How to Make Hanging Dirt in Photoshop

Make hanging dirt in Photoshop by using the “Paintbrush” tool to draw a bowl around an image of dirt produced with the "Clouds" filter. This filter mixes the foreground and background colors in random amounts to produce images that look like clouds and other things with indefinite or amorphous shapes. The project in this article creates an illustration of a bowl to provide a plausible means for the dirt to hang. To shade the bowl realistically, apply the "Gradient Fill" command to it; the icon for this tool panel is a rectangle with several shades of gray.

Instructions

1. Click the "File" menu and select "New" from the context menu to display a dialog box for setting the parameters of a new painting canvas. Click "OK" to accept the default settings and create the canvas.

2. Click the "Filter" menu and select the "Clouds" command to fill the canvas with random splotches of black and white that resemble dirt.

3. Click the "Filter" menu and select the "Unsharp Mask" command to display a dialog box with controls for sharpening an unfocused image. Drag the "Amount" slider fully to the right, and drag the "Radius" slider three-quarters of the way toward the rightmost extent of the control. These settings sharpen the cloud’s imagery so it appears more like dirt. Click "OK" to close the dialog box and finalize the effect of the "Unsharp" filter.

4. Click the "Tools" panel icon, which looks like an eraser, to run the "Eraser" tool. Drag on the canvas to erase all but a small portion of the dirt near the center of the canvas.

5. Click the "Tools" panel icon, which is shaped like an ellipse with a dashed line, to run the "Elliptical Marquee" tool. Drag the mouse around the dirt in such a way that the bottom edge of the ellipse intersects the dirt but the upper portion of the dirt is below the top edge of the ellipse. This will make the dirt appear inside a bowl-like container.

6. Click on the "Select" menu and then click the "Invert" command to select all image regions outside the ellipse. Press the "Delete" key to delete those regions. Run the "Invert" command again to restore the original elliptical selection.

7. Click the “Stroke” command on the Edit menu to paint the selection so that it appears as the rim of the bowl. Click the “Paintbrush” icon on the Tools panel and then drag the Paintbrush tool on the canvas to form a "U" shape that connects the left and right extremes of the bowl rim. This action completes the bowl holding the dirt.

8. Click your mouse on the bowl's upper left extreme, then press and hold "Shift" to indicate that you want to draw a straight line. Drag the mouse to a location directly above the bowl's center, a slight distance above the dirt. Click the mouse again to draw a line connecting the bowl's side to the current mouse cursor. This creates the left string or rope that holds the bowl.

9. Repeat the previous step to draw a line extending from the bowl's right side to the point above the bowl as described in the previous step. This action completes the hanging bowl containing the dirt.

References

• Photoshop CS5 Bible; Lisa Dayley
• How to Draw What You See; Rudy De Reyna