Smudge

Using brush tool to create a round sphere.

Image source:

Pikachu (link) 

Using lasso tool to crop out pikachu and combined it with the grey ball.

The shadow needs more perfection. Anyone wants to help? :O

Opacity

Using different opacity to create an image.

I also flatten image at the end and use smudge tool.

Image sources:

Background Smoke: (link)

Palm: (link)

Fire: (link)

Tutorial Exercise (18th Jan)

Today, we learnt how to use the lasso tool during class and practiced using the 3 lasso tools available (namely the lasso, polygonal lasso and magnetic lasso). 

Using the Google search engine, all of us looked for a 'red apple' image, and we searched for a large-sized image.  We practiced how to isolate a portion of image using the lasso tool with the image above.

We also learn some handy shortcuts while using the lasso tool. For example using 'backspace' to delete one point backword. I find this extremely useful especially since I'm still a beginner and selected wrong points at times, so the 'backspace' function allows me to re-select the correct point.

Another shortcut when using photoshop would be inversing the selected area. This would be Control+Shift+I. 

By doing so, we are able to erase the background using the eraser tool, as seen in the image above. 

I find that the magnetic lasso tool is very useful in making the selection for the 'orange' image. It's almost effortless when using magnetic lasso tool. When using lasso tool or polygonal lasso, selection requires more effort. 

I struggled to use the lasso tool and find that when I adjusted the mouse to a slower speed and 'enhance pointer precision' via the computer's control panel, I was able to have a better control. After several (or rather quite a lot of) attempts, I finally was able to select the portion of image that I want for the pineapple (most difficult!) and papaya images. 

Mr. Azhar also shared with us a very informative site regarding photoshop and it helped me a lot in using the lasso tool. So, if you would like to know more about lasso tool, you can hop on to that website (here)

So finally, it's time to combine all the fruits together into a single image.

Initially I wanted to place the fruits randomly but I felt that it was a little messy and I also noticed that I didn't select the pineapple image properly with the magnetic lasso tool, so I could still see some white parts. I went and re-select the pineapple image again..and changed my initial idea. Instead of randomly arranging the fruits, I arrange them according to the types of fruit. 

Here's the final outcome..

What do you think of the arrangement? : )

Let's also play a game. See if you could guess how many apples, oranges, pineapples and papaya are there in the image above? :D

(edit: 23rd January 2013)

I realized I was just "copy-pasting" images in the previous image above so I decided to create another image. This time I used the lasso tool to select the fruits and put them together in the same image by CTRL+C (copy) CTRL+V (paste) in the same file. My idea was to create a path of fruits and used the fruit's color to distinguish the paths. I used a light turquoise colour as background because I think it looks better than plain white. 

This is a screeenshot of me using the brush tool and rectangular marquee tool to create the colored path. 

To create different tones of color, I used different opacity, flow and hardness when using the brush tool.

This was the final outcome :)