Created in Photoshop Elements 8.0, but can be used with almost any other graphics editor.
All my lessons are designed for beginner and intermediate level artists.
Start with a basic tree shape.
Add some soft light and shade. There is no need to carefully mix light and dark tones, because... any imperfection will later help achieve a realistic looking bark.
Take the Burn tool in Midtones or Highlights mode with a medium Exposure level (about 40-50%) and using a small soft brush draw curved relatively vertical lines.
Keep your hand relaxed and change the pressure on your hand to avoid pictures with “perfectly” drawn lines.
Take an even smaller Burn tool and go over the lines of the bark again, making them more clear and drawn. Also add some small cracks. Remember to keep your wrist relaxed.
Using the Burn tool and a large soft brush, work more carefully general shape cortex according to where the light hits. Make the shadows deeper using the same Burn tool and the highlights lighter using the Dodge tool.
Remember, time, as always, is a factor. The more effort you put in, the better the result will be. :)
In the previous lesson we drew “Sunny Edge”. Now we have the background of our future drawing.
The next step is to add a tree trunk. We drew the crown of a tree, and, as you know, there is no crown without a trunk.
So, let's draw the trunk.
Create a new layer called "Trunk" and place it below the "Leaves" layer. Click on the new layer with the left mouse button, and without releasing it, drag the “Trunk” layer under the “Leaves” layer.
Then select the Rectangular Marquee Tool and draw a selection on the right, taking in some of the foliage. Thus, we will create the impression of a trunk emerging from under the crown, as it should be. Fill the selection brown. Now let's put bark on our trunk. To do this, set the main color to light brown, and the background color to brownish brown, for example. Now go to the “Filter” menu item, select “Rendering”, sub-item “Fibers”. Next, set the following settings for this filter: mismatch – 21, intensity – 10.
Deselect the selection by pressing CTRL/D. Using the Dodge and Burn tools On the one side brighten trunk, and on the other - slightly darken. But first, change the settings for these tools. Make the brush shape round and also change the brush size.
Then you need to combine the “Trunk” and “Leaves” layers into one layer called “Tree”. To do this, select the “Leaves” layer and press CTRL/E.
Next we duplicate this one. To do this, in the “Layers” menu, select the “Create a duplicate layer” tab. Name the resulting copy “Tree_2” and place it under the “Tree” layer.
Then make the “Tree” layer temporarily invisible by clicking on the eye next to the layer icon.
After which, using “Free Transform”, this command can be called by pressing the key combination CTRL / T, reduce “Tree 2” and move it slightly up and to the left. You can also add leaves on top and to the right to hide the sharp edges of the layer.
Now turn on the “Tree” layer in the foreground. In order to create the impression that a small tree is standing in the background of the picture, let's blur it a little. Go to the “Filter” menu, “Blur” item, “Gaussian Blur” sub-item and set the value to approximately 0.5-0.7% (zero point five - zero point seven percent). Thus, you can add as many trees to the edge as your imagination dictates and the area of the drawing allows.
Now let's save the result in order to continue drawing in the next lesson.
