Rendering an image in Photoshop from scratch using the Pen Tool. Drawing a logo in Photoshop

DRAWING OF A CAR IN VECTOR STYLE.

PREPARATION.

Selecting a photo.

Photo selection is often overlooked special significance, but in vain - the quality directly depends on the original photo future work. So a few hours on the Internet searching for a suitable picture is perhaps the most important part of the entire project. I can recommend the Image Search function in Google and AltaVista search engines.

Size matters! The larger the photo, the better; don't start with a tiny photo and expect the same result as working with a desktop-sized image, i.e. 1024*768 or larger.

Photos taken in a studio work best. On studio photographs the light is placed in such a way as to favorably emphasize the shape of the car, and there are no unwanted reflections from the buildings around it. Thus, a good studio photo will make your drawing more accurate and make working on it much easier. If you still don’t have the opportunity to get a high-quality studio picture, a photograph taken outside on a quiet, clear day will help achieve similar results.

For work, I chose this photo measuring 1280*850 pixels. It clearly shows all the details I need, as well as shadows and highlights, headlights and interior.

Preliminary modification.

It's very rare that your original photo perfectly matches the desired result. Don't despair - editing a photo is not difficult. Don't like the wheels, spoiler, body kit or height of your dream car? So change everything that doesn't fit.
Have you always dreamed of seeing what a Nissan R33 GTR tuning looks like with a 240SX front end? Yes, me too, so what’s the problem - do as you want. The great thing about this "finishing" is that you don't have to worry too much about getting the car parts exactly right, since you'll be painting on top of them anyway. And you certainly don’t have to worry about the color of the car, here you are completely free in your choice.

This is what my "modified" RX7 looks like. I just added a tire.

TUNING.

Okay, you've done your homework, found a photo, and what next?

It's time for Photoshop.

Before starting tuning, close all unnecessary menus like History/Actions/Tool Presets and Colour/Swatches/Styles, since you won’t need them and will only get in the way.

The only thing you really need to work is the Layers and Paths window.

We make a stroke.

So, the first step is tracing the outlines.

First, you need to create a new layer. To do this, click on the fifth icon at the bottom of the layers menu.

Then make sure you have the same settings as in the picture below. The standard color for stroke outlines is black, but you can use any color you want.

Using the Pen tool, outline the main outline of the car. Add a mouse click reference points. After adding a point, you can manipulate the curve with the mouse.

To accurately trace contours, it is often useful to zoom in on the drawing. To quickly zoom in/out, you can use Ctrl in combination with + (to zoom in) or with - (to remove).

I usually draw outlines at a close zoom, so moving around the "canvas" can represent known difficulty. To make navigation easier, you can use the space bar to move freely in the desired direction. Releasing the spacebar will reactivate the previously selected tool.

So, after finishing the stroke, you need to decide on its thickness. Select the Brush tool and set the brush to the desired thickness. I chose a 4 px brush, but where such a stroke looks too massive, I used a 3 px brush, but the parameters of the brush are entirely up to you.

After selecting the brush, select the empty layer created at the very beginning and open the Paths tab (it's next to Layers). The outline you outlined is here. Select Work Path and click on the Stroke Path button at the bottom.

The next step after the basic outline is working out the details. For optimal look, use a brush different thicknesses. Select details that are more or less important to you and adjust the stroke thickness according to the importance of the detail. For example, I outlined the outlines of the windows and headlights with a 3 pixel brush, and for the rest of the details I used a 2 or 1 pixel brush.

Painting.

Create a new layer below the outline layer.

Use the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) to trace the outside outline of the car. The point of this manipulation is to select and fill the entire contour with color, which will serve as a base for further work with color. As is the case with Pen Tool, use zoom and space+drag to move around the drawing.

After selecting the outline, exclude from the selected area areas that do not need to be painted. For example, I removed the area between the spoiler and the rear body and roof.

It's time to choose a color for the car. It's not easy to explain the best way to do this, but I usually take the Eyedropper Tool (I) and sample a color that takes up a larger area of ​​the car than the rest. It’s easier to work with this fill later.

Paint the selection on a new layer with the selected color using a large brush or fill. The results obtained with the brush and fill are slightly different, personally I prefer the brush.

There you go. From now on you will have to work on the chiaroscuro of the body. There are several here important points. First, always create a new layer for a new color. Always use the Pen to draw areas outside of the pre-drawn outline. Never use Lasso to create such "open" colored areas.

Painting completed successfully. At this stage I finally decided on the final color of my car. So far I've been making it blue since that's the original color of the car in the photo, but after finishing painting I realized I wanted to change the color.

At this stage, changing the color is quite simple. I hope you remember to save your work regularly, but now is the time to save everything into a new file. Whenever I plan to change something radically, I always make a backup copy of the entire file so that I can return to it if something happens. Towards the end of drawing this RX7
I had 7 files with different versions of the drawing.

In one of the copies, glue the layers into one.

Now, if you want to change the overall color of the car, simply change the Hue/Saturation layer (Ctrl+U). If you want to make the car two-color, simply select the desired area with a pen and change its color. I made my car black and orange.

Having figured out the body color, I had to spend a little more time on the outline color. I left some of the lines black, but had to change the color of some to match the orange body, as well as make the outline darker or lighter in some places.

To create the illusion of three-dimensional joints of the body parts, I added light lines next to the dark ones, something like this. I applied this technique to several parts of the body.

Now the body painting is finished, but there is still plenty of work to do. So let's get to the headlights.

LIGHTS.

I always think about how the overall headlights will look in advance when working on the body color.

Here I came to the conclusion that it would be best to paint each part of the headlight separately. For example, here is the original photo of the headlight.

What can we see on it? So, there are two similar bulbs and an indicator lamp in the center. Around them is a fiberglass body. This entire structure is surrounded by a thick black frame, and the entire headlight is entirely glass with white rivets.

After I have decided what exactly I have to draw, I start working with the headlights using the same algorithm as with the body of the car.

First, a basic fill of the outline, then a new layer for the highlights on the fiberglass, a new layer for the light bulbs, a layer for the edging and rivets.

Base color, highlights and headlight surround.

With lamps.

As you can see, I only drew one light bulb and then duplicated it. This not only helped save time, but also made the whole job more consistent.

All that remains is to add white rivets and create the effect that everything is under glass. To do this, I create a new layer on top of the headlight layers and apply a light white gradient to it from top to bottom. This is intended to create the effect of glass on top of the headlight.

White rivets and gradient.

The finished headlight has a less pronounced blue tint than the original. This happened because after painting the body orange, I decided that blue headlights were out of place.

The second headlight was painted exactly the same way.

And this is a car already with headlights.

SALON.

The process of drawing the interior is similar to drawing headlights. Look at the photo, decide what you want to add or change, and then act.

Here is a photo of the interior of my RX7.

So what do we see there? A couple of seats, a speaker, a steering wheel, a rear view mirror, etc. Here are the drawn individual parts of the interior after tuning.

Since we can't see much through the side window, I didn't even try to draw the parts of the interior that are visible through it.

Now the car has a salon.

WHEELS.

The very first step when drawing wheels is to draw the shadow of the car.

Using basic technique drawing, draw a shadow outline on a new layer. This layer should be the bottom one.

How dark your shadow is doesn't matter. However, if you intend to detail the wheel, it will be better to make the shadow lighter so that the details can be seen. I'm going for realism, so I'm painting a light gray shadow.

Let's start drawing the wheels.

To begin with, I chose a suitable photo.

I cut out the piece I needed, stuck it in place, and added a shadow to get the best possible idea of ​​what I wanted to end up with.

Just like for the headlights, I created a wheel-shaped layer with a single color fill. For the disk I added a gray ellipse.

