What if SYS were light instead of dark?
Posted Apr 18, 04:45 AM
Section: Articles
Categories: Categories: Graphics, Photoshop, Tutorials
Comments: 5
Related Articles:
Making Reflections in Photoshop
Tutorial: Super glossy dented objects Part 2
Tutorial: Super glossy dented objects
Tutorial: Easy tiling images in Corel Painter
Tutorial: Radial Symmetry in Photoshop
Multiple Knockout Layers Video Tutorial
Wires Tutorial Redux: Knockout Layers
Form Follows Function 2: Semantic Markup in XHTML
Form Follows Function 1: What's a web-site?
Creating gradient-faded patterns
.: by mrbiotech :.
There are already some great tutorials online for making hoses and wires. This tutorial will take it a step further, showing you not only how to use the Path and Spline tools of Photoshop in hose/wire creation, but how to interweave them and add shadows that will give your creations a more realistic appeal.
Design and render intertwined hoses and wires using splines and brushes in Photoshop.
Difficulty: Moderate
Prerequisites:
In this tutorial, we’re going to create a hose with a braided appearance with a smaller wire wrapped around it, with realistic shadowing effects. It’s critical that you have in mind how you want this to turn out, specifically, how the wires will intertwine, overlap, and wrap around each other or any hoses. Because this is probably the first time you’ve attempted this, I’ve provided a picture to get an idea of what we hope to accomplish:

Although we will make a really cool looking hose out of this tutorial, the principle goal here is to help you get better acquainted with the Path and Spline tools of Photoshop so you can make some innovative graphics of your own. If you’re already well acquainted with the Pen and Path tools of Photoshop, then feel free to skip ahead.
To render our hose and wire, we need to create paths, or curved lines that will be traced by Photoshop to create the hoses and braids. Although this is a hose tutorial, we will also explain the use of Photoshop’s Pen Tools, for your future reference.
Most graphic packages, Photoshop foremost, have vector-based tools to render scalable shapes and freeform curves. In essence, this permits you to create any shape you want containing hard-lines, corners, and curves combined. The lines and shapes generated are scalable (meaning you can instantly change their size without losing resolution).
So… Path’s are:
When you create a path or shape using the Pen Tools, you LEFT-CLICK to make anchor-points on a line (corners on a rectangle, or the points on a zig-zag, for example), or LEFT-CLICK+DRAG to create rounded anchor-points. To define curvature on curved points, Photoshop provides ‘SPLINES,’ or extra grab-bars for a point, that permit you to determine how curved the lines are on either side of the point.

In the above example, the grey line represents the actual path, and all the squares are Pen-defined anchor-points on that line. The two points on the right are curved. The red lines extending from the third point are SPLINES. Grabbing the diamonds on either spline will permit one to extend the curvature of that point on either side.The Pen ToolsSo how do you make these paths and splines in Photoshop? Here are the tools used to create, delete and convert anchor-points (change them from hard to curved and vice-versa):
is selected, LEFT-CLICKING in an image will create a Start Point for a new path. Additional LEFT-CLICKs within the image will cause a straight-line to be generated from the previous point to the new point as follows:

will let you LEFT-CLICK+DRAG to create a path however you move the mouse. After you release the mouse button, Photoshop will make a best guess on where to put the points and splines to make the shape you just drew. Frequently, you’ll have to modify it to get it the way you actually want it, however.
and the Delete Anchor-Point Tool
to add or delete anchor points within an existing path.
will change the point from a hard-angled one to a curved point or vice-versa. In the following image, I used the Convert Point Tool on all the points in the star to convert it to the kid’s equivalent of a shuriken: harmless.

will select an entire path or shape, permitting you to move it wherever you want, trace the whole thing, etc.
. This is how you modify your existing paths and shapes.Note: once an anchor point is selected with the Direct Selection Tool, you can delete it by pressing the DELETE button.
Similar to working with multiple layers of graphics, you can work with multiple layers of paths. On each layer, you can set up as many paths as you want, with as many intersections as you want. For complex projects, however, this can get become cumbersome. I advise that you keep each path on it’s own path layer.
Here’s what the Path’s Palette looks like:

In this palette, I’ve got one Path Layer, containing the zig-zag path shown earlier.
This one will take the current path and attempt to fill it with your selected foreground color. Note: this will look VERY STRANGE unless you have a closed path (your first and last path points overlap, creating a closed shape as opposed to a line).
This button will trace the current path with whatever foreground color you currently have selected. Previous to pressing this, make sure you have either the pencil, airbrush, brush, or art-brush selected. Any brush you have saved in your brush palette can be used to stroke the path. WE’LL BE USING THIS FOR THE TUTORIAL.
Make a selection from the current path. This tends to work better for closed shapes.
This is a quick way to make a path using an existing selection. If you already have a selection area set in Photoshop, you can make a path from it by clicking this.
Create a new path layer in the Path’s Palette.
Destroys the current path layer.
This is a rather cursory coverage of Pens and Paths, as used in Photoshop. Believe it or not, one of the best places to go for help with these tools is the Photoshop Help Documentation (included with whatever version of Photoshop you downloaded, provided it’s legal). There are plenty of features that exist beyond this treatment, in relation to paths. Any serious graphics author is highly encouraged to give it a read!
Now that the fundamentals of Pens and Paths in Photoshop are discussed, we can move on to their application. Their backbones will be created with paths, stroked on separate layers using brushes, and then layer-styles applied.

or by pressing ‘P’ on your keyboard.

. Select a brush from the default palette with a large diameter but a harder edge and keep pressing your ‘]’ key until the brush size reaches 40 pixels (Note: the ‘[’ and ‘]’ keys are shortcuts to decrease or increase your selected brush size).

,select your ‘hose-braid’ layer by clicking on it.


