Lesson A: Where We’re Going

To make this project a little easier, we’re going to use Adobe Bridge to grab the project assets as well as take a tour of a finished version of the image we’re going to make.

• Launch Bridge. From Photoshop, you can do so by choosing File > Browse in Bridge… or using the shortcut ⌘-option-O/Ctrl-Alt-O.
• Use the Favorites panel or the Folders panel in Bridge to navigate to your course folder and, within it, the “Project C- Surreal” folder.

• Open the file “surreal result.psd.” First, let’s pay special attention to the Layers panel and also the Properties panel.

Tour the Finished Piece

The layer structure is not very intimidating, I think. Starting at the bottom, you’ll see the sky image, the backdrop for our impossible, levitating ring.

Above that layer, we find two pairs of layers. Each pair includes a vector shape layer and a Smart Object. The top pair started as nothing more than a duplicate of the lower pair, then it was rotated 180º. One of the vector shapes is set to white, the other to a darker gray.

Above each shape is a Smart Object that has been subjected to a severe distortion with Free Transform. This is to make the texture seem to bend with the ring at each end and is probably the most time-consuming part of this project.

The darker shape layer also has an Inner Shadow effect applied. It’s optional, but it gives better edge definition to the darker texture.

• Toggle the visibility of the Inner Shadow effect to see what you think.

Recall that Smart Objects are like documents within our document. These two Smart Objects are duplicates, so they use the same content. In this case, that content is five layers, each a photo of a texture. Those layers’ visibility has been associated with five layer comps we can use to quickly change which layers are visible.

• Highlight one of the texture Smart Objects.
• Access the Properties panel.

In the middle, you’ll see a menu below the original name of the Smart Object (I renamed it, but the less useful name lingers here, unfortunately). This is a list of the layer comps inside the S.O.

• Choose different layer comps. Be patient, as there could be a small delay between each choice. When we build this document, we will be adding those layer comps to the Smart Object’s contents.

• Edit the contents of one of the Smart Objects (it’s actually the content of both). Double-click the thumbnail or click Edit Contents in the Properties panel. You’ll see the layer structure above. This opens a temporary document whose tab appears at the top of the Document Window.
• Choose Window > Layer Comps to see each layer comp. Click in the square to the left of each one to see how it affects layer visibility. Double-click near (not on) the name of a comp to see that it affects only layer visibility.
• Close the Smart Object’s temporary document without saving.

Let’s have a look at the distortion on one of the Smart Objects.

• To better see what we’re doing, hide the layers called “the sky above” and “Half Surreal lower.”
• Also, to see the full extent of the “texture higher” layer, set its blend mode to Luminosity and unclip it from the “Half Surreal higher” layer by option/Alt-clicking on the line between them.
• With the “texture higher” layer highlighted, enter Free Transform by using ⌘-T/Ctrl-T. Then click the Warp mode button in the Options Bar. You’ll see the warp “grid” that was wrangled pretty severely, especially on the right-hand side.

• Click one of the control points on the right side. Experiment with its position (don’t worry, we can leave the transform without accepting this change).

The rightmost point had been the image’s upper-right corner! Both right-hand corners were moved substantially closer together to compress the image on that side to fake the texture’s wrapping around that side of the ring. This was also done on the left, but not as much.

Also note the horizontal line and vertical line that go through the image. These were added with the warp Split buttons. See “Warping and Sculpting” (page 334) for more on how that works. I used that feature to better separate the left- and right-side distortions.

• After you’ve messed around with the control handles for a bit, press the escape key to leave the texture unscathed. In fact, we’ll close this document without saving so it can serve as a reference later if you need it.