Hello guys! First I'd like to start by letting you know how awesome Aviary is. Which is to say It rocks.

As a newbie, I was wondering if anyone could post how-to's for specific things. For instance, I would very much like to know how to change the color of someones skin and make it look realistic. Or how to use Filters or Liquify effectively. If people could use this thread to post small guides that teach how to do specific things and use certain tools that would be great. (Or at least point people in the right direction.) Now this sounds an awful lot like Help & Documentation but this is more for small tutorials that show not just what tools do, but how to use them effectively.

I'm most of you guys are experienced with Image Editing but I can't be the only newbie on here. Any tips, advice, or links to useful information is welcome.

A couple basic tips on skin coloring,
I like to use a combination of hue/sat adjustments + layer blend modes (Most notably the multiply and overlay modes).

So if I'm trying to adjust a person's skin tone to suit the background, I'd do something like this:
With my figure extracted and put onto her new surroundings, I'd go and use the eye dropper tool to select a part of the background color


I'd then paint over my figure with this tone, then apply the "Overlay" blend mode (On the layer menu), then adjust the alpha level to suit. Went with a 50% alpha here.


Then I'd sample some of our light source color. In this case, it'd be the orangey/yellow sunlight.


Then paint over the areas that would be directly affected by this light. In this image, the sun would hit her from the back creating a sort of backlit effect.


And like so, she sits in her new background a little better than before.

And I'd do a similar thing, but to a more extreme level when trying to completely change a person's skin tone.
So, using the same woman, I wanted to darken her skin.
First thing I did was to lower the pinkish tone of her skin slightly.
I did this by adjusting the Hue slider (on the Hue/Saturation menu under the 'image' tab) a few points to the right, and dropping the saturation by about 10.


Then I'd draw over her skin in a darker shade (minus the areas I didn't want affected), then apply the "multiply" layer blend mode. Then adjusting the alpha of this layer until I'm satisifed with our new skin tone. For this image, I went with 60%.


Because of the darkening effect of the multiply blend mode, it's a good idea to go in and paint back in some of the highlights that may have been lost during the change.
I did this with a soft white brush and just painted back in the areas that were lost on a new layer. Then applied the "overlay" layer blend mode to this layer.


Then I just bumped up the contrast a bit and gave her a new suitable background then used the methods in the first image example to situate her better in her new enviro.

Le sexy.


Since no two images are ever the same, the most important thing is training your eye to visualize what you want to see in your image before you go on and start messing around.
Then it's all a matter of tweaking and tweaking and tweaking and then tweaking a little bit more until your image is what you want it to be.
So play around with them layer blend modes!
Go nuts!

mmm... gonuts.

Fun with Liquifiy.

Here's a few ways liquify can be used to pull off some neato effects.
So far I've been using it mainly for melting elements within images.
Example, using a small medium pressure liquify, we can pull off some really quick and easy melting effects. Just click and drag and voila. 3 second drips.


Some other great ways to use the tool is for reshaping elements.
For example, I took a picture of a lime then I overlayed a wood texture over it.


But because of the static horizontal lines of the wood texture, I wanted to curve it to fit the contours of the round lime.
Using the Liquify tool set at a really large size, we can go on to reshape anything. And in this case, I reshaped the wood texture to follow the curves of our lime.

Et voila. Some sort of walnut.

It can also be used for very minute detailing and morphing of images.
Example, I wanted to put this Toucan ad onto this blank t-shirt.


So we got most of the effect done by pasting the graphic over our tshirt and applying the multiply blend mode.


But it's just not quite right because of the wrinkles in the shirt.
So by using the liquify tool set at a small size, we can go in and "push" the edges of the toucan image to adhere to the curves and crevaces of the shirt's wrinkles like so.


Just a few real-ish situations where liquify can be your closest ally.
Liquify is a real good guy. I'd even call him... a friend.

wow thats good stuff Meowza thanks for the tips

do you have a good tip or trick for isolating and extracting part of a picture like you did with the girl in the first tip

Thats awesome Meowza! Thats exactly the kind of thing I want to know. Will definitely try those out later tonight.

Yeah, great job. I'd love to see more of these!

I'm really glad you posted these. I never know which to use.

Thank you for all of this Meowza, a glimpse into the talent and genius that is you, thank you again

In your 3rd liquify example, i would have normally attempted to use a displacement map (if i were using photoshop). Does such a feature exist in aviary?

yes, theone2punch, but it would be done via peacock. When the two tools are completely integrated that process will be easy.

Also, seconding ShadyAlaska's request for good Isolating and extracting parts of an image tips.

Since the original woman was on a white bg to begin with, I used the same method Avi did in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUzRKf_Tgiw

Then did a little cleaning of the edges with a soft erase.

Say I wanted to paste Brad Pitt's eyes onto Johnny Depp's face (just a random example). How would I get two images into the window?

Would I just use different layers?

Say I wanted to paste Brad Pitt's eyes onto Johnny Depp's face (just a random example). How would I get two images into the window?

Would I just use different layers?

Here's a real easy way to do what you wanna do,

First start off with your original image, Johnny Depp.
Then under the File tab, select import image, then upload your Brad Pitt.


It'll automatically set him on a new layer.
Then use the Lasso tool to roughly select his eyes.


Copy and paste the eyes onto another new layer, then hide (or discard) the Brad Pitt layer.
I like to set the eyes to a lower alpha (50%) so I can see Depp underneath.
Then using the Move tool, situate Brad Pitt's eyes where Johnny's are.


Then using the Hue & Saturation menu under the "Image" tab, I slid the Hue slider to the left (to give it a more pink tone closer to Depp's skin tone), Then dropped the Saturation level because Pitt's was at a higher level.
I also bumped up the contrast (Brightness & Contrast menu, also under the "Image" tab)


Then using a very soft eraser, I cleaned the edges to blend the eyes into Depp's face. And did a little more minor adjusting of contrast and saturation.


Et voila, Brad Pitt's eyes on Johnny Depp's face in under 3 minutes.

Now, why you would want Brad Pitt's eyes instead of Johnny's eyes is a conversation for another time and another place.

Haha! Both equally attractive men. I was thinking of the Building a Celebrity Contest over at Worth. But thanks a lot!

Mew, you rock! Seriously. If I had more useless Coca-Cola crap I'd send it your way........ but I don't. So too bad.

tnx do you have more of this stuff meowza

how could you reach the final 3d effect in the melting candle?

Can you post an example of changing eye color like brown to blue?

Thanks!

I'm so amazed by meowza. Thanks for the helpful hints...and extract, me too...extraction, selection and masking all somewhat baffle me.

Thanks.
Momma Bird

Okay, I like the whole IDEA of this a.viary, but let's face it: it's NOT user friendly for n00bs who are really starting from scratch. How about some SIMPLE LANGUAGE IN-DEPTH TUTORIALS? That would enhance my experience. Otherwise, I'm wasting half the "goodies" because I can't figure out how to create a simple image.

>>akaMonty:

It's a lot easier to use and understand these if you've got prior experience in other programs like Photoshop. However, even if you don't there are a lot of "simple language in-depth tutorials" and good books for Photoshop/GIMP/etc that you can read up on first to understand some basic commands, then come back and have a look at these. They'll make much more sense.

Excellent tutorials ! Keep them coming !

Jeje i'm Trying to put my face in Gordon Freeman face (HL2).
Or some example how to cartoonish a face.