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On this seven-part superior Photoshop compositing course, you may learn to create a extremely artistic music album cowl design. You will be compositing a number of photos collectively, adjusting the lighting, submerging half of the design in water, and including loads of visible results.

On this lesson, we’ll begin with making ready and composing the belongings we’re utilizing within the course. Our belongings come from Envato, an infinite artistic subscription service the place you’ll find and obtain high quality graphics, templates, images, fonts, and extra.

If you happen to desire video tutorials, watch the entire Superior Photoshop Strategies course from the Tuts+ YouTube channel. Moreover, you’ll be able to take a look at the Superior Photoshop course web page.

To observe alongside, obtain the gadgets used to create an album cowl in Photoshop from this assortment: 

Obtain course recordsdata from Envato

1. Organise your belongings in layers

Step 1

Create a brand new doc at 120 mm x 120 mm and 300 dpi. These had been the scale of a CD again within the day.

If you happen to’re designing solely for print, you’ll be able to go together with CMYK for the colour mode. However as a result of we’ll be presenting this on-line in a wide range of totally different locations, we’ll preserve this as RGB, which is extra appropriate when designing for screens. If unsure, select RGB for the colour mode. You get a couple of extra colours in that spectrum. Click on Create, and you’ve got a clean canvas to work on.

Album cowl dimensions in Photoshop

Step 2

Now go over to Envato, the place you’ll be able to seize the artistic belongings used on this Photoshop composite lesson.

Envato’s 3D library is nice for photograph compositing in Photoshop as a result of you’ll be able to view a 360° render and transfer objects round to search out the angle that is best for you. Then you’ll be able to obtain it as a PNG or a PSD file, each of which include transparency, so that you need not reduce out any objects.

Step 3

Add all of the belongings to your doc in Photoshop as separate layers. Identify every layer to maintain your recordsdata organised and simple to determine.

2. Create a tough composition utilizing your photos

Step 1

Now it is time to work on a tough composition utilizing your photos. Flip off all of your belongings and switch them again on one after the other as you’re employed in your composition. A few of your belongings could also be bigger than you want, so you could have to scale them down (Management/Command-T).

Let’s begin our composition with the ocean. You need the floor of the ocean to divide the design in half, so use that as the place to begin.

Step 2

Activate the underwater picture layer, and dimension it up in order that the solar rays coming by means of are excluded and simply the blue a part of the water is seen. Flip off the layer once you’re carried out. 

Step 3

Subsequent, activate the layers for the tall rocks, the guitar, and the eagle, and scale them down as within the picture beneath. 

Step 4

Now, we will construct a seabed simply by duplicating a single rock. Activate the rock photograph layer and scale it down. It has a white background, so the very first thing to do is take away the background by utilizing the Object Choice Software and including a layer masks. 

Subsequent, duplicate the rock 4 instances and rotate every of the duplicated photos in order that they appear totally different from one another. You may add a little bit of  distortion if you would like to distinguish them much more. In fact, it’s also possible to obtain totally different rocks and add them for additional realism in order for you.

Step 5

Activate the wave layer, add a layer masks, make certain black is chosen, and use one in every of Photoshop’s default tender brushes within the Brush Software to brush away the ocean above the wave and beneath it. All we want is the precise floor wave after which a little bit of the blue beneath. 

Step 6

Let’s add some bark texture to the guitar now. Resize the bark, rotate it sideways, and transfer it to cowl the underside of the guitar. Now, duplicate it and use the Rework Software to flip it the wrong way up. Transfer the duplicated picture as much as cowl the neck of the guitar. Merge the 2 items of bark by urgent Command/Management-E. 

Hover between the bark and guitar layers, maintain down Alt/Possibility, and click on so as to add a clipping masks that clips the feel to the guitar.

Tough composite picture in Photoshop

Uncover extra Photoshop sources and tutorials

On this tutorial, I confirmed you learn how to put together and lay out the photographs we’re utilizing in a photograph composition for an album cowl. Within the subsequent tutorial, you may learn to create underwater results in Photoshop. Be sure you take a look at our upcoming articles on Envato Tuts+ and the Envato weblog to find extra Photoshop tutorials. And for the digital subscription that can cowl all of your artistic Photoshop belongings and desires, go to Envato!

Listed below are some nice sources to get you began: