Oil Paint Filter!

I recently started using Photoshop CS6 and have learned about a few of it's new features. One of the new tools we were introduced to was the Mixer Brush! the mixer brush was a cool new brush designed to mix different colours to create a painting effect. Although I found that really cool I recently found another new way to create that painted look using a filter. The new "Oil Paint" filter. You can change settings to determine however you want your picture to look like stylization, cleanliness and much more according to your preference! I think it's a very quick and easy way of creating something great.  Here is a link to an oil paint filter tutorial if you would like to try it out, enjoy! :)

Mask Type Tool

This is my assignment using the new technique we learned called "Scratch Art". The word I chose to use for this project is "SMILE". When I thought about this word many things came to mind. I could think about at least five things that would make me happy and smile. I thought this was perfect because my word has five letters in it, that could all represent one picture.

The process of making this piece was quite simple. I used Photoshop CS6 to make this. First I opened a new canvas and covered an entire new layer with black. (using the paint bucket tool) Next I picked the five different pictures I wanted to use from Google. The pictures I chose are cupcakes, a smile, rain, flowers and the beach. I re-sized each picture and placed them in a horizontal arrangement in the order that pleased me, each on a different layer. Then I went back to the plain black layer and wrote the word "SMILE" using the mask type tool, making sure that each letter was on top on its' picture. Lastly I used the eraser tool with a diameter of 1px and started to scratch inside the word.

I chose to use this font because it seemed happy to me. I liked the way it was sort of bubbly and not very sharp and strong. If I could change anything about this it would definitely be the way I wrote the word. I would try and make the different types of pictures I used more noticeable because it is hard to tell what exactly the pictures are of. I think a bolder bubbly text could have made the pictures a bit more visible. 

Scratch art is not extremely difficult and is a fun way to experiment by putting different words and pictures together with a cool scratch effect. Try Scratch Art if you haven't already!