Treat your images by hand

One way to give your images a unique aesthetic is to treat them from the beginning of the design process, rather than waiting until you’ve opened Photoshop. In this tutorial, I’ll explain how to enhance your images from the early stages, planning and treating them in real space before bringing them into Photoshop. It can be beneficial to consider the relationship between digital and analogue: think about what you might do in Photoshop and then apply that aesthetic to your objects before treating them in a digital space. This is a great way to create an image that really stands out.

Over the following steps I’ll walk you through the making of an illustration that I did for Stella magazine on the theme of pop culture. You’ll learn a way to make your own source material, and how to manipulate it to create a unique composition in Photoshop.

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