Photoshop Tutorial – Give a surreal/dreamy effect to your photos in 4 steps

Welcome, one and all, to the first tutorial by the author of Stuck In Frames. It’s involves a series of rather simple steps, well not quite but I’ll make it that way, which can give a rather stunning surreal/dreamy effect to your photos. Before we begin I’d like to make a list of the things that you are going to need oh and by the way, here are the resultant images that we will be obtaining!

Shanghai: Black & White; original by Trey Ratcliffe (here).

Shanghai: Surreal; original by Trey Ratcliffe (here).

This is the source image which will be treated to Photoshop, by Trey Ratcliffe (here).

Now, a list of things that you are going to need before you can starting ‘awesomifying’ your photos! Did I just create a word ? Nah, someone’s already invented it before. Anyways, here is a list of stuff you are going to need.

Adobe Photoshop (CS and above, I use CS4).

An image to be ‘awesomifyied’.

Enough hand-eye co-ordination to control the mouse or your finger on the trackpad.

Properly functioning eyes are a must, blindness is a major hindrance!

Some time on your hands (there might be a ton of tweaking to be done to get the perfect level that you desire).

Some ice-cream! Why? Well I like to think of my readers following this tutorial while having ice-cream. :P

Now fire up Photoshop and load the image and get ready for some awesomifying goodness. If you don’t have an image right now, then you can use the same image here. Although remember to give credit to Trey, it’s basic ethics.

You need some basic Photoshop knowledge like duplicating layers etc. A word of caution, there might be a ton of confusing options in the process. Don’t get lost! So now, first thing to do is open up Photoshop and load the base image in Photoshop. Then you just have to follow the steps!

1. If the image loaded is a .jpg file then it will open as a locked layer. The first thing you have to do is rename the base layer. The process unlocks the layer and makes it more accessible to manipulation.

   The layers pallette shows a locked layer called background

   

   Rename the layer, make sure you do this

2. Now after renaming the layer, make a duplicate of it.
3. Then change the layer value of the top layer to 'Overlay'
4. Now take a good look at what you've obtained. It's a more 'dramatic' image than before with very strong color and contrast. Now although this might be an interesting image, we are not quite there yet. With the top layer selected, go to Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Apply a blur of 4.0 pixels and then look at the achieved effect. It will look like this. Look at the way, the color seems to be flowing out of the light sources! Feel free to experiment with various blurs and blur strengths.
5. This is the fastest way to achieve a dreamy/surreal effect and it gives the best effect in portraits. Now, how to fine tune this image? The result I wanted was a surreal, black and white image of Shanghai, but you might want something different. You can choose from tons of filters, apply some photo filters, put some color balance, paint on the image. This is the first and basic step to achieve surrealism. I’ll deal with more advanced techniques in my next tutorial. For now, let’s continue to more black and white awesomeness.
6. Now, click on the ‘Adjustment Layer’ icon at the bottom of the layer pallette and select Black and White (only in CS3 and above)
7. Now see those funky sliders, go on and play with them till you get the effect that you like.

   OMG! Funky sliders. I wants to playz!

8. And the finally, take a good look at the picture you've obtained. Take a deep breath and try to see if a photo filter makes it look better still. If not then save it and share it and be famous!!

If you have any doubts, comments or suggestions then do feel free to leave a word behind, savvy?! Oh and btw, here's another result along with the source image!

Source Image

After a little effects

Technorati Tags: photoshop,tutorial,photography,surreal,effects,landscape,portrait

Thorny petals and weird people

The Thorn in the Petal

Today, I feel enlightened. Do not ask me how or why. I just feel enlightened. I've always had this idea in my head that no matter how carefree people might be, they always shoulder their responsibilities for the people who depend on them. But today, I realized that it is not always so. You can't expect people to behave as you yourself would. In spite of all my poking and pondering over human nature, this thing never struck me. It was probably because of the fact that never before in my life had I met such an utterly disappointing excuse of a rational and realistic human being. I mean having faith on yourself is one thing and being adamant and not doing anything even after being warned is another thing and then screwing it all up when people are depending on you is yet another thing.

