruined it! No, I didn't, I just made some pretty colours and then set the new layer to "subtract", then it looks all better again.
9. See? Yes, there is a change of colours, very artistic people can see it. ;D
10. Giving a slightly hazy feeling to the picture here. With randoms.
11. Eliminating some of the red colour from the image.

After this, various tweaks were made, including making some new shadows on the coat and skin and eliminating the excess lighting on the hair. (It's moonlight, but it's not that bright!) It seems like a small change, but observing the sources of lighting and adjusting the images accordingly can make it seem a lot more real. Also softened the edges and most likely did at least twenty small little adjustments I forgot to record here, but those are... trade secrets.

[Dieter "Iceman" Rentz]

One for the two different Evas. And the title is what Mitzi wanted to use in this one! Could use some extra tweaking now that I look at it, but it turned out ok, still.

[Nevena Grosdova]

Well, there's only one thing I can say here.

[PuNk! ™]

Alright so I gave it a shot at making another poster, using a few techniques you use Dieter (that I prodominately use anyway), but I've never really given it a thought to use textures as overlays before, I usually tarnish everything with brush-textures, so I used that technique instead (can probably see the texture overlay slightly on the picture) and spruced up a few areas.

However, one thing I didn't really understand, was the shadow part. I'm not sure how you cascade shadows in your posts, but I'd like to know how, because I usually darken/brush my pictures with some sort of shadowing or use a method to distort the edges.

Anyway, I saved the picture and then gave your colour technique a go and I came out with the following picture.

Ironically, I've never done this before, where you paint over the picture with different colours, but opposed to just blobbing it all on, I modified the layer to 20% opacity and then set it to "burn" (because the picture is dark and suited it well) and then used three types of colour specifically for the picture. Orange, yellow and blue. The orange and yellow for the background/alley walls and the blue for Liam's clothing, to make it seem a bit lighter in the alley light.

Anyway I've certainly learned some new techniques from you Dieter and my work above should show it. Thank you Didi!
~Danny

[Dieter "Iceman" Rentz]

Very nice look on the posters, Danny!

I almost missed the question about shadows. I just mess around with brushes to create shadows. I tend to create one layer for "corner shadows" for a movie poster look, so I'll just brush random shadows in the edges of the poster and then tone them down or adjust them accordingly. Sometimes I use the gradient tool for shadows that affect the entire image, but the use of the tool depends on the picture and it's mood, really. Use black brush, create some shadows, tweak the opacity. I usually end up with several confusing layers of different shadows...

Thirdly, I create different layers for random shadows and brush them in, playing close attention to the light sources in the picture. Sometimes it's also nice to experiment with Photoshop's Render -> Lighting Effects, but it doesn't create quite as realistic shadows as the ones you make yourself. Burn is good, but then it tends really just to... burn certain colours, making them all wonky at times. It's good with some parts of the picture, though, and I use it sometimes, too.

Sorry for the boring Photoshop lecture, everyone.

[Dieter "Iceman" Rentz]

Some stuff I made several months ago for a horror-type of plot between Eva and Max... and which came out looking like they are the CSI of supernatural. It is composed of about four or five different images, if I remember right, but lost the original PSD, so could not check! (And click for a larger image.)