![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamingoftheskyHello and welcome! I'm assuming if you're reading this, it is because you want to learn to make photorealistic elevations. This tutorial is written for CS3 since that is what I run on my personal computer, but it will definitely work with any CS version of photoshop, and probably most other versions. The screenshots may not match perfectly but it shouldn't be too hard to decipher. This tutorial may not be compatible with any other image editing program! Photoshop has unique tools that may or may not be available in other programs. Unfortunately, I don't use any other programs so I can't provide support for them.
I have tried to make this tutorial as comprehensive as possible. Some people will probably find it too dumbed down, and others will find it difficult. I have attempted to find a middle ground. If I have left something out or any steps are too confusing, please let me know! I will include a "troubleshooting" section at the end of each tutorial to include anything I think might go wrong. Any questions I receive will also go here.
Difficulty: medium
Tools Needed:
-Photoshop (obviously)
-Mouse with scroll wheel (photoshop is extremely difficult to use without a mouse or tablet)
-Internet access (for texture references)
-High-quality line drawing elevation image
This tutorial will NOT cover how to obtain Photoshop, where to find texture references/how to edit textures, or where/how to get an elevation. Those issues may or may not be addressed in another tutorial. This tutorial is not for beginners! It is assumed that you know the basic Photshop tools and how to use them.
All that being said,
.......................
Here are the resources you need to complete this part of the tutorial if you want to follow along using my images.
Elevation
Wood Texture
Step 1. Open your elevation image in Photoshop.
Start by bringing up your elevation image in Photoshop. Save it under a new name. Then make a copy of the image layer, and lock and hide the background layer. This way in case you accidentally edit the elevation itself, you have a backup.
You want your image to be as large as possible. It is far easier to maintain image quality when shrinking than it is with enlarging. I prefer to leave blank space around the edges. This lets you see what is happening to textures that overlap the elevation boundaries.
As I said, I will not go into how to get a high quality elevation image in this tutorial. My elevation was created in Revit Architecture 2011.
Step 2. Determine background, midground and foreground elements.
This step, although it involves no actual image editing, serves a number of purposes. One is to help you determine where to start. Another is that background textures will be the lowest layers, and therefore do not necessarily need to be perfectly cropped (as we will see later).
I have highlighted the background areas in my screenshot so you'll know which parts I'm talking about. In my elevation, I have decided that the background areas are the cabinet faces (the areas behind the door and drawer fronts). Note that generally the wall would also be included in the background, but in this case I don't want to deal with it till later so for now the cabinets are the background.
Step 3. Add your background textures.
Again, I will not be going into how to select or resize a texture image. That's a whole 'nother tutorial.
Use the "move" tool (V) to position your first texture. *THIS IS WHEN YOU SHOULD START MAKING LAYER GROUPS* I'm serious. If you haven't started naming your layers, DO IT NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE! My finished elevation has eleven groups and several dozen layers, and it is a relatively small file. There is absolutely no way to keep track of everything if you do not name and group layers! I have chosen such creative names as "Left Lower Cab" for groups, and "L Cab Door" for layers. As long as you know what a layer name means, that's all that matters.
SIDENOTE: When I'm working with wood textures, I prefer to have my cabinet face textures go horizontally. I find this makes the door and drawer faces stand out even better.
Once your texture is in place, use the rectangular marquee tool to cut it down to size. Do not worry about cutting out doors or drawers. The only thing you need to crop is the outside frame, making the texture a rectangle. The best way to do this is to set the opacity of the texture layer to 50%, allowing you to see the guidelines underneath. Then use the marquee to select the part you want to KEEP. Press CTRL+SHIFT+I to invert your selection, then press DELETE. Don't forget to set the opacity back to 100% when you're done with this step!
SIDENOTE: Do NOT use the crop tool to edit down your textures once you have inserted them. It will crop your entire image.
Alternately you could cut out each piece that will have a different texture and make each one a different layer, but I find this tedious.
