Tutorial: Realistic Photographs

So, someone asked how to create those neat realistic-looking photographs you see around on websites. This is actually something I can do - it’s one of my favorite effects on sites. So I thought it might be useful to add a little “how-to” tutorial here on the site.

I use Paint Shop Pro to create my images. But you Photoshop users can also use this tutorial, as Paint Shop Pro has a lot of the same features. They might be called something different, but you’ll recognize and be able to implement the effect, no problem.

So here we go…

My brother is a genius, I’m not kidding (he’s tested at the IQ levels for it). He’s currently a medical student, learning to be a surgeon. He’s also very artistic and creative - a true Renaissance man, I swear it. One thing he does well is take photographs. And since I have such a great brother, I’m going to use one of his photos - and one with him in it! (As a side note, ladies… he’s not married…and he’s about to turn 23…just sayin’…::coughfuturesurgeoncough::)

So, here’s my brother in Paris. This image is 264×400 pixels. Simple enough. What you need to do is create a new file that’s a little bigger than this image: we’ll do 350 x 475, and make it a vector-based image.

Now, select your “Preset Shape Tool”, be sure you’ve selected a rectangle, “anti-alias”, and “create as vector”. Be sure your “border” is set to “0″, and your fill color is a dark gray (I chose #555). Now, draw a vector box that’s 264×400 pixels.

Choose your “Pen Tool”, with the vector box still selected. You will see small boxes appear in each corner. Select the bottom right “mini-box” (aka “node”), right-click and go to “Node Type > Curve After”. A small arrow will appear pointing to the left. Grab the arrow, and pull it out and up to change the bottom of the box to a curve.

Now select the bottom left node, and repeat to create a curve on the left side. In the end, you should see something like this:

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Posted by admin
July 25th, 2007