Lessons

Lesson Info

Basic Photoshop Block Repeat

What I'm about to give you as a skill can help you fix some of the problems that I'm seeing here in this piece so I mean what I'm gonna do in this next is talk you through how to make a p a repeat that's basically the same offsetting that we've done on the paper cut but in photo shop which is a very basic initial photoshopped repeat and it's helped me a lot in correcting some of the issues and the things that come up and so using the offset tool basically and photoshopped so that this is pretty exciting to see and I'll I'll hopefully be ableto make some product out of that for people in society six um or some other the other um some of the other platforms that I mentioned earlier I'm not going to save really cool I didn't know that's how it was done and how you make those patterns and those numbers really did help when you were doing that in the last term's up you take them and then you know put them so that you're changing the drawings of the often together supercool save this on the ...

desktop so j peg just said online I've wondered for years how people did repeats with an overlap like that ugh yeah yeah and you can just go that always said and it's so nice that you khun it's non directional and I'll tell you one of the biggest things that came up during the quote I was just at the quilt market with blend and they were their customer wants more non directional repeats which is that what that isthe so it's not like oriented in one direction which is really great I'm gonna actually plug in a welcome tablet um see if I could do that and I have started I started using a wax tablet um a month ago so I mean I this is all really new to me so you are ugh I'm experiencing a lot of this for the first time as are you guys but welcome tablet can be really helpful and doing things in photo shop that um that you would want more accuracy with and and if you were scared about using it just try one get a smaller one this one's enormous I don't know if you can see it thing is huge and and I don't think I need to do by one this big but it's definitely been helpful um and you use it similarly teo your mouse so what I want to do is walk you through I've got another keynote so this is we're going to talk through how tio do a photo shop repeat so I just scanned my artwork in color at three hundred d p I so we're going to switch over to my my screen right? So this is how I made the repeat that's on my little I've um I phone cover and my computer I don't know if you want to switch over to showing I'm gonna be like having you as switching a lot um well yeah fine so what the next step is going to be just make sure you got my steps here to um so we're going to dio um we scanned in at three hundred dp I I'm going to make some adjustments so open that up I'm going to go to image adjustments levels again, this is what I did before, right? I'm going to make it a little bit darker a little bit later and then I'm gonna actually use my magic eraser tool teo erase the background. So right now the only thing that's existing on that layer, which is layer zero is the colored artwork and I'm gonna open a new file file new and I'm going to dio eight inches by eight inches of three hundred d p I it's like what we've been doing all all day and we've got a background and I'm gonna unlock the background by double booking on that so that it becomes a layer itself, which helps for a few reasons and I'm going to remember when we opened this up, I just want to remind you what the image sizes twenty, four hundred by twenty four hundred pixels, so remember that because later on, when we offset it, we're going to need to know what half of that isthe on either side, which is twelve hundred pixels, so if you're opening and larger another file that is twelve inches by twelve inches, then you want to remember what the pixels are on half of that when you're starting to do these horizontal and vertical, vertical and horizontal offsets, so that's just something worth taking note of. Okay, so I'm going to actually select with, um, the lasso tool just randomly select that area, and I'm gonna copy it on open apple c, and then I'm going to drop it in by open apple v, which is a short cut into the centre of the page, so we're in step two of the keynote, um, if you could bring that up so way already did this. This is a bonus material for u s o I'm usually using the same artwork that I used to create this repeat and photoshopped in for you all to download if you buy the class. And so this is the artwork placing it's new in the in the new file, so now we're going to step three, which is staying in the center of that file we're going to fill out the page, right, same exact thing that I've been doing my hand um and I colored this artwork by hand did everything the same way that we've been doing so I'm going to do that, right? So, um uh, go backto my file and I'm just gonna keep dropping in new layers of artwork and filling in the repeat. Now I have to stay away from the edge. So on this layer, I'm now going to erase the things that go to the edge so that I don't get in trouble with overlapping things on the edge. And so this is something like where if you are just like a doodler or your way into just doing motifs or something in your artwork, this could be amazing. You could be like, you know, in a business meeting and doodling and making it into repeats when you come home at night, I kind of love the idea that happening, so I like I have a bunch of layers all of a sudden I'm just going to keep going until I filled in the centre, but not gone right up to the edge. I can go right up to the edge, but not over the edge and kind of see, like, up here, this went right up to the edge, which is fine, and I'm just continuing to fill that space using my tools. Adjusted all right, so that's pretty good like I'm feeling pretty good about that I'm gonna go down to the bottom layer and I'm gonna hide it so you can't see it if you're working in multiple layers there are more complex pattern or there's a pattern on this bottom layer then you don't e for me right now I want it to stay white so I'm on ly offsetting and merging the layers that are on the top so that stays without the white background mushed into it right? Like if you could think about mushing all those layers together, I don't want to add the white yet I don't really want that to be there and so whatever's visible is what I'm working on right now so I'm going to merge the layers so they become one layer instead of flattening the image of fighting