I need some help translating two tutorials from French to English. (Or even better, Swedish, if you know that )
Are there anyone here who wants to do it? I tried the babel fish, but it sucks.


[link=http://perso.club-internet.fr/sebastien.gaucher/Tutorials/Photoshop/Mattepainting/mattepainting.htm] Tutorial 1[/link]
[link=http://perso.club-internet.fr/sebastien.gaucher/Tutorials/Photoshop/Mattepainting_hivers/mattepainting_hivers.htm]Tutorial 2[/link]


Thanks.

/ DR

 

It's going to be difficult if we have to translate all the names of photoshop objects. I only have french version of the sofware...Maybe someone else can help

Really nice tut btw

 

Ok I didn't think about that. I have a Swedish version so I know the problem. Thank you anyway.

 

Is this for your fanfilm ? I want to see exclusives !

Translating was prety long, but a very interesting read. Nice find, man.

Both tutorial seem to require new layers with almost each step. Reading through it all a first time will make it obvious when to create them.


Tutorial 1 :

1) "First of all, find a good res picture. I chose to use a picture of a house I found on the web. You can find very nice pics for free, just look around !"

2) "The first step is to isolate the house by putting it on a separate layer and by erasing the rest.
In this example I used the polygonal lasso tool for the house, and a soft eraser for the bushes"

3) "Now you need a new background. You can either find a good pic, either paint one yourself.
I chose the former because it is less time consuming, and the result is far better than what I would have gotten had I painted a background myself. I found this image on the web, unfortunately I do not remember the site I got it from."

4) "Put the sky behind the house (by putting the sky layer under the house layer), and apply a little perspective effect to give more depth to the sky, make it less flat.
Here the house picture was taken from a low angle, which makes our work easier."

5) "Now look at the edges of the house. They still are the color of the original sky. We'll fix that."

6) "Using the magic wand tool, select the empty zone of the house layer. Then, Select > Modify > Expand, to make your selection wider. Pick a value that includes the zone we need to color correct.
In the menu : Image > Adjust > Hue / Saturation and color correct the edges by matching them with the color of the roof."

7) "Still using Hue / Saturation and also Color Balance, adjust the colors of the house and sky layers so that they perfectly blend together"

8) "Now we want to get rid of that palm tree that hides a part of the house. That tree has nothing to do there since we want to create a morbid mood.
This is probably the most delicate step because we have to hand paint the missing part of the house. For that I mostly used the clone stamp tool, tool that allows you to paint something using another part of the picture for reference.
For instance, the tiles located between the lower and middle windows were painted using similar tiles of the house, using the clone stamp tool."

9) "Why not add a lightning bolt to make the scene a little more disturbing ?
Using the simple non feathered brush, this is simple. Draw your lightning, duplicate the layer, and blur the copies to make the lightning glow. (Obviously, with Ryan's saber method or a slight variation of it, this will work just fine).
Then, use the Dodge tool to brighten the clouds from where the lightning is originating."

10) "Paint dead trees behind the house, or use existing ones from pictures. Of course, make the colors and luminosity match."

11) "The fun part, now ! Let's break down the house. Well, not all of it.
To make it look older, I added a hole in the rood, painted with brushes."

12) "Don't be afraid to add broken parts ! The house is supposed to still be standing, so don't go too far.
You can see that I broke a wooden beam, a pipe, a board, another part of the roof, and a window. When you break something, use the clone stamp tool to fill in the empty space you created."

13) "Make it look dirty. First of all, the windows. I used a non regular brush and painted the windows with a matte color. Then, change the transfer mode of the dirt layer to make sure that dirt and windows blend nicely together. For this example I chose the Luminosity mode."

14) "Repeat that step, only do it on the entire house. Paint with a dirtier color and set your layer to Multiply.
Make sure you make joints and edges look filthy too, because that's where dirt appears most.
This is one of the longest steps, but take your time and don't mindlessly add dirt everywhere !"

15 "Here, the porch, zoomed in."

16) "The last step is to create a Levels adjustment layer to get the fina

 

Tutorial 2 :

1) "First of all, find a good res picture. I chose to use a picture of a house I found on the web. You can find very nice pics for free, just look around !"

2) "Alright, first let's modify the colors.
Using Image > Adjust > Hue / Saturation, try to get softer colors with less contrasts and saturation. Make it look cold !"

3) "Now we can begin painting the snow. Use a rough brush to create irregular shapes. In the tools window, set the foreground color to pure white, and the background color to a blue-tinted white which will be used to add shadows on the snow.
All steps involve working alternatively with these two colors.
Begin by adding snow on the edges of the house where the snow would naturally fall onto."

4) "With the blueish white, paint the inferior part of the snow (the shadows). This will add depth and will simulate the way snow reacts to light."

5) "With the same brush and same white, paint the windows to give them a frosted look.
Set this layer's transfer mode to Overlay to make it match."

6) "Same principle, on the roof this time.
Make sure you stay true to the original lighting. Parts where the sun directly hits the roof should be a lot brighter than the darker spots, which will blueish. This is important especially on the cone shaped parts.
When everything will be painted, you can then use the Blur tool and make a smooth transition between pure white and blueish white. After that, use the Burn and Dodge tools to increase or decrease contrasts. If you use Burn on the blue-tinted whites, it will give you an ice look, which can be interesting."

7) "Now we are going to paint the ground. I used an irregular brush so that the grass wasn't entirely covered. Then using the blueish color I added nuances to simulate an undulating look. I also left a clean way that goes to the door.
Same principle to add snow applies to the trees and bushes in the garden."

8) "Now let's do something to avoid boredom from only adding snow !
Using the Dodge tool, on the house layer, brighten spots here and there to add frosted parts, as well as to lighten up the dark parts of the house (like the inside of the porch). Do not forget that snow is a reflective surface, it will bounce light off pretty much everywhere.
Using the same method, brighten up the rest of the scene like the trees and sky.
Subtle, but necessary since it adds the important detail that sells the overall effect and makes the image look natural.

9) "Now on to the extremely boring step : powder snow over the trees. Powder is subtle, so don't overdo it !
Still using the same method, add snow accumulations on branches, the most difficult part being to actually see where those branches are. It depends on the quality of your picture.
If you have chosen a picture without trees you are a cheater !!"

10) "For the big branches in the foreground, we can see leaves. I chose to add snow on groups of leaves, which can be time consuming, but you should not choose the shortest way over quality work."

11) "This step is optional, but I created a layer and have applied a linear gradient from top to bottom to increase the contrast at the bottom of the pic."

There you go.

One step that was overlooked here, and that I think is very important, is that trees lose their leaves. So if you want to try to make this matte painting, I'd advise you to change those trees.

 

Impressive

 

Thank you JBK, for the time you took to translate that for me.

 

No prob.