So far, we’ve covered the use of Pens, Paths, and Splines, as well as practiced their use in a simple situation. The next steps will be creating a wire and making it appear to wrap around the hose.
with a hard-edged brush 9 pixels wide and set your foreground color to a 40% grey.




This is the technique employed in DominantNegative and Synovium, although it’s easily adapted to a variety of purposes. Add braiding to the wire, change its color, or experiment with applied patterns. What’s really fun is connecting other shapes or forms, or integrating the wires and braids into larger structures. Try stitching them through a faux-metal plate. I hope you enjoyed this, and that it proves useful to your skinning tasks. Leave a comment if this tutorial does you good or something was unclear!
Skinyourscreen.com is a small hobbyist digital design site for skinners. We have our own miniature library of exclusive skins and tutorials for your enjoyment.
Subscribe to our latest items, skins, and reviews using the links below:
AstonShell | Home of the AstonShell alternative shell environment and AltDesk virtual windows manager for Windows computers.
Blizzle | The best skinning software news site in the galaxy. Period. Great news off the press on Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX shells, software, and skinnables.
Iconfactory | Home of fantastic professional icons, iconsets, and other graphics. Also the makers of CandyBar, iPulse and IconBuilder software
Iconico | Makers of Screen Compass, Protractor, Calipers, and Screen Tracing Paper... great skinnable apps to help you in your skinning.
LS-Universe | LS-Universe is a fantastic place to find cutting edge modules and themes for LiteStep, the grand-daddy/mac-daddy of all alternate shells for Windows.
Planet Aston | Planet Aston's got some nifty FLASH tutorials on how to use and skin AstonShell, my favorite alternative interface for Windows.
Site5 | One generous web-host, and what we use at Skinyourscreen.com. Ruby-On-Rails hosting with FastCGI, 55GB storage, 5TB transfer, dedicated IP, SSH, SSL, unlimited email and databases for 5 FREAKIN' DOLLARS PER MONTH!
Where James Rollins makes you grit your teeth as your favorite characters are seemingly killed only to pop up safe at the end, Iain Banks pushes your favorite characters through gut-wrenching punishment and still has the sadism to kill ‘em all at the end anyway. Don’t worry, it’s the ride that counts (or at least that’s what I keep telling myself).
Few books touch me so indelibly. Rarer still are true stories that leave a mark or impression on my soul. Tuesday’s with Morrie has done that with rapacious wit, candora, melancholy, but most importantly, truth. Life is to be lived, and fully, not sequestered away seeking money, fame. Life is who you love. This is a book to own. I hope my kids will pick it up off the shelf when they’re old enough and give it a read.
Great resource read for anyone thinking of building their own electric guitar. Great examples and nice anecdotal information. Tremendously lacking in schematic or diagramatic details, but rich with verbal suggestions. I’d recommend reading this to get an idea before going online and getting more pertinent details. Organization is a bit confusing, but when used as a reference (i.e.: skipping to a needed section) the book still proves its worth.
An American arctic research submarine stumbles upon an ice-entombed WWII-era Soviet research base holding a secret so sinister that both countries will do anything to obtain it, or ensure it is never seen by the public eye. Not the traditional action-adventure novel, Ice Hunt adds fantastic character-development, accurate science, a highly unpredictable plot to the exciting non-stop peril. Think of Michael Crichton and Dean R. Koontz on a dose of realism and you get Ice Hunt.
Rainlendar on Mac · Sep 11, 2008 by mrbiotech, in
Making Reflections in Photoshop · Sep 01, 2008 by mrbiotech, in
Tutorial: Super glossy dented objects Part 2 · Aug 28, 2008 by mrbiotech, in
Tutorial: Super glossy dented objects · Aug 19, 2008 by mrbiotech, in
Big Fat Footers · Aug 13, 2008 by mrbiotech, in
More Articles...Making Reflections in Photoshop · Sep 01, 2008 by mrbiotech, in
Tutorial: Super glossy dented objects Part 2 · Aug 28, 2008 by mrbiotech, in
Tutorial: Super glossy dented objects · Aug 19, 2008 by mrbiotech, in
Tutorial: Easy tiling images in Corel Painter · Jul 22, 2008 by mrbiotech, in
Tutorial: Radial Symmetry in Photoshop · Jul 09, 2008 by mrbiotech, in
More Tutorials...AstonShell: LambdaRed · Oct 06, 2008 by mrbiotech, in
Free Graphic: Easy Button · Sep 29, 2008 by mrbiotech, in
Free Graphics: Vector Primitives, The Set · Sep 25, 2008 by mrbiotech, in
Free Graphics: Red Pyramid Vectors · Sep 18, 2008 by mrbiotech, in
Sealed, Wallpaper · Sep 13, 2008 by mrbiotech, in
More Downloads...
Stinky Me said on Jul 15, 06:18 AM
AWESOME !! >=D
Pincoski said on Aug 22, 04:45 AM
dood, that tutorial helped me out a lot! that is some sweet effects! GJ!
IShan said on Dec 13, 02:39 AM
awesome man …i owe wu alot for this tutorial although u muight wanna add some hlp on stroking more czo i spent an hour figuring hoew to do it ….bcoz i had the shape layers option sleeceted during path creationn so i cudnt stroke it and i went crazy for an hour until i figured out my mistake
mrbiotech said on Dec 16, 01:27 PM
@ IShan…
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll see what I can do. If the directions are followed precisely, the problem should be avoided, although including a trouble-shooting here is still a great idea. :)
dkala said on Mar 22, 03:22 PM
IShan, I had the same problem, I should’ve read the comments first!
At any rate, this was awesome. I’m glad some one had the patience to figure all this stuff out..
I’m looking foward to reading more tuts MrB