Repeat this process with each background area. Note that I have placed the toe kicks separately. They should be added at this time (with the grain facing the same direction) but should be on separate layers. You will see why later.
Step 4: Add door and drawer faces
The next step is to put textures on the door and drawer faces (your midground areas). I find it easiest to turn off the previous texture layers before moving on to the next one (in this case, turn off the cabinet textures).
SIDENOTE: I prefer to make my wood grain textures run vertically on door and drawer faces, since that's how they normally run. It also helps them stand out from the cabinets.
Again, adjust the texture's opacity to 50% and crop to fit. If they are not already, move the door/drawer texture layers above the cabinet textures in the list. This can be done even in groups. If you grouped by cabinet section (like me), move the layers within the group. If you grouped by step, move the groups themselves. Now turn all of the layers back on.
Voila! Your cabinet doors are above your cabinet faces. No need to cut anything out :)
Step 5. Adding cabinet molding
As I'm sure you've noticed, your door and drawer faces are rather plain. There are a million ways to spice them up, many of which go beyond the scope of this tutorial. I will show you how to turn your flat panel door into a shaker style door, and you can explore from there.
Just like you did before, lay your texture over the correct area, set the opacity down and crop to fit.
SIDENOTE: When placing your molding texture, be careful NOT to line the grain patterns up with the panel underneath. It will look strange if you do.
This time, you'll also need to delete the middle portion. The easiest way to do this is, keeping the opacity set to 50%, use the rectangular marquee tool to select the center that you want to remove, then press "delete".
Step 6. Adding cabinet layer effects - Lower Cabinets
This step is really long and a bit more difficult than the previous steps, so just to make sure we're all on the same page, your elevation should now look like this:
Now comes the fun part-adding layer effects to make the cabinets look real. Here is where the picture really starts to come together. Bring up the properties for your lower cabinet layer (you did name all of your layers as you made them, right?). Make your settings match mine:
Now a quick explanation of the options here. Drop shadow and outer glow add a color fade on the outside of the layer. Inner shadow and inner glow are the opposite. There are differences between shadow and glow, but they will be difficult to distinguish in this project. For this, we're using drop shadow.
Things to notice: The blend mode is set to multiply. This gives it a soft "shadowy" appearance. The color box next to the blend mode is black. This makes the shadow black. The default is typically white, so don't forget to change it or you'll have a very odd looking shadow. The angle is 90 degrees, or straight up. This means the shadow will fall straight down. Use global light is unchecked. When checked, it causes every shadow created with a checked global light box to fall in the same direction. Since my room has a central light source, not a global one, we need the shadow to be able to change positions. Distance, spread and size affect the size and gradient amount. Please note that these settings will not be appropriate for every project, or even for every shadow in this project. I have adjusted them to make the shadow look the way I wanted it to for this particular elevation. Feel free to play around with them to see how everything works. When you're done, put them back to my settings. It will be easier to keep everything matching.
Now copy these settings onto each of the BASE CABINET LAYERS ONLY! The other layers will have their own settings.
Next, find the texture layer for one of the lower doors (it doesn't matter which one) and match my settings.
Things to notice: This time I'm using an outer glow. This allows a softer shadow than the drop shadow, but more importantly it will show on two sides. The blend mode is now darken, with a fairly low opacity. Change the color to black and the gradient to foreground>transparent. The size is still 5 px, but notice that it shows much less than the drop shadow did.
Now copy the settings to the other two lower doors and all of the lower drawers, then take a deep breath. It's not over yet. But look how real it's beginning to look!
Step 7. Adding cabinet layer effects - Upper Cabinets
Let's start with the doors, since they're basically the same as the lower doors. So, match the settings once again:
The only difference, as you may have noticed, is a slightly lower opacity. Since the upper cabinets are closer to the light source, their shadows are lighter. Copy the settings to all of the upper cabinet doors.
The next part is slightly harder. The upper cabinet bases have two settings: a drop shadow and an outer glow. This allows them to have a shadow on all four sides. So this time the settings to copy are in two parts:
Things to notice: This time "use global light" is checked.
