Fellow Photoshop nerds, I need your help.

April 14, 2007 4:38 AM

Can you help me find a particular Photoshop tutorial that I saw a while back?

About 6 months ago I came across an Photoshop tutorial online that demonstrates a technique for taking a vector file (say, something like a business card designed in Illustrator), bringing it into Photoshop and manipulating it to damn near perfectly fake a closeup or macro shot of the image as a printed item for mockup purposes. The end result is what looks like a photo of a printed piece laying on a solid background that's been photographed up close. The technique involves perspective modification and lens blur masking to mimic depth of field.

I'm a graphic designer and am using this technique to have a consistent look in my portfolio on a number of designs for which I have no copies of the final printed piece. I worked through the tutorial a couple of times when I first saw it, but now I'm leaving out a step somewhere and I can't find the tutorial anymore.

Note: There's another technique that was hugely popular recently that simulates macro photos of detailed miniature models from a regular photo of a full size landscape. *This is not the thing I'm looking for.*

posted by braintoast to media & arts (5 comments total)

This aint the one I think, but it's a tutorial on five different masking techniques that I'm sure you could adapt.
posted by Happy Dave at 6:06 AM on April 14, 2007

Do you remember what what the site/page looked like? I have 3 gazillion tutorials bookmarked, and it would help to have a little more info. Yes, 3 gazillion.
posted by iconomy at 7:02 AM on April 14, 2007

Could it be this Photorealistic Perspective tutorial..?
posted by malevolent at 7:12 AM on April 14, 2007

The seconde thing your talkling about is the mock tilt shift lens fad that was going on for a while. The first doesnt ring any bells, could you post an example of what youre doing or what youre trying to achieve? Maybe Ill recognize it. Emails in my profile for faster answers.
posted by skrike at 11:31 AM on April 14, 2007

@malevolent
eureka! That's the one.

Funny. I'm on the FS site daily and didn't put it together in my head. I knew my mefites would save the day.
posted by braintoast at 12:38 PM on April 14, 2007