Then with a pen I drew another ellipse for the disk, to give it some realism I applied Bevel to it. To do this, double-click on the layer icon in the Layers menu and select Bevel&Emboss. For such thin objects, a value of just 1 pixel is enough to achieve the desired effect.

Layers within a wheel.

For the other wheel, I simply copied the elements of the right one and distorted them accordingly. Since the other wheel is almost invisible, the distortion did not affect the quality of the final result.

Here is the wheel ply structure for my Fabulous RX8 tuning. The principle of drawing this wheel is exactly the same. The diagram shows how I work with layers, as well as how I give the layers “telling” names.

Here's my RX7 with wheels.

If you have reached this stage, then you can rightfully say that you are finished and have done a great job. However, we can add a few more finishing touches to our tuning.

The last parts of the lesson will be devoted to these finishing touches.

CARBON.

In this part of the tutorial I will try to explain how I draw carbon. For simplicity's sake, I'll only be working on the hood of the car, but you can apply this method to anything, including wheels and the interior.

Create a texture.

As with most carbon drawing tutorials, let's first create a Pattern, the simpler it is, the better.

Hello, dear readers of PhotoCASA magazine!
Today I am with you, Anna Zadvornova, with a new lesson in which I will tell you how to draw a portrait. So, let's begin!
First, open the original image.
Let's go to Curves.


Next Selective color correction, set the values:
RED: Cyan +4, Magenta –9, Yellow +7, Black –2.
YELLOW: cyan –13, magenta –3, yellow +3, black +3.
CYAN: cyan +15, magenta –6, yellow –60, black +7.
BLUE: Cyan +100, Magenta –55, Yellow –84, Black +11.
NEUTRAL: Cyan –2, Magenta –2, Yellow –1, Black 0.
BLACK: Cyan –1, Magenta 0, Yellow –1, Black 0.
Combine all layers into one ctrl+alt+shift+E, go to the Color efex pro 4 filter and apply the Detail extractor effect.
Set the values: detail extractor 32%, contrast 0%, saturation 0%, effext radius (Large).


Duplicate this layer and carefully draw on it.
To do this, take the Finger tool and select a special brush with strokes (you need to download). We draw along the lines of the face, hair, clothes, and so on, changing the diameter and intensity of the brush.


Combine the layers into one, take the Mix Brush tool, set all values ​​to 20% and go over the skin.


Create a new layer, blending mode Overlay. Using a white 5% brush we draw highlights and light on the face, hair and clothes, and with a black brush we draw shadows.


We combine the layers into one, go to the portraiture filter, set the preset to medium, go through the black mask with a white brush only over the skin.


We combine all the layers into one ctrl+alt+shift+E, go to the Color efex pro 4 filter, and apply several effects:
1. Detail extractor. Set the values: detail extractor 10%, contrast 0%, saturation 0%, effext radius (Large);
2. Darken/Lighten center: shape 2, center luminosity 25%, border luminosity –40%, center size 63%, opacity 69%;
3. Ink: color set 1, strength 12%, opacity 31%;
4. Photo stylize (varitone): stile 1, strengtn 28%, opacity 8%.
Go to Levels, set the values ​​as in the screenshot.


Create a Selective color correction layer, set the values:
RED: Cyan –3, Magenta –4, Yellow +8, Black 0.
YELLOW: cyan –12, magenta –5, yellow +10, black 0.
Hue/Saturation, set the values:
RED: +1, +8, 0.
YELLOW: +1, +13, 0.
BLUE: +3, +12, 0.
Next, set the Curves, as in the screenshot.


Combine the layers into one, go to Filter > Sharpening > Mask Mask. We set the values: effect 152%, radius 3.2 px, isohelium 0.
For those who want a brighter and more saturated photo picture, you can twist the curve in Lab mode, which is what I did.
Finally, let’s combine all the layers into one, ctrl+alt+shift+E, go to Filter > Filter Gallery > Texture > Texturizer. Select Limestone, set the scale to 200%, relief 3, brush the face with a brush at 40% opacity through a white mask, set the layer opacity to 70%.