limit will merge that with the white, so I'm just going to merge the visible so now I have two layers over here layer layer six, which is whatever you see on the screen there on dh layer zero, which is the white um and so what I'm going to do now is, um step four of the so we're gonna go with your layer design of the design click so layer six, which I which we've mentioned before clicked that I'm gonna goto filter menu offset and so you think you can flip back to my screen here? So what you're looking at now is my layer six is selected so that's just the artwork layer zero is not selected and that's so we're operating on this layer, so I'm going to go to filter other offset, and I do not want to offset twenty, four hundred I want dio half, I'm going twelve hundred and zero on vertical pay. So that's, step five of the keynote. This is what you'll see on step five for the download. Um and be sure that wrap around a selected if it's not selected, it won't wrapping around, it'll just cut it in half, so if you flip back to my screen, you can see that's all set, so I'm just gonna hit, okay? And then I am going to fill in this center part the same way I did by hand only this time I'm doing it with the image, and I'm just going to a race where it's overlapping here. Alternatively, I could, um instead of just dropping in that file, I can go to the layer six and select a certain part of it cause I'm starting to get into a tighter, tighter pattern now I could just I could go in and select a section of it to repeat see if I can copy that with open apple c and then open apple v we'll drop it in as a new layer what I just copied but I don't mind those over laughing to hunting that's kind of cool homes gonna race this guy I mean, you got more or less complex about this however you want but for the sake of time and scheduling in place that back tire six think we need another red flower in there so I'm just trying to fill this in as like a dense overall non repeat non direction all repeat there's put one more in there up okay? And again I'm going to go down and merge all the layers, which is step six you know, you can see that there is going to murder all those layers I did a lot more overlapping in this one, so now if you come back to my screen all merge the layers so um and I had clicked, you know, unclipped the white so that that wouldn't happen, it wouldn't merge as well. Um and now I'm going to go back. This is step seven, you note um we're gonna go back in and do another offset, okay? So come back to my screen and I'm going to go to filter other offset going to keep the twelve hundred but add twelve hundred bob and now I'm going to fill that in and you can sort of see what's happening right? Like all those corners air going to meet up and it's gonna be a beautiful repeat just like my computer skin from society sex so basically you're just kind of filling in the middle and when it does, we're all going to stay that saying right because you make it larger every time and this is a much more exact way of, um dealing with, um so I mean emerged again I'm gonna go down and I'm in emerge all the layers as a step eight, but those are all merge now that's one including the background on this is that that was that's the final step we don't need to show the keynote, I think you guys get it um but now I'm going to do a new we're gonna go again sixteen inches, right? We're gonna double it there's my little repeat bo didn't mean around me maybe an e need to be able to see selection snap in and e d'oh d'oh, right? And it just goes forever you pattern and that I mean there's no corrections there that should just snap right into place in theory and like it's so seamless, right? But it still looks like I did it all on paper because I'm so good I'm just getting no because because you die did all the artwork by hand and that this is a kind of repeat that lends itself to that uh and then you get your amazing you know you can apply it to just about anything right like so I have my skin I have my ipod iphone cover and then I have you know all these other fun things I have some stationary here that I you know that's from a collaboration with another company society six we've been talking about talking about but this is a pillow that I pillow case that just came in from them that has that artwork from the screen saver from the class and the class you know you can go get get a pillow if you want a souvenir on dh then you know there they also have bags so this is a bag from society six without another image that I created a repeat that I created and you know they do stationery and all kinds of other things so there's so many different like applications and I think you know we talked about this earlier and I can let me run through that we go teo uh back to keynote I can show you the there's some other applications of these air some images from society six that of this pattern that we just created on a bed it a bedspread that you can get or uh um the shower curtain card stationery bag clock pillow phone e mean it just kind of goes on and on like and I think that is really exciting for for everyone to see like all the different things that you can apply the patterns that we're making here without having to have a relationship with a company right like you don't have to have that and these I mean what an awesome portfolio that I just showed you on keynote like you don't even you can go to a client and say look, this is what it looks like applied to a product and that's just a screenshot of society six with my pattern placed on the surface of something so you can develop you know, whole portfolios what very professional looking portfolios to present declines and they are going to get an understanding of how your surface designs going to apply to thirty three dimensional surface of something else and that's also a great way to get a sense of scale right like you can decide well that looks weird on that and you're not going to know sometimes until you get that physical thing back like what what it really feels like and that's what I was saying before when I was I've been designing this tea service and I got the teapot back and I was like no way even changed all these things and until I actually saw that in person I wouldn't know that that you know and so even though my head is in it so much so often it doesn't always come across the same way or you know we get color corrections air the thing that kind of seems to be the big thing for me like back and forth making sure that color reads the same way that I wanted to from