Copy the settings to the other upper cabinets.
Congratulations! You've finished your kitchen cabinetry. Take a break and we'll finish this tutorial in part 2.
I have tried to make this tutorial as comprehensive as possible. Some people will probably find it too dumbed down, and others will find it difficult. I have attempted to find a middle ground. If I have left something out or any steps are too confusing, please let me know! I will include a "troubleshooting" section at the end of each tutorial to include anything I think might go wrong. Any questions I receive will also go here.
Difficulty: medium
Tools Needed:
-Photoshop (obviously)
-Mouse with scroll wheel (photoshop is extremely difficult to use without a mouse or tablet)
-Internet access (for texture references)
-High-quality line drawing elevation image
This tutorial will NOT cover how to obtain Photoshop, where to find texture references/how to edit textures, or where/how to get an elevation. Those issues may or may not be addressed in another tutorial. This tutorial is not for beginners! It is assumed that you know the basic Photshop tools and how to use them.
All that being said,
.......................
Here are the resources you need to complete this part of the tutorial if you want to follow along using my images.
Elevation
Wood Texture
Step 1. Open your elevation image in Photoshop.
Start by bringing up your elevation image in Photoshop. Save it under a new name. Then make a copy of the image layer, and lock and hide the background layer. This way in case you accidentally edit the elevation itself, you have a backup.
You want your image to be as large as possible. It is far easier to maintain image quality when shrinking than it is with enlarging. I prefer to leave blank space around the edges. This lets you see what is happening to textures that overlap the elevation boundaries.
As I said, I will not go into how to get a high quality elevation image in this tutorial. My elevation was created in Revit Architecture 2011.
Step 2. Determine background, midground and foreground elements.
This step, although it involves no actual image editing, serves a number of purposes. One is to help you determine where to start. Another is that background textures will be the lowest layers, and therefore do not necessarily need to be perfectly cropped (as we will see later).
I have highlighted the background areas in my screenshot so you'll know which parts I'm talking about. In my elevation, I have decided that the background areas are the cabinet faces (the areas behind the door and drawer fronts). Note that generally the wall would also be included in the background, but in this case I don't want to deal with it till later so for now the cabinets are the background.
Step 3. Add your background textures.
Again, I will not be going into how to select or resize a texture image. That's a whole 'nother tutorial.
Use the "move" tool (V) to position your first texture. *THIS IS WHEN YOU SHOULD START MAKING LAYER GROUPS* I'm serious. If you haven't started naming your layers, DO IT NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE! My finished elevation has eleven groups and several dozen layers, and it is a relatively small file. There is absolutely no way to keep track of everything if you do not name and group layers! I have chosen such creative names as "Left Lower Cab" for groups, and "L Cab Door" for layers. As long as you know what a layer name means, that's all that matters.
SIDENOTE: When I'm working with wood textures, I prefer to have my cabinet face textures go horizontally. I find this makes the door and drawer faces stand out even better.
Once your texture is in place, use the rectangular marquee tool to cut it down to size. Do not worry about cutting out doors or drawers. The only thing you need to crop is the outside frame, making the texture a rectangle. The best way to do this is to set the opacity of the texture layer to 50%, allowing you to see the guidelines underneath. Then use the marquee to select the part you want to KEEP. Press CTRL+SHIFT+I to invert your selection, then press DELETE. Don't forget to set the opacity back to 100% when you're done with this step!
SIDENOTE: Do NOT use the crop tool to edit down your textures once you have inserted them. It will crop your entire image.
Alternately you could cut out each piece that will have a different texture and make each one a different layer, but I find this tedious.
Repeat this process with each background area. Note that I have placed the toe kicks separately. They should be added at this time (with the grain facing the same direction) but should be on separate layers. You will see why later.
Step 4: Add door and drawer faces
The next step is to put textures on the door and drawer faces (your midground areas). I find it easiest to turn off the previous texture layers before moving on to the next one (in this case, turn off the cabinet textures).