We looked at automatic translation variations through selection areas. We have also clearly seen that automatic translation most often does not give the desired result. I will say more, when translating a logo into a vector, it most often does not work. In such situations, manual drawing comes to the rescue. The benefits of manual drawing on the face. It’s not difficult, you get a high-quality vector logo, but most importantly, manual drawing is a paid service that is offered by many design studios and printing houses. Of course, they don’t do this in Photoshop, but the principles are practically the same. In addition, after completing the work in you will receive working vector curves and importing them into Illustrator is a matter of one minute.

Let's start with simpler logos, first draw the old logo of the TELE2 office, then grab Bill Gates. So let's get started.

Drawing the TELE2 logo into a vector

Let's start by drawing simple vector primitives. Fortunately, the logo consists almost entirely of them. You can read more about vector primitives in my article.

  • Select a tool Rectangle Tool;
  • Make sure that in the settings Options options selected Shape Layers And Snap to Pixels;
  • More about the option Snap to Pixels and the entire settings panel for the vector you can read in my article;
  • About the option Shape layers described in detail in the article.

  • Draw the first primitive
  • Select the icon in the options bar Add to Shape area (+)
  • This option will translate vector tool to add mode. In other words, the next time you try to draw a shape, you will add this shape to the existing ones, and not create a new one. The entire logo will be on one vector mask, and not split into 100 layers. Read more about this in my article
  • Continue drawing shapes.

You have already noticed that most of the letters are repeated, and drawing each one from scratch is pointless. In addition, because of this, the same letters can look different.

  • Select a tool Path Selection Tool and select a piece of the letter E;
  • Click ALT And CTRL. Click on the shape and drag it down;
  • Key ALT will copy the shape, and the key SHIFT will allow you to drag the figure down along a strict vertical line.

  • Now the tool Path Selection Tool select the entire letter E;
  • Copy it in place of the second letter E.

Let's get to the hardest part, the two. Perhaps you already know that the complex consists of the simple. For example, the base of a two is a simple rectangle. And the hat partly consists of a circle. Let's try to depict all this using primitives.

  • Draw the frame of the two;
  • Select the circle tool Ellipse Tool and draw a circle on top of the hat;
  • In the Layers palette Layers lower the transparency so that you can see the logo through your layer;
  • Select circle with tool Path Selection Tool, if necessary, change the size and shape of the circle Edit > Free Thanform Path.

  • In the settings panel, switch from Add to Shape area (+) on Subtract from Shape area (-) We need to remove the excess;
  • Draw a circle in the center of the circle. Scale it if necessary Edit > Free Thanform Path;
  • Tool Rectangle cut off half the circle.

  • Select a tool Direct Selection Tool;
  • Click on the nodal point on the head of the two and adjust it manually. Correct the guides if necessary.

  • Select a tool Pen Tool;
  • In the vector settings, turn it on again Add to Shape area (+);
  • Now carefully draw the missing part. Make it as smooth as possible;
  • Learn more about drawing tools and Pen Tool read the article

Rendering the Microsoft logo into vector

  • First, let's draw an even rectangle the full height of the font;

  • Click Edit > Transform Path > Skew and tilt the rectangle so that it fits exactly with the leg of the letter M;
  • Using the methods described above, draw all the simple rectangles in the logo.

It's time letters ABOUT. Draw a circle.

Bend it through Edit > Transform Path > Skew

Switch to Subtract from Shape area (-) and cut a hole inside. Do the same manipulations with it.

If you cannot attach the circle exactly, correct the knots with a tool Direct Selection Tool



  • Select a tool Pen Tool;
  • Complete the missing details of the logo by hand;

  • Now let's take on the letter S. This letter consists of two ovals;
  • Draw the first oval;
  • Correct its guides and knots with a tool Direct Selection Tool;
  • Transform the oval if necessary Edit > Free Transform Path.