the paper to the other things that I'm making so yeah I think it's you know pretty exciting I don't have time to take some questions I think from the rest of the world fantastic so end of end of class glass just quickly from erica can you tell us again the technique of the one that you just demonstrated so I call it a paper cut repeat but you know I think someone else had a someone else had was it the swedish? Yes there was a guest star unique on internet first I'm here yes, but I think you know I think it's ah so if you look up the technique on repeat a swiss tribute right? And if you I labelled the bonus material you know basic pt a basic photoshopped repeat that this is just using offset it's just a basic block this is a block repeat and photoshopped what we just went over in photo shop so but that's how I would correct that hand drawn repeat I would put that in offset it right see where it's not lining up and offset it a couple times and correct it using your clone tool and a whole bunch of other things so using that offset technique even with artwork that's really close to being finished so you know exactly you can control that repeat the same way or used to drawing but then applying it with the offset technique you khun like any of those little weird spots where it wasn't fitting up because I was cutting it manually because we can't be exact as a computer you can fix it using that offset technique so it's really it's been a major help for me to retain the hand but apply it really directly on dh cleanly for you know everybody l my clients using that so I love the expressions here in our studio audience can see you guys we're gonna go home and make some stuff happen your all of your eyes are like oh my god so much to do so cool we do have questions coming in and if you have any uh uh scale you know when you enlarge and reduce it how does that work just the same yeah you can reduce you could keep it at the same resolution and when you go to image you can make the image size smaller or larger so you can retain the same scale but you khun I mean within the repeat so you can make it the overall tile smaller or yeah you khun you can enlarge it just by image signs and then I think you can start you'll start to see where the resolution will break down I mean, if you got really large it can start to become a problem but like if you're doing signs you're going to probably that's where that's a weakness of photoshopped versus illustrator illustrator when you have a vector file you it's like infinite right the scaling on dh that's a that's a downside with photo trump so I would I would play around with that and to see but you can't crop the image but you can just go to image size um the image if you bring up my computer I can show you quickly um image and then you go to image size and you khun make it however many inches or pixels you want so if I wanted to say I really want this to be eight inches it'll make it eight inches but that just took that same what we had at sixteen and made it eight so it's half the size but it's the same density like so it's going to be twice as dense if I print it as this versace is kind of cool mother thought and other absolutely all right let's do some rapid fire questions yes then how about that? So you have your you leaving the background white or transparent I'm leaving the background white so I did merge it all but that's an opportunity if you leave it in layers when you're putting it to a client it's an opportunity to colorize the background so you could go in and add a different color in the background before you flatten it so that you make sure that your and its I would recommend saving it in two different layers before you as a psd file before you finalize anything save that almost as your negative because you never know when you're going to want to go back in and re arrange something and you also still have the original art but it's going to be hard to recreate exactly what you did before and yeah it's in your best interest to try teo leave things in layers as often as you can great and that was a question in addition to that that rosa fiero had asked to use color brack background when drawing by hand and transferred a photo shop are only the white so yes so you could scan that's a great question you could scan and I often do you keep backgrounds around you can create tiles right like you know you're working an eight inches by eight inches all the time then you could create an eight inch by inch repeat that's just a textural background that you can colorize it could be a wash of water color it could be something else that you just plug in there so that you have what looks like you doing a wash behind your hand drawn artwork, and that could be really beautiful and it's a nice way to avoid having teo in something like this, like, go around all the edges, you could just have that nice, uniform hand colored background and certain media will do better in certain plate, like so for example, in the fabric printing industry, the more exaggerated your wash and your color contrast like these air great, because there's stronger points in lighter point that will read, but because of the texture of the fabric, usually like if it's, a soft, subtle wash like the yellow, might almost read, like white in in that because the contrast gets played out a little bit. So that's all trialling error and learning experience through different material. Like I was saying before, even that book that I'm working on with chronicle the book paper was different than the auxiliary cart, like we made a card set of the same artwork, and it was totally different on I mean, not totally different, different to my eye, but I just tapped my mike sorry, different because of the texture of the paper, and you lose certain things and gain certain things depending on what your printing on great we have a question from jean real alberto with a couple of votes as well do you ever put your signature on a repeat pattern and if so, how would you do that? Where would you put it? That's a great question actually so it depends on the application so in the case of fabric you have salvage which is a very small edge teo a bolt of fabric on the edge and usually my copyright information the collection named the colors in the palate are there and then also ah like so the copyright often limits you so if you're buying it it's not necessarily for commercial use because it's mine so you have to come license it for me if you want to make, uh run of children's clothing with my quilting fabric you can't just go