Thanks to Christina for featuring me on her blog, No Stone Unturned! I'm thrilled and I think she did an excellent job of it too.
I'd like to welcome a new advertiser, Buster and Boo to Mytutorlist.com!
Today is chock-full of tutorials! As an addition to the Paper Owl Ornament Tutorial, here's a Photoshop tutorial on how I created the feature image of the owl hanging from a clothesline. The original image and the final result are shown above.
So, here's the starting image. It is OKAY, but by that I mean it sucks. It was taken in my room with the room light and a lamp light, but it is still too dark. The background sucks, and the ornament just doesn' t pop out like it should.
The first thing I'm going to do is to open it up in Photoshop, and adjust the contrast. I'm going to use Auto Contrast found under Image > Adjustments > Auto Contrast.
Already, the image looks much better. I want it even better now, so let's adjust the levels next.
Go to Image > Adjustments > Levels.
Drag the little arrows under the levels graph to adjust the levels. I personally like to adjust the middle arrow first by making the image brighter overall. Then I pull the farthest right arrow left to make the whites whiter, and I will pull the farthest left arrow right to make the darks darker. Basically, you just keep tweaking the levels until you are happy with how it looks. Then hit "Okay".
Now that my paper owl ornament looks much brighter and more colourful, I'm going to remove the background and replace it with some blue skies.
In your layers panel, double click on your "Background" layer. When the window pops up, hit okay. This will unlock your layer so that you can make adjustments to it.
Click on the indicated icon to make a new layer.
Click and drag the layer to be under the original layer.
With your original layer selected, hit Delete. All of the magic wand selected areas will now be deleted. We will now replace it with a new background image. Select your new layer.
File > Open > your desired background image. Mine is a blue sky.
Use the marquee tool to select the entire image.
Use the moving tool to drag your background image into your working file. Make sure it goes to the new layer.
You can see the sky image under my owl image now. The sky image is too small so I am going to resize it.
With the new layer selected, hit Ctrl-T. This will let you transform the sky image.
Drag the bottom corner of the sky image until it fills the whole background. Hit "Enter" when you are done.
Zoom in (Ctrl + plus sign) to see the image closely. You will notice that the edges are not very clean.
Now your edges are nice and clean! Look how great that looks with the blue background! Now we will add a clothesline.
Make a new layer and draw it to under the owl layer.
Use the brush tool to paint a light grey line to simulate a clothesline.
When you are done drawing the line, double click on the far-right edge of the clothesline layer. This will open Layer Style Options. Check off Bevel and Emboss, Contour, and Texture. Adjust the sliders as necessary to make the line look like rope/thread.
Now double click on the owl layer and open up Layer Options. Check of Drop Shadow. Adjust the Size, Spread, Distance, and Opacity to make the owl look like it has a shadow.
Ta da! Now isn't that a vast improvement over the original image!?
First, choose your 3 cardstock colours. The owl in this tutorial is based on the watercolour Felt Owls made by me! They have yellow beaks, brown bodies, and greenish wings, but you can choose any colours you like!
First, draw an owl body on your body cardstock with a Sharpie marker. The size depends on how big you want your ornament to be. Note that the top of the owl is more narrow than the base. You do not need to be perfect with the shape. Owls come in all sizes and shapes, and the more irregular it is, the more handmade it looks - which is ideal.
Fold your cardstock in half, and cut two out at once so that they are the same size and shape.
Cut a big triangle out of your beak cardstock and place it on top of your owl body shape. Shape it to how you like, and how long you want it to come down on the body.
Hold it in place, turn it over with the body, and mark where the triangle will end. Trim off the excess beak.
Outline the beak shape with a sharpie marker so that it has the same black outline as the body.
Paste the beak to the body shape using double-sided tape. I use double-sided tape instead of glue because I don't need drying time, and it won't wrinkle up. You can use glue stick instead too.
Draw the eyes using a Sharpie marker. Mine are closed for a peaceful, night-flying owl.
Use a fine ink pen to add details like stitching on the beak and a row of eyelets on the bottom as trim.
Place your owl on top of your wing cardstock and draw out a wing shape to the size you want with a Sharpie marker. Make sure to leave extra wing/paper for you to attach the wing to the owl.
Fold your cardstock over and cut out two wings at the same time.
Outline the second wing with a Sharpie marker to give it the same black outline as the other wing. Note how room has been left to tape the wing to the owl body.
Tape the wings to the owl body. Make sure the oulined sides are facing the front.
Now draw a foot for the owl. Draw the foot longer than you need so that you have room to attach it to the owl body.
Fold the cardstock in half and cut out two feet at the same time. Outline the second foot with a Sharpie marker to match the first one.
Tape the feet to the owl body. Make sure the outlined sides are facing the front.
Now, securely tape on a thin loop of ribbon. This is for hanging up your owl ornament.
Cover the back of your remaining owl body with double-sided tape.
Press it to your owl ornament so that the backing looks nice (no taped wings and feet showing anymore).
Sign your work! Tell them it's handmade by you, and add some decorative designs.
All done! Now your paper owl is ready for gift-giving or hanging around your house.
