get great cf w/0 c+p

[Dtur]

I don't know if i'm allowed to post anything here, so here goes:

there is an easy way to get realistic and crisp looking carbon fiber using Pete's tutorial in the photoshop bible (http://digimods.co.uk/tutorials/tutorials.htm). i'm gonna give the rough idea.

follow the tutorial to the point where you put cf pattern as the fill for the cf layer. once you're there, rotate the layer 90 degrees, easily done with the transform tool. also make sure you have the hood of the recepient car selected, on a separate layer, and desaturated.

heres a pic as to the process so far:
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/5673/civicrp5.th.jpg (http://img20.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civicrp5.jpg)

once you have that, under transparency options, set it to linear burn. it makes the pattern more crisp and more stand-outy. this will also help you decide a good size for the weave. when that is done, grab the transform handles and squeeze the carbon down to the relative size of the hood, occasionally stopping and checking to see if the weave is too small.

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/7301/civiceu3.th.jpg (http://img20.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civiceu3.jpg)

when that is done, forget about twirl. let's step it up and move to the displace tool (it's under filter>distort>displace), but first, turn off the cf layer visibility and save your car as a psd file. once that's done, turn the cf back on, and rotate the pattern so it fits the relative angle of the car how you want it to. after that, go to filter>distort>displace (with the cf layer selected), click ok, and when it asks you to choose the displacement map, pick the psd file of the car you're working on that you saved earlier, and hit ok. this will automatically twist and distort the cf to fit the shadows and highlights of the car:

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/2596/civicnl2.th.jpg (http://img20.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civicnl2.jpg)

with the desired distortion achieved, grab the magic wand tool, go to the hood layer, select the area around the hood, go back up to the cf layer with the same selection, and delete the unwanted carbon. if you did it right so far, it should look like this:

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/8094/civicbi1.th.jpg (http://img20.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civicbi1.jpg)

change up the opacity and add blur to the back as you see fit. if you want a little color for reflections, make a new layer, select the hood again, and brush in the desired color. then lower the opacity of the color layer to something ok looking and you're done:

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/7313/civictd9.th.jpg (http://img20.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civictd9.jpg)

this can be adapted to any body part, be it arches, skirt, or splitter. just make sure, if you brushed the recieving part, that the shading and highlights are all right, because that is what the cf will twist itself around.

hope it helped :o

ps: sorry for the length: i don't have a DA or a myspace so I couldn't do a link to a tut

-disclamer- the cf on the car at the end is different from the others in the series. with that one, I noticed the weave turned out too large, so I deleted the cf, started over, and made the weave smaller

[erikbartrosman]

not THE most realistic CF you've ever seen right? that weave is HUGE! :P

[KagePusher]

Doesnt look like carbon at all, but i ave seen worse results.

[Dtur]

are you talking abou the last pic or the ones before it? in either case, you could always go back and make the weave smaller. back in Utah, it was almost midnight when I did the tutorial, so I was too tired to fix it again

[Naj]

Not veryrealistic CF at all.

[Dtur]

it works better from a flatter angle

[Aman07]

nah, doesnt look too good mate

[Dtur]

in that case, just use a c/p'd pattern, but make sure it isn't twirled for you or the displace tool won't work