Tutorial Photoshop Displacement Maps

TUTORIAL |

DISPLACEMENT EFFECTS
Former Computer Arts Graduate Showcase entrant Pete Harrison uses Photoshop’s Displacement filter creatively to modify a photograph, using a variety of shapes and Blending Modes to add extra depth and interest
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PHOTOSHOP

TIME NEEDED

5 hours
INFO

Pete Harrison recently graduated from The University of Plymouth where he studied MediaLabArts. Since then he has become a freelance designer, working under his alias Aeiko, and formed his own clothing label called Funkrush. Find out more by visiting www.aeiko.net or www.funkrush.com.

In this tutorial you will learn how to use a variety of filters and techniques to produce an image in an experimental style. It’s a flowing work technique, and things will always change and blend into theimage in different ways, so don’t expect to recreate the exact image I have created here. You’ll need to think creatively and change things around until you think that it looks good and fits into this style. I will tell you how to do some of the techniques I use, and the tools for doing them, but it is you who will ultimately craft the image. It’s a good idea to get to know each filter individually,and know what you want to do to an image before you start applying them. It’s fun to experiment and mess around with filters, but remember Photoshop is just a tool for visualising your artwork. The techniques used in this tutorial can be applied to any image, but here you will use a photograph of a woman. You will use the Displace filter, apply different Displacement Maps and see how this affectsyour working canvas. You will also learn how to combine a few Blending Modes and colours mixed with shapes to fill the rest of the space and add to the image, giving a radical and abstract feel to some areas. Finally, you will look at Layer Masking as an effective means of separating areas of each layer, creating different ways to combine colours. This tutorial will teach you techniques that can thenbe applied to other images and help you realise some of your ideas in other ways. It is good to experiment and think of new ways to blend, using different Displacement Maps and Layer Styles, for example. Most importantly of all, be creative and have fun.

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Start by setting up your canvas. Create a square transparent document in Photoshop and open the photograph named original_image.jpg,provided on the CD. Drag the photo onto the new canvas you have just created and resize the height of the photo so that it fits perfectly into the square canvas and place it on the far left.

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Create a new layer and fill it with a black/ transparent gradient from the bottom right. Now use the Eraser tool to erase areas that overlap the model. Add a new Adjustment Layer for colour balance and addmore Magenta, Red and a bit of Yellow to give the image some extra warmth.

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Illustration and tutorial by Pete Harrison www.aeiko.net

You’ll see straight away that the picture is too small for the canvas, so duplicate the layer and scale it by 200 per cent. Put this layer behind the original and to the right. Merge the layers and use the Clone Stamp tool at a low Opacity with a soft brushto conceal the merging line between them.

Create a new layer, fill it with a pink/ orange diagonal gradient and set the Layer Mode to Screen. Go to Layer>AddLayer Mask>RevealAll and add black areas onto the mask in the areas you don’t want the layer to affect. Repeat this several times.

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March 2006

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PHOTOSHOP

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Copy Merged (Edit>CopyMerged) the whole canvasand paste it back on a new layer so that it becomes a separate layer. Open the AEIKO. psd files on the CD and save to your desktop. Now go to Filter>Distort> Displace. Set the Vertical and Horizontal Scale to 100 and make sure it is set to Stretch To Fit. Click OK. Select AEIKO001.psd from your desktop, and click OK again. Move the image to where you want it.

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Create a new layer and add a...