(0)| Getting started | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Introduction to raster and vector graphics | 3:18 | 0 | 52477 | |
| 2. | Program interface | 2:34 | 1 | 27224 | |
| DIY image | |||||
| 3. | Introducing the brush tool, drawing a clearing | 4:25 | 4 | 45818 | |
| 4. | Working with the Filter menu (Wooden surface) | 4:42 | 0 | 21067 | |
| 5. | Ice thorn - drawing a screensaver for your computer | 2:21 | 0 | 23192 | |
| 6. | Transformation - changing the picture | 3:50 | 2 | 20223 | |
| 7. | Dandelion - draw a flower | 5:01 | 0 | 23546 | |
| 8. | Funny fluffy, lesson 1: learning to draw from scratch | 3:23 | 1 | 63567 | |
| 9. | Funny fluffy, lesson 2: drawing eyes | 5:45 | 0 | 20371 | |
| 10. | Funny fluffy, lesson 3: draw a nose and mouth | 2:43 | 1 | 14454 | |
| 11. | Sun Edge Lesson 1: How to Create a Layer | 3:56 | 0 | 25283 | |
| 12. | Sunny edge, lesson 2: drawing a tree | 4:03 | 0 | 13128 | |
| 13. | Sunny edge, lesson 3: draw grass and rays of the Sun | 4:36 | 0 | 22758 | |
| Text | |||||
| 14. | Filling text with a pattern | 2:41 | 0 | 33421 | |
| 15. | Transparent text | 3:56 | 3 | 25197 | |
| 16. | Green text | 2:58 | 0 | 5495 | |
| 17. | Coloring, volumetric text | 3:07 | 0 | 28455 | |
| 18. | Fire text lesson 1 | 3:36 | 0 | 19725 | |
| 19. | Fire text lesson 2 | 2:43 | 0 | 17575 | |
| Photo processing | |||||
| 20. | Elimination of skin defects | 3:13 | 3 | 112317 | |
| 21. | Removing red eye | 2:29 | 2 | 14570 | |
| 22. | Changing eye color | 2:09 | 0 | 44465 | |
| 23. | Teeth whitening | 3:56 | 1 | 50921 | |
| 24. | Creating a frame, cropping | 2:42 | 0 | 14751 | |
| 25. | Plastic surgery in Photoshop | 2:45 | 0 | 52385 | |
| 26. | Combining two images | 3:28 | 8 | 238354 | |
| 27. | Converting a color photo to black and white | 1:58 | 1 | 24094 | |
| 28. | Coloring fragments of a black and white photograph | 3:11 | 1 | 12236 | |
| 29. | Antique photo processing | 1:58 | 0 | 21995 | |
| 30. | Troubleshooting color errors | 1:45 | 1 | 11929 | |
A fundamental lesson on drawing trees for beginners and more! How to learn to draw shapes, bark, leaves, structure - all this in this lesson. Attention! This lesson is spread over three pages (note the switch at the bottom of each page) In this part this lesson I will tell you about the existing forms of trees. The next two parts will describe the process of texturing the trunk and leaves. Before starting this lesson, I want to say that here you will not find full description of how to draw all types of trees. Here are the 3 main tree shapes, their trunks and branches, and a couple of color tips. I hope you find this tutorial useful. 1. Draw the earth
The first thing to do is draw the ground. For what? For the same reason why the head needs a neck and shoulders. The trunk of a tree must have its roots somewhere. I usually paint the ground the same way I paint the rocks because it makes the ground look more natural than if it were golf course turf. But you can draw the ground however you like. Another very important point. Draw full flowers. Never change the Opacity when applying a base color! I'll explain why: the painting will look faded because the colors won't be saturated enough... and you'll spend a lot more time later drawing out the details and aligning the shapes.
Remember, you don’t have to do this! Now it may look normal, but then it won’t seem so to you, because if you mix colors, they lose their saturation and become pale. 2. Draw the shape of a tree U different types trees different shape. Some grow tall, some grow wide, some have a round crown, some are triangular, some have very thick and powerful trunks, others have thin trunks like twigs... etc.
Draw the tree trunk, a simple slightly curved wide line.
Reduce the diameter of the brush and add some main branches, try to stick to the same direction as I drew.
We begin to draw smaller branches with an even thinner brush. This reduction in brush diameter is very important if you want to achieve a realistic result. When drawing these branches, remember the direction of their growth, as I have already shown.
You can add even more thin branches. This is not necessary, but it looks better, don’t you agree?!
These trees are Y-shaped. They can be of two types: a common trunk and two main branches, or two common trunks growing side by side. I chose for the trunk gray, because this type of tree is typical of birch. The trunk is tall and flexible, without unnecessary branches, but with a lush “cap” of leaves.
The principle of working with the branches of a tree of this type is the same as in the previous example, only the branches are straighter and point inward with their tips.
The peculiarity of this type of tree is that with age the branches change their shade. The youngest have a dark red color, and with age they lose it, and acquire a gray-brown and even white tint (I'm talking about London deciduous and white birches).
If you have created your own isometric pixel city or a small pixel image, then you may also need pixel trees.
Such trees are a wonderful decorative element; they will decorate any painted city, scene, not to mention parks or cityscapes.
Final image:
1. Dimensions
We'll draw the tree enough large size, slightly larger than a bush, but not quite huge.
