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Posted on 21/07/04 2:12:19 PM |
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joshspazjosh
* Posts: 22 Reply |
A bag of chips
Hey. I've been a fan of the first edition for quite some time now (haven't found the money yet to buy the 2nd edition  ) and I currently have a summer internship at the Museum of Science, making a newsletter. I work with one other person, and she was doing an article on obesity, so I thought it would be a good idea to have a Doritos bag of chips with the headline on the bag and the subheading below the bag. However, once I made the bag (forgive me for the horrible art; I don't have my tablet here and they only have Elements 1.0), I have NO IDEA how to make it look like an actual bag of chips. I used the Pinch filter, as seen below, to make it more "3-D", but beyond that I'm not sure where to go. Any ideas?
-Josh  |
Posted on 21/07/04 4:56:20 PM |
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Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 7000 Reply  |
Re: A bag of chips
First of all, you need to make those chips look more realistic - put some texture in them so they're not flat triangles. When the bag's all ready, work on a duplicate layer and try some shading using Dodge and Burn, then apply the Plastic Wrap filter to make it look like a real bag. I'll have a go at this tomorrow and see if I can show you how it should be done - unless anyone else wants to get in first? |
Posted on 21/07/04 6:40:52 PM |
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joshspazjosh
* Posts: 22 Reply |
Re: A bag of chips
Thanks, I'll try it. I'm used to Photoshop 6-not Elements-and I've only been at my job for a week so I'm still adjusting. |
Posted on 21/07/04 7:39:37 PM |
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joshspazjosh
* Posts: 22 Reply |
Re: A bag of chips
Sorry for double-posting, but I needed to attach. I should state here that I'm not neccessarily aiming for photorealistic approximation or even "hyper realism", as you say, Steve, but just a clear idea of something which can be conveyed to a diverse audience. In other words, it doesn't neccessarily have to look exactly like a bag of chips, but people should be able to recognize it as one and not a random abstract shape. That being said, I used your advice with the textured chips and the Dodge and Burn, but the problem is the bag's unique surface: thin painted metallic plastic, I believe. Since it isn't metal, the bag can't have too much Plastic Wrap applied to it. But there is a problem: those extremely bright areas near the wrinkles in the material where the light bounces off the metal in a photograph: that is basically what tells people it's a bag of chips (do a search for "Doritos bag" in Google Images and you'll see what I mean). So I selected the layer's contents, made a new layer, filled it with light gray, and used Dodge on that. If nothing else worked, at least I got the chips to look more realistic. I don't think I completely have it, though. Any suggestions? EDIT: Sorry for the small image; I'm working in 300dpi and have to reduce it to make it fit 100k. 
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Posted on 21/07/04 9:08:59 PM |
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trinityofone
Guest Reply |
Re: A bag of chips
This is my take on it. I won't go into a long description of what I did, as I'm not sure if this was exactly the style you were after 
 _________________ It must be Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays |
Posted on 21/07/04 9:21:09 PM |
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joshspazjosh
* Posts: 22 Reply |
Re: A bag of chips
Thanks! That wasn't exactly what I was going for (it looks more like the paper kind of bag of chips than the material they use for Doritos bags) but that could work, too. For future reference, what did you do and could I do it in Photoshop 6 and/or Elements 1.0? -Josh P.S. I like the seal, by the way-nice touch. I wasn't sure what it looked like, though, as pictures on the Net don't show it clearly, so I wanted to save that for the last minute. |
Posted on 21/07/04 10:43:50 PM |
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trinityofone
Guest Reply |
Re: A bag of chips
Ok, here's another version, this time using Steve's favourite, plastic wrap. 
How I did it: Firstly, I made a copy of your original on a new layer. I then masked out bits of the bag's edges - the bag is full of chips, so it should have an irregular shape. The chips on the bag were isolated with a pen path and promoted to a new layer, I used the texturizer with the sandstone texture and changed the hue and saturation a little. For the seal, I used the pen tool to trace the top of the bag, duplicated and joined the path and finally converted it to a selection and made a new layer. I used a very small burn brush and drew vertical lines across the whole width. I selected the original bag layer (mine, that is), created a new layer at the top of the stack, filled it with mid-gray and set the layer blend mode to hard-light. I then went to work on it with a fairly large, soft burn/dodge brush and created the shadows and highlights. The hard creases were made using Steve's folded paper technique. For the newer version, I applied plastic wrap to the hard-light layer - this gives a more subtle effect than using it on the coloured layer (I used 12 for strength, 3 for detail and 15 for smoothness). I assume all this is available in PS 6, I started off with 7. Not sure about Elements though. Hope this helps David _________________ It must be Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays |
Posted on 22/07/04 09:03:43 AM |
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Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 7000 Reply |
Re: A bag of chips
David, that's a really good method. I particularly agree with your technique of creating a new grey hard light layer and applying the plastic wrap to that - it's a method I always use, and I've written an Action to create a Hard Light layer from a selection for just that purpose. Josh, I take your point about David's first go looking more like a polythene bag than a metallic one, but are you sure this is a major factor? The point is, it looks like a snack packet. Surely that's what's important here? I've detailed David's method here so you can see what's going on. The steps are: original artwork; New midtone layer, shaded with Dodge & Burn; midtone layer, with Plastic Wrap applied; midtone layer changed to Hard Light mode.  |
Posted on 22/07/04 10:39:52 AM |
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trinityofone
Guest Reply |
Re: A bag of chips
Thanks Steve, I would have detailed the steps graphically last night but I was running out of steam
The image was small enough to allow me to mess around with different styles using multiple copies and compare the results. _________________ It must be Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays |
Posted on 22/07/04 2:49:15 PM |
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joshspazjosh
* Posts: 22 Reply |
Re: A bag of chips
Thanks. The problem with Elements is that there's NO LAYER MASKS and NO PEN TOOL, so I tried the best I could:  |
Posted on 22/07/04 3:32:32 PM |
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maiden
Golden Gif Gagster Posts: 471 Reply  |
Re: A bag of chips
After seeing both Trinity and Steve's method I thought I would have a bash by adding Lighting and Channels and a bit of EyeCandy Chrome to create a more metalic effect.  |
Posted on 22/07/04 3:39:33 PM |
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Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 7000 Reply |
Re: A bag of chips
I think I can feel a future Friday Challenge coming on... |
Posted on 22/07/04 3:40:28 PM |
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maiden
Golden Gif Gagster Posts: 471 Reply |
Re: A bag of chips
Somehow I knew you'd say that
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