  • Draw a second oval. Correct it with Direct Selection Tool And Free Transform Path

  • Select the Pen Tool.
  • In the settings panel, switch to Subtract from Shape area (-)
  • Carefully draw the following shape. Out of habit, you may not be able to make flexible contours, but it will come out better every time.

Finally, The final stage logo drawing.

And this is what we got.

“Drawing pictures” I’ll write what I use myself, what method

I liked it. I will try to make the lesson detailed, because... it is important to understand and feel the method

pen drawing. In addition, there are many nuances that I will also try to cover in the lesson!
At first glance, everything seems difficult, but once you get the hang of it, you will see that this is a very accessible skill!
So let's get started.

1. First, we select the picture we want to draw. Usually this is not a very good drawing

quality, but with clearly visible contours. You can also draw fluffies, but this is a topic for

another lesson.

I will have this funny cat

2. Create a document 2000 x 2000 pixels on a transparent background


3. Drag your picture onto a new document with a transparent layer and transform (stretch) it

with the button held down (to maintain proportions) so that the picture is as close as possible to

our document.

4. Create a new layer. And in the future, we fill and outline each element on a separate

5. Usually, I create two layers in a row with an outline and a fill (later there will be many pairs), but for some

It will be more convenient to divide into folders, in one there are only outlines, in the other only fills. It’s more convenient for me to

everything was lying nearby, allowing you to navigate faster.) Then you yourself decide how you like it more

like. My version will look like this.

And also, in order not to accidentally get into the wrong layer, hang a lock, this will prohibit all actions

above the layer.

6. Well the last stage The preparation will include setting the desired brush size.
I will have a standard brush, diameter 15

With Shape Dynamic set to 40%. This is done for a beautiful thickening and thinning
lines; for straight lines this can be omitted.


7.Preparatory steps are completed, let's start drawing.
Make the fill layer active. Select the Pen Tool (P)

The selected modes will look like this. You can put a tick in the red circle at your discretion. To me

This function only gets in the way, but for some it makes the process very easy;) Try with and without it.

8. We determine which part will be the bottom (immediately imagine layered cake and what layer will it be

cover the next one). For us, this is the one above which there are more elements - a body with paws, a layer above -

head. Therefore, we start with the torso. Enlarge the desired fragment for convenience. We put point No. 1, then
We put point No. 2 and, without releasing the mouse, bend it so that it takes on the contours of our future line.

9. If you didn’t manage to get the line right the first time, hold down Alt and correct the position

moving the ends of the “antennae”
Or select the Convert Point Tool and also edit without resorting to the Alt key

By holding the Ctrl button you can move the point to the desired distance or by clicking on an empty field to complete this

segment, without resetting the constructed lines, begin to bend the following lines in the vector, but only those that are

parts of one part (one color).
By holding Ctrl+Alt you can copy the drawn line.

The rule I always use is to make as few “nodes” on the line as possible, only the most

necessary, without which the line will not work. How more points you bet, the more irregularities

will arise as a result.

10. So, step by step I trace the desired fragment of my drawing - I “bend” the line, reset the selection through

Ctrl, click the mouse anywhere and build the next one. Also, by holding Ctrl you can click on any

line and return to editing it - change the bend (Alt) or move the point (Ctrl). Tips

The lines should be close together, but not overlapping each other.

11. Now let's move on to filling. It can be either very simple or with some effort. In my

In this case, you will have to work a little with a brush and an eraser, but there are ways in which this can be avoided.

do. As I already wrote, it’s more convenient for me to do this, it saves a lot of time.
I always fill the color with white, so that later I can select the desired shades of color in combination with

others and besides, white contrasts better with others and I always see where some remains

error.
So, as I wrote above, we should have the fill layer active.

Let's move on to the pen tool:

Right-click and a menu appears. Here we are interested in the Fill Path item - click on it.