Step 1
The height of the future tree is half the height of the character.
These are working sizes. The height can be adjusted as you draw.
Step 2
The width of the tree trunk should be slightly thicker than the character's legs. In my case, it's 4 pixels between lines.
Step 3
This is about the top of the tree.
2. Shapes
The top of the tree will consist of a cluster of ovals. You can use simpler shapes such as a circle or square, but a cluster solution will give the tree a more realistic look.
Step 1
This is what the oval we will draw looks like. Its width 24 x 18px, but you can make it anyone.
Draw an oval using the tool Oval selection area(Elliptical Marquee Tool) by disabling the anti-alias function in the tool properties panel.
Then, the drawn selection needs to be filled with color. To do this, shrink the oval selection by 1 pixel Select > Modify > Contract(Select - Modify - Compress) and fill it green. But I prefer to draw an oval using the tool Pencil(Pencil Tool), so that its edges are slightly jagged.
Step 2
Use the same oval to add it to the cluster. We will create three ovals on the top of the tree and five on the bottom.
Try several ways to place the ovals. This line will have three ovals.
Step 4
The third oval on this line will be located slightly lower.
Step 5
Add a couple of ovals to the bottom of the tree - You can paste them onto a new layer, move the layer below the original one and merge (Ctrl + E).
Step 6
Remove the guides used to draw the tree:
Step 7
The rounded tree trunk visually softens its jagged edges:
We have created the basic shape of the tree and now we need to draw a shadow to add volume to it.
Step 1
Gradually, by adding shadow to the tree, we will get rid of the contour lines inside it.
Step 2
The top part of the tree will be illuminated more than the rest. This shade will be 10% brighter and will also have a warmer tone.
Step 3
Using the screenshot as a guide, add exactly the same shade as in the previous step to the side parts of the tree's foliage:
Step 4
Add exactly the same shade to the central oval:
Step 5
Now add a dark shade to the bottom of the ovals in the center. This shade should be 10% darker than the base color of the foliage.
Step 6
Add another shade to the very bottom of the foliage - it should be 10% darker than the previous one.
Step 7
Now change the color of the tree trunk to brown. Also, after the color of the trunk is set, you can change it using the Hue/Saturation command (Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation).
Step 8
Finally, add a shadow to the tree trunk. The edges of the trunk may be darker or lighter. In my case, they are darker.
Now we will add texture to the wood by mixing several different shades. This is done to add leaf texture to the tree.
Step 1
To create a smooth transition, I will use areas of 4 pixels of color, and for individual areas - 2 pixels.
For greater convenience, when drawing, zoom in with the tool Zoom(Scale).
Step 2
At the top of the tree and a little to the left, a pixel texture is drawn.
Step 3
Copy the pixel texture (Ctrl + C) and paste it on the other side of the tree and into the central part (Ctrl + V).
Step 4
Now paint a pixel texture on the middle part of the tree, creating a smooth transition from green to dark green.
Step 5
Smooth the texture just above the middle part of the tree to make it look voluminous and to make its shape rounder.
Step 6
Now add some dark pixels to highlight the gap between the side and the center of the oval. This will give the tree the cluster appearance it was intended to have.
Step 7
Once this part is ready, copy it (Ctrl + C), flip it horizontally (Edit>Transform>Flip Horizontal) and place it on the opposite side.
Step 8
Also, place the finished pixel part from the previous step on the lower dark green part of the tree:
Step 9
To add a pixel texture to the tree trunk, on a new layer (Shift + Ctrl + N) draw a small black pixel texture pattern, apply it to the trunk and reduce the opacity to 20%. Afterwards, flatten the layers (Ctrl + E).
Thanks to this, the trunk will acquire the texture of bark.
Step 10
Lighten the outline of the trunk, and also draw a black shadow around the tree, falling to the ground from its top. Reduce the opacity of the shadow layer to 10%.
Final image:
Translation: Slutskaya Svetlana
This shows an example of creating a wonderful surreal treehouse using painting techniques and combining different photographs and textures. You will learn how to easily draw a tree thanks to non-standard settings brushes, in addition you will learn how to create clouds and much, much more. All this awaits you in this Photoshop tutorial!
