How to Pimp Cars in Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a powerful image editing program you can use to recolor, resize and add special effects to digital photographs. With a little tweaking in Photoshop, you can modify a photo of a stock car and turn it into your vision of a sweet custom ride.
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Instructions
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Low-Profile Tires
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1
Select the "Elliptical Marquee Tool" from the tool palette.
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2
Click and drag to select the hubcap.
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3
Select Edit | Transform | Scale. The hubcap will be surrounded by a box with scale handles on the sides and corners.
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4
Hold down the Alt and Shift keys. Click and drag one of the corner scale handles until the hubcap is large enough to give the tires a thin, low-profile appearance. Hit the "Enter" key to apply the scaling.
Lowrider
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5
Hit the "Q" key to enter "Quick Mask" mode.
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6
Paint the tires, hubcaps and entire image below the level of the bottom of the car.
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7
Hit the "Q" key to exit "Quick Mask" mode. The car body and everything in the image above the level of the bottom of the car (except the tires and hubcaps) will be selected.
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8
Hit the "V" key to activate the "Move Tool." Click on the image and drag it downward until the body of the car has the desired "lowrider" appearance.
Paint Job
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9
Hit the "Q" key to enter "Quick Mask" mode. Paint over everything in your image except the car body.
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10
Hit the "Q" key to exit "Quick Mask" mode. The car body will be selected.
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11
Select Edit | Copy to copy the selection. Select Edit | Paste to create a new layer containing a copy of the car body. Double-click the layer name and rename this layer "Shading."
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12
Drag the "Shading" layer to the "Create New Layer" button on the Layers palette to create a second copy of the car body. Rename the new layer "Color." Click the eyeball icon next to this layer on the Layers palette to hide it.
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13
Drag the "Shading" layer to the "Create New Layer" button on the Layers palette to create a third copy of the car body. Rename this layer "Highlights." Hide the layer.
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14
Click on the "Shading" layer on the Layers palette. Select Image | Desaturate to remove the color from this layer. Select Image | Adjustments | Levels and adjust the levels until the car body looks like it is painted white.
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15
Click on the "Color" layer. Click the eyeball next to the layer to unhide it. Activate the "Lock transparent pixels" button and select "Multiply" for the "Blending Mode" on the Layers palette.
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16
Click the Foreground Color swatch on the tool palette and choose the new paint color. Select Edit | Fill, choose "Foreground color" from the "Use" menu and hit the "OK" button.
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17
Click on the "Highlights" layer on the Layers palette. Unhide the layer and select "Screen" for the "Blending Mode." Select Image | Desaturate. Select Image | Adjustments | Levels and adjust the shadow adjustment level (175 is a good starting point) to bring out the color and reflections.
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Tips & Warnings
Tint the windows by painting over them with dark gray on a new layer with the "Blending Mode" set to "Multiply."
Give your car a two-tone paint job by using the Gradient Tool to fill the "Color" layer.
