Applying Photoshop to Pterosaurs

They say that practice makes perfect when it comes to using Photoshop CS5, well if that is the case, team members at Everything Dinosaur are going to need a lot of practice before they become anything like proficient.  However, through a combination of trial and error they are getting a little more used to some of the tools in this powerful software programme.

Everything Dinosaur

For example, regular practice with the pen tool (short cut control P or an PC) is helping the team to gain confidence and although you wouldn’t call the latest attempts brilliant there are signs of improvement.  Today’s work involved cutting out various images of pterosaurs (flying reptiles) and creating layers and then trying to put them onto a single picture.  The background image was that of a rocky seashore on the northern cost of Anglesey, visited recently by Everything Dinosaur team members on a fossil hunt.

Various models were cut out and a vector mask was applied to one layer (layer three showing the Brazilian pterosaur Anhanguera), this allowed the gap between the pterosaur’s foot and its wing to be filled with an image of the background image, so this “huge whole” in our artwork would not show to much.  How we created the vector mask, and painted it is a bit of a mystery – but we got there, that’s the main thing.  We do seem to be heading in the right direction – although very slowly.

Everything Dinosaur’s Pterosaur Cliffs Picture

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

We do have a long way to go, but a journey of a thousand miles…

For models of pterosaurs and other prehistoric creatures: Pterosaur and Prehistoric Animal Models.