Resources:
Step 1
Create a new document (Ctrl + N) sized 1024 px in width and 1280 px in height:
Step 2
First, let's create a tree. Select the brush and press F5 to open the settings panel. In the settings, set the hardness to maximum, then in the Shape Dynamics, Scattering and Color Dynamics sections set the same parameters as shown below:
Step 3
Now you need to choose the color for the foreground and background. Foreground color is #fabc22 and background color is #fabc22. Set the brush size to 150 pixels. Try drawing something. If you did everything correctly, your result should be similar to the example below:
Step 4
On different layers, draw several variants of the stems. In the next step we will combine them, assembling them into one whole tree. When you draw, try changing the strength of the Control Fade parameter in the Shape Dynamics section. After some trial and error, I finally managed to draw a few shapes:
Step 5
Now you need to connect all these figures into one whole. The first thing I decided to do was create a barrel. At the bottom I placed the figure stem 1, a little higher I placed stem 2, stem3 and stem 4. (See the example below):
Step 6
When the trunk was ready, I began adding branches until I got the finished shape:
Step 7
When you're done, merge the previously created layers to create a separate tree layer. Then select Filter>Render>Lightning, and set the parameters as shown below:
Step 8
In this step we will add shadows to the tree to make it three-dimensional. The Burn Tool is ideal for this purpose. From the toolbar, select Burn Tool. At the top of the tool settings, set the Range option to Highlight, and set the Exposure option to 10%. Give the tool very soft edges.
Try painting on some areas of the tree and you will notice how the shadows appear. The picture below shows an example of where it is best to create shading:
Step 9
After this, you need to apply a gradient to the tree. Create a Gradient adjustment layer... Create the same gradient as shown below. After this, do not forget to create a clipping mask for the gradient, which allows you to apply the gradient not to all layers, but only to the tree layer. To create a clipping mask, right-click on the name of the gradient layer and select Clipping mask from the list that opens. Set the layer opacity to 60%. Press Ctrl + E to merge everything into one. The whole tree is ready!
Step 10
Create a new document with a white background and a size of 1024 pixels in width by 1686 pixels in height. After that, create a new layer.
For the foreground color use #9db1fc and for the background color #6ca5f8. Activate the Gradient Tool and fill the document with it to create a background:
Step 11
Create another new document with a white background measuring 1024 px in width and 731 px in height. For the foreground choose color #92a8fb and for the background choose simply white. Select Filter > Render > Cloud and click OK. Using the Lasso Tool, create a selection shaped like a cloud. Once selected, press Shift + F6 to open the Feather Selection menu. Set the Feather Radius to 100 px. Then press Ctrl + J to duplicate the selection into a new separate layer. Hide the background layer by clicking on the eye icon. If you did everything correctly, the result should be similar to the example below:
Step 12
Add this cloud to the document created in step 10. To make the cloud more realistic, change the blending mode to Soft Light. Then press Ctrl + T to activate the Free Transform Tool and distort the shape of the cloud as shown below:
Step 13
To completely complete work on the clouds you need:
- Place the previously created cloud in the desired location.
- Make several copies of the cloud (Ctrl+J). Using the Move Tool (M), position the layers where necessary. Use the Free Transform tool to scale or flip duplicated layers. Try playing with different blending modes for each individual layer.
- Try distorting the shape of the clouds using the Free Transform tool.
- Select all cloud layers and press Ctrl + G to group them.
Step 14
Duplicate this group. For the duplicated group, set the blending mode to Soft Light and the opacity to 100%. Lower the duplicated group below the original one. Below is an example of what happened after all the manipulations:
Step 15
Then please do the following:
- Place the created tree on this canvas.
- Duplicate the tree layer. Then reduce the size of the duplicated tree, expand it horizontally and place it as shown in the figure below. Place this layer with a smaller copy of the tree under the original tree.
- Then create another duplicate and place it as shown below.
- Duplicate the layer again and position the trees as shown below. Don't forget to arrange the layers so as to hide the joints. Remember that these bushes must overlap the main trunk. Merge these layers with bushes into one.