Life isn't all fun, partying and outings. But some people have a problem getting it as they've made it so far without having to sacrifice on fun. But they must also understand that their school days are very different from what they face now! I can pray that they learn from their mistakes and become a little more flexible by starting to understand the work-load and actually doin g something about it. Luck won't be pulling you through everything Mr and yes, you know I'm talking about you.

Whew! Now that's a load off my chest. Time to talk about the photo, eh?! Well she was sweeping the flowers on the lawn at the univ. and well I thought it was rather contrasting. The bright liveliness of the flowers against her dull and dead demeanor. How’d you like the photo ?

Technorati Tags: india,flowers,people,life,camera,college,rant

The Pup on the Pavement

The Pup on the Pavement - found this cute little pup sleeping peacefully on the pavement!

Another addition to my steadily growing collection of animal photos. This cute little critter was sleeping peacefully on the pavement. Mr A, Mr R, Mr N, Ms GB and myself were walking along to have some food and we came across this cute little puppy sleeping peacefully on the pavement. Today, I got conclusive proof that animals are totally photogenic. This was the best picture of the pup that I took, but the pup looked equally good in every snap. I know I haven’t been blogging for the last couple of days, it was only because I was working on my case for the intra moot-court competition that’s to be held on the 28th at my university. Among other things, I’ve been planning on making some changes to my blog and I’ve finally put the ads on my blog. I’ve been thinking of making only one post appear on the home page. If you want to see the other posts, then just click on older posts. I just think it’s going to be more photobloggy!!

Technorati Tags: photography,photos,india,animals,cute,pups,dogs

The Tree In My Dreams

The Tree In My Dreams - this image might hurt your eyes, click on it to view a bigger size.

This picture isn't exactly that of the tree in my dreams but it does come close. This picture was taken around 2:30 pm a couple of days ago. It was just after it had stopped raining. Mr A, Ms S and I were headed towards a certain cafe/restaurant where we regularly hang out. To get to that place we have to cross a railway crossing. Now, what happened was that the train stopped halfway through the crossing. Now, as we were on a rickshaw we were totally stuck. I got down and this tree really intrigued me. So, I whipped out my phone and took a couple of pictures.

The best one was later turned into an HDR photograph and then it was treated to some Photoshop. What you see is the final result. You can actually see a part of the train reflected in the puddle and a part of it in the background. Now, continuing the story, we were getting late. So, Mr A and I had this idea. We climbed through the train, which was effectively dead for all means and purposes, and jumped to the other side. The best part was that as soon as we had crossed through the train, it started moving again. We made it in time to meet another one of our friends, Mr AS.

UPDATE - This photo of mine got featured on A Photo A Day From Planet Earth! YAY!

Technorati Tags: photography,india,trees,nature,water,photos,nokia,train,cellphone

Random Smoking Bunny

Smoking Bunny - Smoking is injurious to health!

STATUTORY WARNING - SMOKING IS INJURIOUS TO HEALTH , ESPECIALLY FOR CUTE BUNNIES.

This, my friends, is a smoking bunny. Well, its not actually a cigarette in it's mouth but a piece of rolled up paper. Why?! Well I don't smoke so I wouldn't be likely to have a cigarette on me, especially during class. Yeah, I took this in class today. The bunny here features on Ms SM's pencil bag. I just had this crazy brainwave and I rolled up a piece of paper and stuck it between the bunny and the desk and I even got the ears into position. And wallah! Lo and behold. I had my smoking bunny.

It was an excellent model. Of course there was a lot of luminance noise in the image because it was taken from a cell-phone, so I had to use a lot of Photoshop on it. I'm pretty pleased with the end result though.

Now the main question – Why did I take this picture ? Just felt like it. As my room-mate keeps on saying, “In the heat of the moment.”

Technorati Tags: india,animals,photography,bunnies,funny,message,nokia,camera

Of Sleeping Machines and Slapstick Movies

The Sleeping Machine - they are human machines after all!

