Create A Matte Painting In Illustrator

Friday, March 28, 2014

Create A Matte Painting In Illustrator

Make a Matte Painting in Photoshop

Matte paintings have been used for years to create background locations for films and photographs. Oftentimes, artists would arduously paint on large sheets of glass, which were then placed in the appropriate areas to give the visual effect of background mountains, large warehouses or any other fictional environment. Now, through the use of digital software such as Photoshop, matte paintings can be created quickly and have the same effect as a traditional matte painting. An easy way to create a matte painting is by using an existing photograph as a base, then customizing it to fit the artist's needs.

Instructions

Prepare the Photograph

1. Download a high-resolution image from a stock photography website, or use a personal photograph. A good resolution is between 200 and 300 pixels per inch. Make sure the image is of a background element, such as a house or landscape.

2. Open a new document in Photoshop by going to "File," then "New." Make sure the resolution of the document is set to the same resolution as the photograph. From the "Background Contents" drop-down menu, choose "Transparent."

3. Go to "File," then "Place" and choose the image file. The image will appear on a new layer with a box surrounding it. Click the "Enter" key to place the image and rename the layer "Original."

4. Use the polygonal lasso tool to outline aspects of the photograph that should remain in the matte painting. For example, if there is a landscape with a barn and the artist needs to keep the barn, but remove the sky, outline the barn. A round, soft eraser can be used to erase fussy areas, such as bushes, trees and grass.

5. Go to "Select," then "Inverse." This will invert the selection so that the items that need to be removed are selected. Go to "Select," then "Save Selection" and name the selection "Outline." Click "OK." Then, click the "Delete" key or go to "Edit," then "Clear."

6. Fix the edges of the remaining parts of the photograph. The edges may be the same color as the original background. Do this by going to "Select," then "Load Selection" and choose the "Outline" selection from the drop-down menu. Navigate to "Select." Then choose "Modify," then "Expand" and increase the selection size by a couple of pixels.

7. Navigate to "Image." Then select "Adjustments, then "Hue/Saturation." Change the color of the edges to match the color of the object by sliding the tabs along the "Hue," "Saturation" and "Lightness" bars. For example, if the barn selected is red and it has a faint blue outline from the deleted sky, adjust the hue and saturation so that the outline becomes red.

Customize

8. Create a new layer by clicking on the "Create a New Layer" button in the Layers palette. Rename the layer "Background." Click-drag the layer so that it is underneath the layer with the photograph. This will place the layer behind the photograph.

9. Fill in the areas that have been removed. These areas can be painted in using the Paint tool or a high resolution picture can be inserted. For example, if the sky was deleted in Step 5 of the first section, paint in the sky or use the "Place" command to insert a photograph.

10. Select the "Original" layer and adjust the Hue/Saturation and Color Balance (Go to "Image." Then select "Adjustments," then "Color Balance.") so that the original photograph blends well with the newly added "Background" layer. Go to "Image." Then select "Adjustments," then "Levels" to adjust the overall contrast.

11. Add any personalized accents or details to the matte painting, such as lightning bolts, animals, building dilapidation, people, clouds, shadows and more using the drawing tablet. Make sure that each accent has its own labeled layer.

19th century paint colors

Friday, March 28, 2014