Step 16
Open the Tree Houses image. Separate the house from the background. You can use the Pen Tool for this. Activate the Pen Tool and select the outlines of the house. When you get a closed selection, right-click and in the list that appears, the line Make Selection. Press Shift + Ctrl + I to invert the selection and press the Delete key to remove the background:
Step 17
There are still several unnecessary objects that need to be disposed of. Look at the picture below, the places that need to be hidden are marked in red. Clone some areas. Erase the tree that regenerates the stairs. Then, using the Clone Tool, “complete” the staircase, and also hide some sections. Then activate the Crop tool and crop the bottom part:
Step 18
I also decided to complete the balcony. This can be done using a selection and the Free Transform tool. For example, try selecting a part of the stairs, copying this selection to a separate layer and using the Free Transform tool to adjust the position. Don't forget to combine all these layers with parts from the house into one:
Step 19
Add the hut to the main canvas. Adjust the size and hide some parts using a mask:
Step 20
Duplicate the hut layer four times. Place the copies approximately as shown below:
Step 21
Now let's add other trees to hide the seams from the houses and add realism. Open the Bonsai Tree image and first of all, separate the trees from the background. I did this using a color range. Duplicate the trees layer and hide the original layer by clicking on the eye icon. Go to Select > Color Range and click on the white area of the sky. In the Color Range settings, set the Fuzziness value to 145 to create more contrast between black and white. Click OK. You will see a selection appear. If everything is done correctly, the sky should stand out. Click Delete to remove the background.
Step 22
Now add these trees to the main canvas. Arrange them and hide unnecessary parts using a mask:
Step 23
Duplicate the tree layer and place it as you see fit:
Step 24
Step 25
Don't forget to do this for all houses:
Step 26
After all the manipulations done, I got the following result:
Step 27
Apply a mask to the tree and hide some parts as shown below:
Step 28
Now you can add a person to the scene. Open the Model image. Separate the girl from the background:
Step 29
Drag the girl onto the main canvas and place her at the bottom near one of the houses. Activate the Smudge Tool. Set the tool settings to soft edges and small size. Also set the Srength parameter to 60%. Smear the edges of your hair to make it look disheveled. Then select the lamp and copy it twice. The same lamp can be added for each hut:
Step 30
In this step we will add three adjustment layers: Gradient, Photo Filter and Vibrance. Below you can see how to configure each layer.
When you're done with the settings, select the first gradient layer and change its Blending Mode to Soft Light and Opacity to 28%. For the second gradient, change only the Opacity to 27%. Set the photo filter transparency to 70%:
Step 31
Press Shift + Ctrl + Alt + E to merge all layers into one. Then press Ctrl + J to make a copy. I named this layer green:
Step 32
Select Filter > Render > Lightning and configure the filter as shown below:
Step 33
Apply a mask to this layer. Using a soft round brush with 20% opacity, erase the central part. Then set the opacity of this layer to 80%. Make a duplicate of the layer and change its blending mode to Soft Light and set its opacity to 80%:
Step 34
Open the last image called Nebula and add it to the main canvas. Place the layer with this image above the sky layers. Change the blending mode to Multiply:
Step 35
The result turned out a little dark so I decided to make it more contrasting. At the very top, create a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer and adjust it:
Step 36
Then you can add another Selective Color adjustment layer:
Step 37
The atmosphere still looks kind of boring. I decided to make the image even brighter. Duplicate the stars layer and place it at the very top. Change its Blending Mode to Soft Light and Opacity to 80%. Apply a mask to it and erase the central part in the tree area:
Step 38
At this step we will add light to the lamps, and also highlight some areas of the trees. Create a new layer (Shift + Ctrl + N). Fill it with black (Shift + F5) and change its Blending Mode to Color Dodge. First highlight the lower parts of the trees. Select the white color, activate the brush and change its opacity to 5. Now just paint in the desired colors (see picture below). Then make lighting for the lamps. For the foreground, select the color #fcb004 and paint directly over the lamps. As you go, try changing the color from #fcb004, #fe9024 to plain white to get the best result.
Step 39
On last stage You can clear some areas of leaves and darken the edges. Create a new layer. To paint over the leaves, use a similar color from the shadow. Use a soft brush with an opacity of 20-40%. Then you can darken the edges of the scene. You can also use the Blur Tool to blur the background.
That's all for today. Thank you for reading this Photoshop tutorial. I hope it was helpful.