out and do that without by a thousand yards and then your eyes I need to be able to prove that to make sure that it's on brand and then you know there are there I think that if you're developing enough of a voice is a brand, people will be like oh that's somali hat right like that's so her panned and not so her you know, and I think that that ultimately that's our hope as designers that people recognize us through our artwork and I think that it's important teo um to find ways to brand yourself and everything that you're doing but it's like where would you appropriately put a signature and a repeat I don't think you can really um and I think you you can find other ways to do that okay great so this one we talked about a lot earlier but several people who came in later since it has a lot of votes if you could address again when you sell your work does it not have to be a scalable artwork as an illustrator and we have talked about that but tell us illustrator versus photoshopped why do you use what well on this was this came up during our lunch too you know kate murray from blend really was so clear that they don't necessarily need you to even know how to use photo shop and so what I have just given you is like my basic acquired knowledge of how to use it and I think it's really important that you know illustrator is is amazing and I'm sure there's going to be a point in my career where I have clients and already their clients were like we only accept illustrator files and we talked about some of what you lose an illustrator and what you gain an illustrator um and specifically in photoshopped there's there's a lot more depth and in the range of mark right? So you're going to get a lot more subtleties and it's a pixel versus the factory line was more of a solid on dso that could be scaled up infinitely and you're not going to lose information, whereas in photo shop if you start scaling things up, you're going to start to lose information's going to start looking pixelated so if you're a sign maker than you're going to want to use vector files if you're wanting a lot of you know, text and font design relies more in my understanding on back after I just developed at my own brand font and that was, you know all had to be all backed arised even though I had done it by hand and scanned in the photo shop and I think and that could be made into big signs and that's really exciting so there are different applications, but certainly my my evolution as an artist was a studio potter who needed to photograph their artwork for magazines and for publications and press and record keeping and at sea and things like that. And so my introduction teo processing images was through photo shop and I think s o it was what I knew and it was how you know, and I've garnered everything I know through like plugging friends who are photographers or taking online tutorials through like linda dot com or this kind of class environment or asking friends or reading the books like the books that I put out in the resource like just garnering it and self teaching from wherever I could, and a lot of it is frustrating when you're learning on your own, though I have to say with web tutorials these days, you can do so much more than before. Sometimes reading a book is not just you're like that's nice, but it doesn't like what is that tool? Or I don't really quite understand it's like speaking a foreign language, right? So I think if you if you are able teo, teach yourself as much as you can and learn a cz much as you can and source, you know, take in person or shops, take online workshops, push yourself, you're probably already there, you know, by taking this class, but I think I think the biggest message that that is a take away, I think, from the from my experience and also from the artist from the, um clients of mine, that we talked with a cait and cait and jen is that there were not worried about that part there's designers who could do that for you within any could given company, they can hire that out. If it's special enough and it's something they want to add to their rep, rip our repertoire in their company and it's going to do well by their customers, then they're going to seek q out and I think that's a good sign of a good company that values that is well on, I think you'll go a long way as I have I mean, I have a really only I want my wacom tablet is month old, so, you know, I think you will push yourself tto learn as you need, teo, and I think retaining your voice is the most important part and asking for what you need to like, you have to be able to say to a client, I don't know, illustrator, and I'm not going to learn it for this project if you're not going, teo, unless you want to hire it out yourself, right? So, you know, no your own limitations and be honest with them, and and I think our fear is that we don't we're not ready, and I think that's that's often what I hear from people is, I don't know if I'm ready to do that, and you have to be ready to take on the challenge of doing something, and I think that could be part like may be the most exciting part of doing any of this, any design work for me has been, like, totally out of my element, right? Like I started as a studio potter, it wasn't envisioning stationary as part of my thing, and so I think pushing yourself to be able to figure that out and take on the challenges as you feel like you can digest them or know that you have the resources to figure it out or the time to figure it out is important tio um I think we did want to take a look maybe at one or two more things that you are sort of the end product of what we have learned today perhaps yes do you have idea why we have these the bags and the pillow case and stationary and I think you were going to come up and wake and we have some gifts yeah way s so in here you have you can trade amongst yourselves but there is a bag from society six and some of my stationery product a zoo gift for me and from creative lives so thank you so much for coming and going from having you all in the audience and I hope you learned as much from this is I feel like I'm coming home with it like it is really, really fantastic thank you so much for having me beautiful beautiful work and I just love that you've taken us where's that let's look att the pieces where we started today we started sort of where we end with wei have views right and we have this which is still in the copier, huh? This right pretty diverse group and then the final products, you know, online. What a class, everybody again. Yes, thank you, thank you.