94
1
Here’s a close-up of the original board, showing some of
the white queens and the board itself. The challenge will
be to make this blend into the image more effectively.
4
The queens presented a different problem. I wanted
to repeat the texture technique with them, but it’s
impossible to make a Clipping Mask with more than one layer.
Previously, I’d have created a merged copy of all the queens,
but that would have meant I couldn’t move them afterwards.
In Photoshop CC, however, you can put them all into a new
Layer Group, and then use the whole Group as a Clipping
Mask. This is a new and very welcome feature.
W
HEN I WAS DRAWING THE COVER FOR THIS
book there was a stage when I had all the basic
elements in place – Humphrey Bogart, the board, the
background, the chess pieces – but it looked sterile and
disjointed. In particular, there seemed to be no visual link
between the board and the background.
The solution came from a suggestion from David Asch,
author of How to Cheat in Photoshop Elements. His idea was to
copy the sky background in front of the chessboard and pieces,
at a low opacity, to give the impression of dappled light across
the board.
It worked remarkably well. But there were some interesting
wrinkles here to do with controlling the visiblity of the texture,
and that’s what we’ll examine here.
Texture, clipping and groups
3
Hiding and showing
95
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
HOT TIP
Choosing the right
opacity for the
texture is essential
to getting the look
right. Rather than
typing in numbers
or dragging the
slider, you can use
the number keys
on your keyboard.
With the Move tool
active, use 1 for
10% opacity, up
to 9 for 90% and 0
for a full 100%. To
get intermediate
values type two
numbers in rapid
succession – for
instance, 4 then 5
for 45% opacity.
2
A piece of the background sky, flipped vertically, will add
the texture we need. Here, I’ve simply placed it over the
chessboard and scaled it to make sure it fits the board as well
as possible.
5
To focus attention on the center of the board, I duplicated
the texture layer over the board and changed its mode
to Multiply. This, of course, made the whole board very dark.
I added a Layer Mask using Layer > New Layer Mask > Hide
All, and then used a soft brush at very low opacity to paint the
texture layer back in again where I wanted it – down in the
bottom left corner.
3
I changed the mode of the texture from Normal to Hard
Light, and then, after experimentation, set the opacity of
the layer at 30%. To prevent the texture from “leaking” over the
edge, I made a Clipping Mask with the board (see page 26).
6
I then put the king and the two black pawns into a new
group, and created yet another copy of the texture layer,
using this group as a Clipping Mask. I also added a Hard Light
layer above the pawns (see page 190), and painted on some
extra shading. The texture now formed strong horizontal lines
which fought with the curvature of the chess pieces: I used the
Smudge tool to gently push the texture around the pieces for
a more naturalistic appearance.
How to Cheat in Photoshop CC
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