Here is the final sunrise

I’m not going to go into the basic info on how to make shapes or gradients, instead I want to talk about the different tools, and the steps, I used to make the sunrise.

Step 1. First I made a sun. This sun is on the horizon so I made a half circle. To make the sun glow I used the gradient tool set to radial; using two colors yellow and white.

Step 2. Next I made the rays. I used the same gradient technique.

Step 3. I put the sun and rays together.

Step 4. With the sun complete, I now had to add the background. To make the background I used the Mesh Tool

Step 5. Finally I put it all together.

Personally I lik the rays standing out, but you can control your gradient to any effect; here are some options. Oh ya …If you notice the bottom sample, this technique is not so good for a sunrise, but it is a good technique if you want to create a sunburst style glow as a background

Applied Sunrise– Here are a few versions of the final logo with the background

Other Famous Examples– By varying the size and shape of the rays, the background and the sun, you can recreate your favorite sunburst backgrounds used by Disney, Dreamworks and General Mills. Here are a few examples that use a similar technique to create the background.

Thanks for stopping by, hope this technique comes in handy when you are designing in Adobe Illustrator.

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This is a Fee Adobe Photoshop Tutorial that uses curves for making selections. The technique is perfect when the “wand” does not get the selection you want.

In this tutorial I show how to select a sky with trees on the horizon.

Photoshop tutorial on making a selection

Step 1. open image.

Step 2. copy background to new layer.
on copy layer go to: Image/Adjustments/Desaturate.

Step 3. on desaturated layer open curves: Image/Adjustments/Curves -slide the left (white) input triangle toward the middle. Slide the (black) input triangle toward the middle. In my example I wanted to keep the phone line  deselected (it is located on top left of my sky). So I kept an eye on how my selection was as I worked toward the middle with the triangles. Hit Ok when you get a decent black and white image.

Step 4. Use the magic wand to select the sky. Turn off contiguous. Turn the tolerance to a low number like 10.  With contiguous turned off the area between the trees and sky will be selected, but you will also get some minor selections in the grass -no problem. With the selection still active enter quick mask mode (short cut is Q). Select the brush and paint over the grass area adding to the mask (use black to add to mask).

Exit quick mask mode (short cut is Q) and save selection (name it sky on a new channel) -Select/Save selection …click ok and deselect the selection.

Step 5. Delete the desaturated layer. Now you only have the original background.

Step 6. Click on the original background layer and load the selection: Selection/Load Selection/ and under Source Channel use the fly out menu to select sky.

Step 7.  With the background layer active and the selection active go to: Layer/Layer Via Copy (Apple J) -this will create a copy of the sky on a new layer.

Step 8. With the background layer active, load the selection “sky”. Go to- Select/Inverse. and then go to : Layer/Layer Via Copy. this will create a copy of the land on a new layer.

You now have three layers. The background. One layer with the sky and One layer with the land.

After a few color adjustments here is my final image. I even save my phone line.

There are a number of tips and tutorials for using Photoshop to make a selection and depending on the photograph some techniques will work better than others. This tutorial is another technique to add into your selection tricks.

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To illustrate lets start by looking at a before and after:

Step 1. In Photoshop open an image that needs correcting. I have the info pallet next to the image to demonstrate the area around the subject is not a true white. If it was true white the numbers circled would be 255.

Step 2. Using the text menu, goto: Images/Adjustments/Curves (shortcut on a mac is to hold down the apple key and press M). Use the horizontal slider and slide it to the left. As you move the slider to the left, you will see the light gray start to fade from the surrounding area. Below are the curves settings I used:

Step 3. Here is the image after the curves, I have the info pallet next to the image to demonstrate the area around the subject is a true white. The numbers circled are now 255. You do have to be careful because you will clip some of the light gray from the image.

Step 4. You can see how I lost some of the midtones on top of the image. But this technique is about speed with acceptable results.

Step 4b. Here are the results using a selection

So next time you have a gray tint in a white area around a photo, use this Photoshop tip to turn the gray into white.

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• Ink Jet Printer (typical at home printer): 200-240 ppi
• Color Copy (kinkos style): 180-240 ppi
• Digital Printer or Variable Printing (usually used in small print runs): 240-300 ppi
• Going to press (usually used in larger print runs): 300-350 ppi

I know the suggested ppi I outlined above are general and there are many other factors to consider when printing a photograph or a document; so when going to press you should contact your printer for their suggested specifications. However, there are times when you don’t know where to start and you just need a quick reference. For those that are interested here are a few more guidelines:

• Newspaper Ad 170-200
• Average Magazine & Brochure 200-266
• High End Magazine & Brochure 250-350
• Annual Reports 260-350
• Fine Art & Coffee Table Books 300-350

The reason many people do not just print everything at 300 ppi is the file size can become unnecessarily large. This can make working on the layout more difficult as the computer struggles to render the layout. Also, delivering the layout can become more difficult the larger the file. However, making the file too small, or reducing the ppi to a level that makes the file size too small, will make the final design, or photograph, loose details in the final print.

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This is not a exercise in Photoshop, but a demonstration of how images and color can effect a layout. On the right, I have put the two fictional sites side-by-side. Both site’s use the same layout and text.

Use your images and color wisely, have fun and keep that color wheel handy to develop interesting and dynamic color schemes.

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