Tutorial 1

Dan Mold shows you how to download and start using this month’s free start images to create eye-catching, painterly, digital art

Craft inky spot portraits with our free image pack of ink splodges

Editing your pictures in programs like Adobe Photoshop CC, or even the more budgetfriendly Photoshop Elements as we’re using here, doesn’t have to be about creating the most accurate or sharp images. Sometimes it can just be a playground where we can have fun and learn some new editing tricks along the way.

Today, we’ll combine a bit of both by incorporating ink splat start images into your own photographs to create some striking graphic art.

We’re giving away 18 ink spatter shots that we’ve created by dropping some black ink, or flinging it from a paint brush, onto a sheet of white A4 paper.

You can try this yourself if you’d like to experiment with even more ink effects. Just set your camera to Aperture Priority (Av) mode with an aperture of f/8 for strong sharpness. Then, boost the ISO until you get a shutter speed of at least 1/200 sec to eliminate camera shake. A macro lens can help you get closer to the ink splodges too and make them appear larger in the frame.

Adding these splashes to portraits works very well, but can also be just as effective with landscapes. Either way, it’s a fun technique to try if you’d like to start creating composites (combining multiple images using layers) in Photoshop.

To begin, download the start images (see link bottom left) and load up a photo you’d like to add them to, or use our start image ‘Portrait.jpg’ and follow our six steps. You can also watch the video to see how you can do it too. You’ll be making striking ink splash artwork in no time!