This here is the picture of a rickshaw-wala or rickshaw puller (as called in correct English), who’s sleeping on his rickshaw. Snuggling comfortably (NOT!) in the arms of Morpheus under the clear blue sky. The man here is one of the hundred odd rickshaw-walas found in Patiala. Oh wait, I’m forgetting something. Some people reading this might not even know what a rickshaw is. It’s basically a gigantic tricycle with a huge carriage kind of thingy in the back. People sit in it and this fellow pedals them to wherever they want to go. Did I hear someone say cruel ?! If you did, then all I can say back to you is: “Welcome to India”.

Rickshaws are the quintessential transport system in every city/town/wannabe town in India. These rickshaw-walas have to literally slog to earn whatever it is that they earn. They carry people around from place to place and when I say people, I mean PEOPLE. I’ve seen 5 people stuffed in that little carriage thingy and the poor fellow having to carry them around. I didn’t have my phone with me then so I couldn’t take a snap. Oh and just because they do all this manual labour doesn’t mean that they don’t cheat. They are some of the worst cheats you will ever meet.

I took this picture when I was myself on a rickshaw to watch a movie today. I saw “Chandni Chowk To China” and all I can say is that if you want to watch this movie, then please remember to leave your brain behind at home. It’s the most senseless movie you will ever see in your life. But hey, you will definitely laugh on the movie and as Mr N so rightly pronounced, “Laugh at the idea that somebody was stupid enough to think that people would laugh when seeing this movie!”  Among other things, my friends want me to write a post about them. I guess I will and I’ll give each of them a picture that describes them best. I’m also working on a Photoshop tutorial for giving borders and stuff to your photos. Will finish it and have it online soon enough.

Technorati Tags: india,photography,street,life,society,photos,movies,review

A Pot Full of Relief

Vase ?! – Taken at the Saras Fair in December.
The 14th of January was an incredible day. It was exhilarating day. The results of my 1st semester’s end-term exams were finally disclosed and I had done rather well. My first semester is officially over people and I got 75% aggregate. What’s my GPA ? No idea, my university follows a percentage system instead of GPA. God knows why!

Among other things, Mr. A and I left our bags in the library and well the library closed at 5 pm and our stuff got locked inside. What followed was a series of queries and questioning as to why there was no extra key to the library with anyone on campus. Besides, why should a National Law School's library close at 5pm. The kids here have to study, you know. So anyways, the matter ultimately reached the VC, he called up the librarian and made him come back to the univ and open the library so that we could take our bags.

I guess I've started on a plan to make some money to buy a decent camera. Maybe a Nikon D60 if not a D90. And for that very purpose, I'm planning to put ads on my blog. I guess monetizing this blog will work rather, should work. And on the same day as the results were declared; I was busy helping out a senior, Mr M, with some urgent stuff that he needed for his internship at a reputed Law Firm. It involved a ton of whois searches on the internet and lots of secret calls made in class, even though cell-phones are banned in class.

I can already feel the work-load growing, I guess its time to seriously start working. Lots of stuff to do this semester. Oh! How could I forget to mention that Ms SS is currently in Delhi for a moot court competition. Best of luck to her and I really hope that her team does well.  Currently I’m not that inspired to click pictures, I guess its due to a low period of my creativity or lack of decent subjects. Damn! How could I forget the objective behind creating this blog. It was to make even the listless, lifeless and even mundane subjects interesting. Like the picture that I’ve put here today.

It was taken at the Saras fair in December. It is a culture fair where there are kiosks from every state of India, displaying some of their traditional art and craft. Yes, there was the typical cuisine of every state as well. There was this pot there, exquisitely designed and I took a snap. I edited it in Photoshop so that I can give the background a b/w feel and make the in color with a little dream-ish feel to it. Its not one of my better Photoshop works. I know that. But still, I must write about this.

PS – I was thinking about writing about my internship the next time. Have some good pictures of buildings and a little escapade story as well.

Technorati Tags: india,photography,photos,fair,pot,art,culture,college

A Broken Mirror and Other Tales

I stretched comfortably in my bed, scratched my head and looked at the wall clock that had been given to me during my fresher's. It said that the time was 10:30 am. I sat up, albeit very slowly. It was Sunday, people, and I had full rights to sleep till 10 in the morning. So anyways, there were many things to do in this Sunday. I had made plans with some of my friends to go to this temple and then have lunch with them. Now this temple is a Laxmi-Narayan temple that can be found quite close to our hostels.

