Photoshop CS5 Digital Painting Technique

In this webinar Kirk Nelson, our Photoshop expert, shares his tools and techniques for transforming photos into painted portraits with the new digital painting tools in Photoshop CS5. Learn how to use the new Mixer Brush and Natural Media Bristle tips. Kirk will teach his technique step by step and share his new custom painting panel that puts the tools you need right at your fingertips. You can download the panel and follow along with the same image or even try the techniques on your own. You will be amazed at how easy it is to get stunning results even if you’ve never painted in Photoshop before.

Kirk Nelson Bio

Legend holds that every generation one will rise. A digital artist whose vision and inspiration will be unmatched by mere mortals. An artist of such skill and renown talent that all will hail him as the GifMaker! (we presume that title lost something in the translation) As far anyone can tell, that legend yet waits to be fulfilled. But until you find that guy, you’ve got me. I’m just your friendly neighborhood Graphics Geek! Happy to help any graphic in need as long as I can crack a lame joke while I’m at it.

General Background:

For the past 13 years I have worked as an all purpose graphics geek or “Visual Information Specialist” in the Washington DC Metro area. My career has bumped into almost every corner of the design industry. From digital painting, to 3d animation, to web design, to logo design, to photo retouching. Along the way I have built up a considerable amount of skills with software such as Adobe Photoshop, Autodesk Maya, and Flash. Recently I discovered that sharing these skills is something that I enjoy!

Things to know:

Publications – I have had 80+ articles published in the international trade magazines Photoshop Creative and Advanced Photoshop. These articles range from feature spots, to product reviews, to helpdesk answers, to general tutorials. I am the cover and layout artist for the US Marine Corps Systems Command quarterly publication, Marines On Point.

Teaching – I currently teach three online courses, Introduction to Digital Painting in Photoshop, and Introduction to Photoshop’s Pen Tool, and my latest course Digital Painting in Photoshop CS5 here at the Digital Art Academy

Adobe Beta Tester – I was invited by Adobe Systems to be a beta tester for Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop CS5. My involvement with these prerelease programs allows me the opportunity to test and then share the new features in my courses, workshops, lectures, and writings.

Guest Speaker – I have been a guest speaker in classes at George Mason University and Strayer College. I am currently looking to expand this portion of my experience area even further.

Workshops – My newest endeavor. I have begun holding workshops on general Photoshop skills in the local area. I am working on expanding this into several workshops covering a variety of topics dealing with Photoshop. I am available for custom workshops or private tutoring.

Now you know. And “knowing” is….

http://www.thepixelpro.com/

Here is the link if  you are interested in the webinar.

http://www.digital-art-summit.com/index.html

Kirk Nelson Digital Painting with CS5

Kirk also supplied the attendees with the chat log document that answered the questions that popped up during the webinar. A custom panel to help facilitate painting in CS5 is included as well the video stream, download and a short vid tutorial about how to load the custom panel.

Thanks Kirk!

The August issue of Digital Paint Magazine is released. Clink on the link below for your download.

Tips, tricks and tutorials by Odwin Rensen, Mary Mortensen, Barbara Hartsook and others.

August Issue Here

Photo to Art Paint Like the Old Masters with Odwin Rensen

If you are looking for information on converting Photo to Art, this is one webinar that you should not miss. We had an AWESOME webinar with Odwin Rensen. People have been waiting for a long time for Odwin to share his digital painting techniques. We were not disappointed.

Odwin shared for over two and a half hours and held nothing back. He showed us his precise workflow and developed the image below as we watched and asked questions.

Photo to Art, Paint Like the Old Masters

Photo to art, or digital painting from photo reference has been on the rise for the last two years. It has virtually exploded. A ton of new art software has been released and more is on the way.  In this webinar Odwin utilizes Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop to create the images above.

The other resources that Odwin put together for you took him some time. He produced at nice PDF that answers all of the questions that came up in the chat box. He also outlined the brushes used as well as providing the full PSD file so you can see what he was doing in each step while he was in Photoshop.

Thanks Odwin for giving the readers of Digital Paint Magazine and our classmates at Digital Art Academy a huge bang for their buck!  You set the bar really high for the remaining webinars with the Summer Digital Art Summit.

If you have not purchased any webinars or you are interested in the videos from the webinars you can see the whole schedule at at:

http://www.digital-art-summit.com/index.html

If you are one of the lucky viewers of this webinar you can grab your resources at Odwin Rensen Webinar Resources.

Your password has been mailed to you if you have already purchased. If you are a new purchaser the pass will be mailed within 24 hours.

If you are interested in purchasing the brushes that Odwin uses in this webinar you can find them at Kelby Training. Tamara Fry-Pietsch is a DVD production editor at Kelby and was gracious enough to send me the following information.

All of the Brushes he used in the demo come from two DVD’s by Fay Sarkis:

The Majority of the brushes are from the
Celebration of Art, Weddings Portrait and Faces DVD Set:

Da Vinci
Vermeer
Cezanne
Rembrandt
Background
Portrait Hair Brushes

The remaining ones come from:

A Celebration of Art, Wild About Animals

Dog Hair Brushes
Wild Life Hair Brushes

The brushes were imbedded in the first DVD ONLY. The two DVD’s listed contain the brushes in a separate folder:)  The whole workspace thing was too problematic, it worked for some machines and not others, so all of the brushes are accessible on those two discs with having to scrap them out of the workspace:)

Both DVD’s can be purchased @

http://www.kelbytraining.com/dvds/index.html

Digital Painting Base: 12 Sites For FREE High Resolution Photos

I have friends that make their living as stock photographers so I am sure I will take some heat for this post. As I look at it this is 12 reasons not to be a stock photographer. In the 80′s I sold a lot of stock, it was difficult then to try to stand out from the crowd, now it is virtually impossible.

Like many things in our new digital age much splintering in the market place has occurred so a laser focus in a specialty area is about the only way to survive. There are literally 100′s of thousands of very gifted photographers out there and only a handful are making a living selling stock imagery. The following list is small as there are well over 100 sites that have high resolution photos for free or for very small fees.

The few sites listed are a combination of free and royalty free. Those terms are not interchangeable. Royalty free images may cost money but only once, you don’t need to pay a royalty each time the image is used. Free is no cost. Some images are in the public domain and some are under the creative commons license.

Be sure to check out the terms of use at each of these locations. Click on the text underneath or beside the company logos.

If you love this post TWEET IT or book mark it. That helps out all of the contributors here at magazine. Thank-you!

e-cobo.com/stockphotos/

public-domain-photos.com/

f11digital.com/4images

morguefile.com/

123rf.com/

Free high resolution travel photos

dreamstime.com/

crestock.com/

shutterstock.com/

fotolia.com/

studio7designs.com/stock-photography/

freeimages.co.uk/