The following window appears. Leave these parameters and click OK


Next we see an unevenly filled stroke. It only filled in the bends. If our

the contour was closed by a single line, then everything inside would be filled with white, this is how you can make a head,
nose, eyes and much more.


But since we got it this way, I manually carefully paint over everything inside the outline and delete

the eraser is too much.
Here the Shift key comes to my aid; by holding it, I make neat, even segments with a brush (on

straight sections) without going beyond the edges. The same can be done with an eraser and any other tool,

As a result, we get this picture. We can ignore the fact that we climbed onto

head, in the future it will be covered with other layers.

12. Let's move on to the outline of our drawing. Make the layer with the outline active, and not the layer with the fill.

We forget to put the padlock on.

Change the color to black or whatever suits you

this time we will need Stroke Path

We select and see the following window. Here we check the box for a soft transition of the line thickness. Can

don’t put it, then the line will just be straight. Click OK.

13. Now we see the resulting outline

14. Remove lines in the vector, right-click – Delete Path

15. This part of the fill and outline is finished. We hang a padlock and turn off the visibility of layers so as not to

Circle (step 8)

Today in Design Mania there is a guest and very practical post from web designer Sergey Mishalov, who maintains a design blog about his work, shares his experience, tips and more.

The lesson is actually not difficult and is aimed at beginners. Pentul (Pen Tool)- improvised means every designer, so sooner or later you will still have to master the tool. You can use this guide immediately after. From small to large.

The whole process will take you about 2 hours of precious time, but the practice has never harmed anyone. The purpose of the lesson is to demonstrate arbitrary work with the Pen Tool and further processing of the created forms. I stopped only at the “sketch” version, keep in mind that you can always take the illustration to the technical limit, do not waste time, the quality is worth it, the main thing is not to overdo it.

So, the first stage involves the creation of primitive forms, we use exclusively the Pen Tool. I hope that the technique is already familiar to you. There is no need to rush here and edit the points as little as possible so that the shape ends up being less “charcoal”.

The tool of the same group “Convert Point Tool” helps to edit the shape, hold down “Alt” and drag the points as you wish.

1. We create general shape. Our example looks like a hand or a shoe if you look closely. After closing the circle of the shape, right-click and select “ Make selection«

2. Again, take the pentula and draw the roof of a car or a ship, consider it as you wish. Fill in light color and attach the form we just made to our base so that nothing sticks out.

4.5.6. Using the same principle, we make the shape of the right part of the reactor, the lower part of the wing, while creating volume and a shape separating the roof from the sidewall.

The second stage is working with light and shadow. I paint light and shadows with a soft brush of white and black, respectively.

7. We draw the light of the wing tip using the upper-left light source.

8.9.10. Using the same principle, I whitewashed several more parts.

11. I slightly shaded the color of the reactors and wiped the separating form with a soft brush.

12.13.14. Let's move on to the shadows. We darken everything with the same brush, only the back part and a few more places are black, see the picture.

The next step is color and details.

15. Using a transparent brush of 15-20% transparency, paint the glow from the reactor, diffused light, and where it is needed, carefully erase it with an opaque eraser.

16. Draw a blue highlight. I used the tool

17. We draw the same highlight, only narrower, brighter and clearer.

18.-24. Using the same principle and procedure, we make the right reactor.

Final touches. I didn’t bother with the background, I just blurred it in motion (Blur > Motion Blur) and adjusted everything to a blue tone. You, as I already wrote above, can take the illustration to a more serious level.

Afterword. So in a few hours we designed a prototype of the car of the future. Main value lesson in training to use pentula, this irreplaceable thing will save you more than once. I hope you liked the lesson, don’t hesitate to ask anything unclear, I’ll answer all your questions, advise you, and help you.

On behalf of all readers of Design Mania, I also hasten to thank Sergei Mishalov, the author of a personal design blog and, as we see, good designer at the same time. Who would have thought that a shape more like a shoe would turn out like this? aircraft future. I think it turned out very beautiful!

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