Laxmi Narayan Temple - with some post-processing done in Photoshop

So this is the probably the best of the three pictures that I took of the temple. Other pictures include my friends so they are not going to be displayed on the WoRlD WiDe WeB. So, continuing the tale, we ran into a classmate of ours who was with her mother and they explained the mysterious appearance of the multitude of people from Kerela at a temple in Punjab. It so transpires that every year, on the second Sunday of January, all the people from Kerela, who reside at Patiala, gather at this particular temple and offer their prayers, conduct a puja and have a little buffet. So, we were introduced to the people who organized this annual community fest and were then later shown to the buffet area. Needless to say, the food was good and then we went to the temple, offered our prayers and then clicked some pictures and started walking back to the hostel.

So, Ms B, Ms G and Ms S were walking along with me to their hostel. Ms S was to my right and was chatting animatedly while walking. All of a sudden, a car passed by dangerously close to her and her elbow banged against the side mirror of the car. The mirror broke at the hinge and fell on the road with a loud clatter. Everyone was rather surprised when the asshole driving the car did not stop and went on driving like he was high or something. Okay, now two other things happened. Ms S said, 'Ha ha! I broke his mirror' and a couple of seconds later she grabbed her elbow and said, 'Ow, MY ELBOW!'
The second thing that happened was that a kid on a bicycle nicked the broken mirror just as I had the idea of keeping it as a souvenir. Well its not everyday that a car brushes against your elbow and ends up having its side mirror broken off the hinge! Don't worry though, Ms S is fine and does not have any injuries. I do doubt that its addled her brains though, she's been acting funny since that little incident.

Among other things: I helped get the hostel's wi-fi running by finding the source of the problem, I made a new profile picture in Photoshop, its a tribute to Dexter and well I've been nick-named dxtr so___ you get the point.

Dee Dee to Dexter: “Ooh ooh, what does this button do ?”

Oh and as of Monday, my most mysterious classmate has finally joined the univ. Yes, Ms S.M has finally started attending classes as of the 12th of Jan, 2009. And if, by any freakish chance of fate, Ms. S.M happens to be reading this then I'd like to welcome her to the univ and hope that she understands the system faster than we ever could. Damn its late, right now its 12:30 am and its taken me over two hours to prep the images and write this. Why? Well, we were having a little Lohri party. So it's good-night to all for now.

PS - Note to self - stop listening to ghajini songs.

Technorati Tags: punjab,india,photography,images,nokia,camera,college,friends,law school

A Happy Man and a Lazy Bum

Happy Little Man - taken at the Saras fair, 2008.

The time right now is exactly 11 pm or 2300 hrs, whichever you prefer. I’m sitting alone in my room, trying to find a case which has been dodging me for the last four days.  I’ve spent the last 1 hour looking for that one citation that can help me get started on my work.

It's 11:15 pm now! I spent 15 minutes just typing two lines ?! I stare at the heater for a couple of minutes, pushing my feet towards it and feeling the comforting warmth on them. On a whim, I decide to check out the temperature right now. Its 12 degrees right now, the minimum, as low as 7. I spot my quilt at the end of my bed. I spread the quilt and get comfortable.

Its 11:25 pm and I can hear the constable whistling outside. Its a rather odd system here in India. Around midnight a constable starts patrolling the streets and keeps on whistling as he patrols. I recall something akin to being fascinated with the whole patrolling-at-midnight thing as a kid. Its 11:28 pm now and I seriously should do something about that case. Now, where is that book on contracts ?!

Its 11:30 pm and I find the book. I look through the index and find a new citation for that case. Now what does PC stand for ? Oh yeah, its the Privy Council! Manupatra gives me nothing. I sigh, click on that link to Westlaw and type out the citation. Still nothing ! It begins to get on my nerves. Deep searching into Westlaw gives me nothing either! I sit and ponder for a minute. Let’s see. I got a traceable AIR citation from a lost IA citation. I think the day wasn’t all that bad. I guess the library will help me, if they have AIRs going back to 1924! I take one more look at the time. Its 11:55 pm. I guess its time to edit my mistakes and post this.

