It's my turn to put up a starter for SFTW, and I am going with something a little bit different. Basically a blank canvas. Regular posters know I am a fan of Lazy Nezumi Pro, and specifically its Vanishing Lines preset as a guide for matching a scene's perspective, but LNP does not work with OSX systems. The Greatest Living Photoshop Artist, Bert Monroy, has always used Macs, so all he uses for his perspective guides is two or more three point work paths with the central point on the Vanishing Points. In fact he uses Illustrator to lay out his perspective guide lines with his huge illustrations like Times Square.
Download the attached JPG and open in Photoshop. Note: you have to obtain the starter image this way to have the work paths. It will look something like this:
The way I do it is to place a layer at the top of the stack, move the work path end points into position and with a one pixel fully hard brush selected, click on the Stroke icon at the bottom of the Paths panel. You might need to right click a path and chose Stroke the first time you do this to make sure the Brush is selected.
Tip: Did you know that with the Move tool selected, you can hold down Ctrl (Cmd) and move work path points?
Well keep things simple and assume that verticals are perfectly vertical so we can use Guides for those.
I don't want to put ideas into peoples heads, but a blank canvas might be a bit daunting, so this could be a simple way to fill a 2 point perspective. Note that its rule of thumb that if we assume the terrain is flat, then people's eye lines will coincide with the horizon.
My tip is to find each image element and paste into a new document so you can use Perspective Crop to square it up. Make it a Smart Object — this makes the corner handles remain at the corners through multiple use of Free Transform.
You use either the Two Point Perspective as above, or use the central work path and make it a Single Point Perspective, so your image might look something like this (from Google):
The “rules”:
- Anything goes as long as it meets the forum rules on decency copyright etc.
- Anyone and everyone is welcome to have a go whether you are a complete beginner or a Photoshop expert. This is not just for our forum “regulars”, and other applications can be used.
- There are no prizes apart from the chance to practice show off or bring a bit of humour and fun. Don't be shy join in and have a go!
When posting back your image — please use the blue reply button in this first post. If posting a comment on someone else’s entry then please use the grey reply button next to their image post.
Have fun!
Trevor
Fingers crossed that the attachment loads OK, because I can't seee it!
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Right, this me having a go. I am not sure if it is going to work out, so I am going to record the steps as I go.
I'm starting with an arbitrary shape layer. I am hoping to place it in perspective with the front facing to the right.
I tried using the star guides but found it much too confusing. YMMV. So I reverted to the stroking the three point guides, and used my judgement for the width/aspect ratio. I'm leaving the original flat shape for comparison.
BTW I messed up and forgot to make the shape a Smart Object and had to start again. It really is impossible to make adjustments if you don't work with Smart Objects.
I've used the left hand work path to give me some guide lines that fit the outer extent of the shape.
Made a new Smart Object via Copy (I forgot to do this firs time, and when I changed the colour — so I could identify the backmost shape — the front shape changed as well.
Use Free Transform with the Al (Opt) key to downsize the copied shape, and mopved it to the left to fit the guides. You can see that the inner guides still pass through where they are supposed to, so looking good so far. Oops, I can see I missed a guide for the top of the left leaf.
So far so good. The next step is to make some clipping paths to outline each section of the tapered sidewalls, and fill them with a solid colour. A different colour for each one so I can differentiate. The colour doesn't matter. Note, I got a bit ahead of myself, so I have hidden that layer in a group to avoide confusion.
The way I like to work is to use solid colour layers as clipping masks, and clip a shading layer to it. Brush in the shading with lots of overlapping so we can blur it without the edges going thin. Make the clipped layer a Smart Object so we can fine tune the Gaussian blur. This is unclipped.
And this is clipped. Another reason to make the shading layer a Smart Object is so you can use Free Transform to fine tune alignment.
Using FT > Distort to align the shading (which is why I overlap the shading so much)
Repeat for the other faces. Turn off the rear cyon face in case it overlaps. Job done.
I've used Eye Candy 7 to add a bevel & emboss on the front face.
Perspective guides
Layers.
Who is going to give it a try? Pictures, shapes, abstract art. How about Type layers. It would work really well with type and you could do some stellar fx.
Hi
I said I wouldn't be able to resist this one!
This is a render, set up in Blender using FSpy to align the render camera to the perspective guides in the starter image, before building the scene and rendering it. The bike is one of the Adobe 3D assets that I then textured in Substance Painter.
Dave
Thanks Trevor and Jane. I couldn't resist this one, and it did not take that long. Some steps:
1. Open Trevor's starter image and stroke the paths with a brush, then resave.
2. Open the amended starter image in FSpy and place the guides over the vanishing point lines. Move the principal point (usually at the centre) over the third (central) vanishing point. Adjust the reference distance at a point on the ground plane to set the height to the vanishing point line at that point - effectively this gives the height of the camera. Adjust the sensor size to match teh aspect ratio of the starter image.The rest of the camera angle details , including the lens are worked out by the software.
3. Open Blender and import the FSpy project. That sets the render camera up to match the starter image and puts a semi transparent starter image over the view.
4. Start modelling, the perspective view will automatically follow the vanishing points.
5. Add particle systems for grass and trees (so that they are spread over the required areas based on weight painting (i.e. painting where you want them and where you do not.)
6. Add the bike (in a loose nod to Trevor's mention of Bert Monroy).
7. Add textures (I did this mainly in Substance painter) and lighting
8. Render the scene and take it into Photoshop for a few final tweaks of the lighting balance.
Dave
Thanks Dave, I've never used FSpy before and got the image into Blender with your help, so now I'll have to build something with it. Wonderful render BTW
I found a linking book . . .
I've gone off piste with a complete disregard to perspective and made this one of my home town
viewed from across the river.
Wow Euan. That animation is Ged level spooky bizarre. Is it a sort of passive aggressive trick to put your Zoom recipients off their game?
I thought it was. I used to work there occasionally.
Dave
By @davescm
I don't think I have ever been there, but I have eaten the cake if that counts? I am wondering if there are links between Euan's bizarre composite and animation, and that Dundee cake has nuts on top?
@Trevor.Dennis wrote:I don't think I have ever been there, but I have eaten the cake if that counts?
If Dundee cake counts for Trevor, does Dundee Marmalade count for me?
This one is storing old pennies, but I'm pretty sure I have a couple more.
Jane
I'm not getting any ideas, so I'll add
Long ago, I saw a book on perspective drawing in the University Bookstore. I sure wish I'd bought it then, since I haven't seen it since. It had a technique for establishing vanishing points so the perspective doesn't look unnatural. It started with the observation that if you stand at the corner of a building and look straight up, you will see a right angle, not acute. It is a rule of Geometry that an angle inscribed in a semicircle is always 90°. So, if you visualize your vanishing points on the diameter of a circle, as long as your image is within that circle, it will have "nice" perspective, but as you move outside it, the more you get that Ultra Wide Angle look, with the exaggerated "Ship's Prow" corner.
Fairly nice perspective:
Add a few storeys, and you get exaggerated perspective:
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