SIDENOTE: I prefer to make my wood grain textures run vertically on door and drawer faces, since that's how they normally run. It also helps them stand out from the cabinets.
Again, adjust the texture's opacity to 50% and crop to fit. If they are not already, move the door/drawer texture layers above the cabinet textures in the list. This can be done even in groups. If you grouped by cabinet section (like me), move the layers within the group. If you grouped by step, move the groups themselves. Now turn all of the layers back on.
Voila! Your cabinet doors are above your cabinet faces. No need to cut anything out :)
Step 5. Adding cabinet molding
As I'm sure you've noticed, your door and drawer faces are rather plain. There are a million ways to spice them up, many of which go beyond the scope of this tutorial. I will show you how to turn your flat panel door into a shaker style door, and you can explore from there.
Just like you did before, lay your texture over the correct area, set the opacity down and crop to fit.
SIDENOTE: When placing your molding texture, be careful NOT to line the grain patterns up with the panel underneath. It will look strange if you do.
This time, you'll also need to delete the middle portion. The easiest way to do this is, keeping the opacity set to 50%, use the rectangular marquee tool to select the center that you want to remove, then press "delete".
Step 6. Adding cabinet layer effects - Lower Cabinets
This step is really long and a bit more difficult than the previous steps, so just to make sure we're all on the same page, your elevation should now look like this:
Now comes the fun part-adding layer effects to make the cabinets look real. Here is where the picture really starts to come together. Bring up the properties for your lower cabinet layer (you did name all of your layers as you made them, right?). Make your settings match mine:
Now a quick explanation of the options here. Drop shadow and outer glow add a color fade on the outside of the layer. Inner shadow and inner glow are the opposite. There are differences between shadow and glow, but they will be difficult to distinguish in this project. For this, we're using drop shadow.
Things to notice: The blend mode is set to multiply. This gives it a soft "shadowy" appearance. The color box next to the blend mode is black. This makes the shadow black. The default is typically white, so don't forget to change it or you'll have a very odd looking shadow. The angle is 90 degrees, or straight up. This means the shadow will fall straight down. Use global light is unchecked. When checked, it causes every shadow created with a checked global light box to fall in the same direction. Since my room has a central light source, not a global one, we need the shadow to be able to change positions. Distance, spread and size affect the size and gradient amount. Please note that these settings will not be appropriate for every project, or even for every shadow in this project. I have adjusted them to make the shadow look the way I wanted it to for this particular elevation. Feel free to play around with them to see how everything works. When you're done, put them back to my settings. It will be easier to keep everything matching.
Now copy these settings onto each of the BASE CABINET LAYERS ONLY! The other layers will have their own settings.
Next, find the texture layer for one of the lower doors (it doesn't matter which one) and match my settings.
Things to notice: This time I'm using an outer glow. This allows a softer shadow than the drop shadow, but more importantly it will show on two sides. The blend mode is now darken, with a fairly low opacity. Change the color to black and the gradient to foreground>transparent. The size is still 5 px, but notice that it shows much less than the drop shadow did.
Now copy the settings to the other two lower doors and all of the lower drawers, then take a deep breath. It's not over yet. But look how real it's beginning to look!
Step 7. Adding cabinet layer effects - Upper Cabinets
Let's start with the doors, since they're basically the same as the lower doors. So, match the settings once again:
The only difference, as you may have noticed, is a slightly lower opacity. Since the upper cabinets are closer to the light source, their shadows are lighter. Copy the settings to all of the upper cabinet doors.
The next part is slightly harder. The upper cabinet bases have two settings: a drop shadow and an outer glow. This allows them to have a shadow on all four sides. So this time the settings to copy are in two parts:
Things to notice: This time "use global light" is checked.
Copy the settings to the other upper cabinets.
Congratulations! You've finished your kitchen cabinetry. Take a break and we'll finish this tutorial in part 2.