Technorati Tags: india,photography,photos,life,real,rant,law school,law

Projects and petitions!

We were all sitting in class today, enjoying a free sociology period because our professor's on leave. It's just been 15 minutes and in walks this new professor. She introduced herself as Ms. D and said that she was the new IPR teacher and the teacher-in-charge of the Internship and Placement Committee. She appeared pretty smart and confident and appeared to be a no nonsense person. But after interacting with her for the rest of the period I came to realize that she wasn't all that she showed to be. Maybe she had her guard up just because it was the first time that she was in our class and all.

By the way, we don't have IPR in our first year. Its in out third year and onwards, but she was there to brief us about the about our internship reports and assignments. We had a compulsory "Law Library" internship after our 1st semester. Quite honestly a rational person would think that such an internship was pointless and had no real value on a C.V. Yeah, we had to do some really lame things like making a bibliography on a subject of our choice and write a book review of one of the books that we read in that library. Stuff our univ. makes us do...

Talking about the univ., these are couple of pictures that I clicked a day ago. It's the lawn in front of our library and there were flowers strewn all over it, flowers which had fallen from the trees. It was a beautiful sight with the sunlight and shadows. Just had to click.

Flower Drops - In color!


A little photoshop and some sepia magic!

Among other things, I read this post by Monika, today. It was about a petition which she had started. A petition to fight terorrism by both Pakistanis and Indians. I hope you guys go and sign it.

Technorati Tags: india,university,college,photos,photography,fun

Moments

The most awesome advantage about having a camera in your cellphone is that you always have a camera where-ever you go! So this automatically ensures that you do not miss that moment when you could have gotten that interesting shot. Here is one of my "in-the-moment" photos -

Muddy Splash, isn't it?

This picture was taken during my mid-semester exams and it was after one of the first rains that I experienced in Patiala. So, its just after the torrential shower and I had to go out to get some notes photocopied (yeah those were Ms G's notes). So I walk out of my room wearing my slippers and my shorts because the whole ground floor was flooded with ankle high water. I walk to the main gate and well I was left staring at the road! The water in the road was knee high! Apparently this place has no drains. I wonder which genius built this place. Anyways, so here I was staring in disbelief at the road and this SUV went about splashing a ton of water everywhere and I just took out my phone and snapped this pic!

There are many such photos that I have taken since the day I bought this phone, but they usually have my friends either in embarrasing situations or doing stupid things, and I'd rather not put it on the internet without their permission. But here are some more photos that needed the phone to be with me and well tell me how they are.

Sulking Monkey - dunno why, but she just refused to give me a decent pose?!

I went on a random, unplanned trip with my friends to this canal nearby and well in such a case you normally don't carry a camera with you. My phone came in handy again when this monkey jumped down from a tree. Well I tried to take a picture with her (it's ?)face in the photo, but I guess she (it ?) was very shy, downright sulky. Guess I had to woo her to pose with food or something, but the point is I had never come across modelling monkeys with attitude before. Oh well, first time for everything, eh?

The Flying Flag

Do tell me how the photos are!

Technorati Tags: india,flag,photo,mokey,animals,photography,nokia,phone

The journey back to the University

Made extensive use of Photoshop to get this "Old Photo" look. Click on the image for more info.

"... Its a thrilling tale and I wish to do it justice", said Albus Dumbledore to Harry Potter in the sixth book, The Half-Blood Prince. And starting off with that line must have gotten you wondering about the interesting-ness of my journey back to the university, but rest assured it wasn't that thrilling. In fact it was quite ordinary as journeys go, downright lame I might add, but I met some rather friendly co-passengers and had fun throughout. The point to be noted is that it was the second time that I was travelling in a train all on my own and this time I chose to ignore my grand-mother's warning about not talking to strangers. Yes, I actually stuck to it the last time and kept myself rather away from the other passengers. But I guess I decided to disobey her this time.

It was loads of fun just talking to them and spending time playing games. I actually learnt my first card game. Its a very interesting game called Bluff. Of course, there was a dark side. Every wannabe thrilling tale has a dark side! The dark side here was tons and tons of white, dense fog. Lately, the fog's been a menace causing trains and flights to be delayed and downright cancelled. Its never happened this extensively before. Its a never before seen problem and its a downright pain in the ass.

