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Portrait Art Classes (5/2007)  »Portrait taking I wanted to create an arresting image that had realistic photographic elements, highlighted and juxtaposed by a clean, bold graphic style. I used a combination of the paintbrush and airbrush tool in Photoshop with varying opacities and a section of a digital photograph to attempt to capture the essence of my friend Mike’s drive in his passion to take photographic portraits.  »4 the love of it When approaching a design job, I always kick-start my thinking from a saying I read back in my studying days: ”Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”. Hence my design steps and overall execution are not over-complicated, but are easy to understand (to the Photoshop enthusiast). The basic tools I used to compose the above was a camera and Photoshop, coupled with some Freehand (vector) artwork, a bit of design know-how and my secret ingredient, love. » Xara Xtreme Pro Xara Xtreme Pro is a vector graphics program that has many unique characteristics, some of which you'd typically only find in advanced photo editing tools such as Photoshop. For example, it offers vector feathering – that is, you can blur the edges of vector shapes (or photos, text, any other object). And this is true resolutionindependent vector feathering. Secondly, it offers one-click graduated transparency. »Caricature tutorial This tutorial will teach you how to draw your own caricature and what to know when you draw one. Also, I will cover some of the basics of drawing and give you some tips. First thing you need to know is what caricatures are. They're basically just drawn portraits of people, except they're exaggerated. Sometimes a lot, sometimes a little. In big cities all over the globe you will see various of streetartists who draw caricatures and if you've seen only a few, you'll see right away that it can vary quite a bit. It's all about exaggeration. But what? Well, keyitems. And how do you know which? Well, if you look at a photo, take a look at which parts of the face (or body) are spots that give the face it's own identity. If someone has big lips, make them bigger. If someone has a big nose, make it bigger. If someone is frowning, make the frown huge. If someone is making a weird face, make the face even weirder. The same goes for minimising thing. If someone has a small nose, make it smaller, if someone has small ears, make them smaller, etc. Also, what is done quite a lot is making the body 3-10 times smaller then usual. This focusses all the attention on the head, which is obviously the most important part of the body when it comes to identification. »Bathing Buddha The picture was entirely made with Photoshop. It’s a combination of three digital photos I made myself. The Buddha figure is a picture of one of my own sculptures. Thinking about a subject for a new tutorial I got inspired by my garden Buddha. I wanted to create a picture with a minimum of elements and a maximum effect. Just look at this picture and see what I mean. Have fun doing this picture. P.S. special thanks to Nils Hirseland for doing the German translation and my son John-Boy Buurman for being my right arm! (can’t use my own for a couple of weeks). »Fruity bass When dealing with numerous layers in a picture, overlaying and tweaking them will open new doors. You will soon notice that in Photoshop the possibilities are endless. One of the really famous ones in the layer options palette is the overlay tool. The concept of the whole Process sounds difficult but is actually very basic. Think of it as if you were using traditional media like tracing paper, acetate, pen, normal paper, and an erasure. You are then cutting out objects and placing them on top of on another. Regard it as a digital collage with more options and tools to choose from. In the end you could create anything. »Craft & Technique The concept of the Master File is relatively recent and I thought that a short description of it wouldn't hurt. The fact that I received numerous requests to describe this concept told me that there was indeed a need for such a description. »Mixed Media Techniques To achieve an organic look within your work requires an understanding of Color Blending and Layer modes. The key to this style of working is to paint your watercolour washes by hand and scan them rather than trying to create them within Photoshop. By blending organic with digital and having a keen eye for composition and color you’ll create a definitive style that Photoshop alone cannot achieve. The purpose of this tutorial is to encourage you to create your own traditional media. Don’t worry if you’re not talented with a paintbrush – just by making some random color washes and combining them with Photoshop you’ll be taking your illustrations to new organic heights! »Product Review for Maya 8.5 nCloth We will take a look at some of the new features of the new nCloth and nucleus physics solver included in Maya 8.5 unlimited. We will see how it stacks up to the previous cloth solver as well as play around with its unique features. »How to vector perfect sister I was fortunate enough to place third in the recent graphics competition held by .PSD Magazine. The instruction was to take our favorite person and make an artwork out of it, so I chose my little sister named Isabelle. My goal was to make the viewer see my sister through my own eyes – the way I see her and the way I feel about her. I tried to capture her innocent and energetic personality. When the critic complimented the energetic personality that was shown through my artwork, I was happy to discover that my goal was accomplished. In this tutorial, I will teach you, step by step, how I created my winning entry using Adobe Photoshop. »Determining correct resolution I have been working within the prepress industry for around 10 years. I have worked for lithographers and flexographers and in that time I have seen many projects come to me with images either too large or too small for what they were intended. This has always been a problem for prepress environments because in either case they slow down production time. And can cost money. So having said that I wish to impart my great wisdom and understanding of this small but important factor when creating artwork for clients. VTC video training InDesign CS2 by Brian White On CD1 you will find Virtual Training Company's software training CD for InDesign CS2. This program provides for a fast, easy, inexpensive and highly effective method, for computer training. So that you can understand and follow our magazine tutorials, we’ve included movies (without audio) and source files. On CD2 you can find these files to the following tutorials: Fruity Bass, Bathing Buddha, Mixed Media Techniques, How to vector the perfect sister and Portrait taking. To properly view the movies we've included the codec's, XviD and TSCC, that will install on either your Macintosh or Windows computer. Also to get even more experience with video training we have included movies that show the techniques to make Fruity Bass and Bathing Buddha. Also there: Backdrop designer- trial FOR MAC AND PC. Special for our readers - 20% DISCOUNT COUPON ON PRIMATTE CHROMAKEY AND ON BACKDROP DESIGNER +10% OFF ON PRO PHOTOGRAPHY SUITE. Also: Fluid Mask – Trial, Xara Xtreme Pro-30-day trial, Font sets from graphicxtras.com, 7 fantastic Photoshop movies and 70 royalty free photos! 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