Photoshop Expertise

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Mr. Hook's Photoshop Expertise
Over 15 years experience in Digital Painting, Photo Manipulation, and Graphic Design.

I was first introduced to Adobe Photoshop 3.0 while attending college. Over the past fifteen years I've utilized Photoshop for digital painting, photo manipulation, short animations, and various graphic design tasks such as promotional posters and desktop wallpapers. Below is just a small sampling of what I've learned to do using Photoshop, ranging from professional photo retouching to self-indulgent fan art. Browse and enjoy!

Dyd's Pest Control

Meet Jeremiah Dyd, a.k.a. Jerry the Mighty, Slayer of Dragons and Opener of Doors. So far Jerry has been a mighty unhappy camper in the DragonStar campaign setting. Once celebrated as a famous dragon slayer, Jerry now inhabits a universe where killing a dragon can be prosecuted as a capital crime. After being generally bamboozled, hoodwinked, and otherwise deceived by the Drow running the secret service for the Dragon Empire, Jerry has decided to fake his own death and "lie low" for a while.

Nowadays he tries to pass himself off as a retired SOLAR Knight (hence the sun-blade emblem), and advertises his services as an Outlands Pest Control Specialist (hence Dyd's Pest Control). He has received training for his new Assault Blaster, but still carries around his old adamantium great-sword, partly for sentimental reasons, but mostly because he has no idea how ridiculous it looks.

Dyd's Close Up #1

This portrait was created using a Poser figure as a base and then several layers of detail were overlaid with paint tools in Photoshop. I was also learning how to generate the illusion of dents and scratches on the back wall using Photoshop Layer Styles such as Bevel and Emboss.

Dyd's Close Up #2

If I remember correctly, the only photographic elements I integrated into this picture were the scope on top of the Assault Blaster, parts of the sword hilt and the circular grate in the lower right hand corner. All the rest was generated with Photoshop paint tools, layer styles, and text editing features using a Wacom drawing pad.

Casino Concept - Raw SketchUp Rendering (Before)

Casino Concept - Refined Photoshop Rendering (After)

Spring Trees - Raw Photo Source (Before)

Spring Trees - Refined Photo Touch-up (After)

GTA Announcement Poster #1

I was asked to create this poster for the Third Annual Golden Toaster Awards. The GTA were an online polling initiative sponsored by a global collective of Battlestar Galactica fan sites. I didn’t create the golden toaster statue, but I had to redesign the pedestal it was standing on to match the new format.

GTA Announcement Poster #2

GTA Announcement Poster #3

The space beneath the theme text was left blank so that third parties could add their own text.

GTA Announcement Poster #4

Spawn of Ares
This was one of the first pieces of fan art I ever attempted using Photoshop. The faces of the characters were taken from screen captures, but the leather costume had to be painted digitally since the facial reference was only from the neck up.

Battlestar Galactica desktop wallpaper #1

Since the revamped Battlestar Galactica show was shot in HD, there were a lot of high resolution screen captures and publicity shots available to the online fan community. Part of what makes fan art so addictive is the nearly instantaneous positive feedback you can get by posting on various fan forums.