Bloody Fog

It was this stupid fog that delayed my train by about four hours. And even then it was quite a fun ride till New Delhi. I met some rather interesting and fun people, met some silent beauties and had a little hero moment of my own. Yeah, I kinda saved a baby from falling from the top berth. Caught the little girl just as she fell, I guess my reflexes were super charged just after having the shitty train food. Maybe that horrible tasting dal actually had some secret reflex chargers. Oh what the hell! I saved the baby, got my applause, had some fun and finally tumbled into my station. But the real fun started after I got into the bus to my final destination.

Yeah, I got into the wrong bus and I had to change busses midway. On top of that I ran-off without even buying a ticket. On the second bus, that I took from Rajpura to Patiala, things got interesting. A couple of drunks got into a fight. There was a lot of abusive language and some broken teeth. Finally managed to get down and got back to my hostel at around 11:45 pm. DESTINATION REACHED!

Technorati Tags: india,travel,train,fog,photos,photography,girl

A sunset, some ketchup and a bakra!

Street Sunset - click to view my flickr page and a larger version

Sunsets are always hailed as an artist's delight, one of the most beautiful sights to be seen in the world. Sunsets are also noted to be the most romantic of times. But known of this was in my mind when I took this picture. What was I doing? Well lets see...

I was on a rickshaw, heading to Tagore cinema to watch Golmaal Returns! I was on the rickshaw with friends and I think I had a sachet of tomato ketchup with me! Don't ask why? I guess I just like to carry useless stuff. Wait! I take back my words. That ketchup did come in handy. My rather evil mind decided to play a little trick on the rickshaw puller. See, I opened the packet and poured all the ketchup on the seat of the rickshaw puller when he wasn't looking! Yes, he did sit on it! Yes, the seat of his pants did become red! Yes, he must have gone home and wondered what the hell happened and if he bled from somewhere. My friends had a good laugh...

What! Don't look at me like that. I know I'm evil, sick and twisted sometimes. Oh, btw, five points to the person who guesses which square this picture was taken in.
UPDATE - No posts for the next couple of days. I'll be travelling back to the university. You can still check my updates on Twitter though!

Technorati Tags: funny,india,photo

Dude, did you hear? MIT is being outsourced to India!

MIT... outsourced?!! WTF!

"What the *censored*!"
Yeah, those wore the words that exploded out of my mouth when I saw this bus in front of me. I don't think anyone heard me though. It was probably because of the damn helmet! I was headed to receive my internship certificate and I found this on the road. Right in front of me, was a bright orange bus which had "MIT Bhubaneswar" featured on its posterior.
I kept on wondering for two minutes if the MIT had begun outsourcing itself or something. I mean, its not like we have some stunning blackjack card counters or something. So why was MIT here? The mystery was immediately cleared though. As soon as I overtook the bus, I read the words "MAHARAJA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY" gleaming on its anterior. Oh holy cow! I was seeing Asia in action. Welcome to knock-off land people.


The local MIT people should have a tagline - "What's in a name, brah!"

Technorati Tags: india,photo,photography,road,cellphone

Friends…

Friends at the Gurdwara

Friends... who doesn't need them? If you are that 1 person in the world who thinks he can do without them then the only thing I can tell you is "Get real". You just can't make do without them. Coming to me, I have some of the most fantastic people in this world for friends and I love them all. They have their quirks(Mr. A), their problems(Mr. V) and sometimes can be just plain stupid(Ms. R). But hey! Guess what, they are always there when I need them. Each is very different from the other, but each occupies a unique space in my life.

They worry when I become withdrawn and really perturbed with something. They know when to give me space and when to berate me. They know my quirks and tolerate all my stupidity. Always ready to give me that push when I lag behind, they are just awesome. Sometimes I'm totally insensitive, but they digest that as well. Life wouldn't be life without them.

Thanks for being there guys. Love you all . May 2009, be the best year of your life so far.

Technorati Tags: friends,new year,2009,india,photo,fun