End of Summer in Pixelmator

End of Summer in Pixelmator

The summer is over down here in Brazil, but it’s about to begin in the north hemisphere. Because of that I decided to play around with some photos I took last summer and create a 90s-inspired design with deconstructed typography and dirty elements using Pixelmator.

In this tutorial we will tackle the brushes engine in Pixelmator, learning how easy it is to import brushes from other apps, such as Photoshop, to Pixelmator. In addition, we’ll play with some textures and blendings to create a really nice effect.

Step 1

Open Pixelmator and import a photo. The photo I used is one I took last summer on the beach. It was nice, because there was a nice haze and the light was very good.

Step 2

Go to Image ‣ Color Balance. Let’s change a bit of the color balance and add more yellow and green to the shadows and midtones. For the Shadow, use 1 for the Cyan/Red, 5 for the Magenta/Green, and -14 for the Yellow/Blue. Now, for the Midtones, use 12 for the Cyan/Red, -1 for the Magenta/Green, and -22 for the Yellow/Blue.

Step 3

Select the Text Tool (T). I’m using a font called DeadHistory, but you can use whatever font you want. Type “SUM”, but change the “M” to bold.

Step 4

Add the other “M,” this time with a regular font, and move it closer to the bold “M”.

Step 5

Type the “ER” using bold for the “E” and regular for the “R”. Also, make them much bigger. I’m using 280 for the size.

Step 6

Type the “2009,” but make the “2″ much bigger and a bit on top and over the “0″. Use the image below for reference.

Step 7

Add a new layer and, using the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M), create a rectangular selection, then, using the Paint Bucket Tool (N), fill the marquee selection with black.

Step 8

Add another layer and repeat the last step to create another black rectangle. Use the image below for reference.

Step 9

Add another layer and create another black rectangle using the Marquee Tool (M) and the Paint Bucket Tool (N). Once again, use the image below for reference to create the rectangle.

Step 10

Using the Type Tool (T), create a text area by holding the button and dragging to create a rectangle. That will be the text area. Copy and paste some text in the area. I’m using the lyrics of a very famous Bossa Nova song from Tom Jobin called “Aguas de Marco”. After that, select some words and make them much bigger, for instance, the “Waters of March” and “the joy in my hear”.

Step 11

One of the coolest things in Pixelmator is that you can import Photoshop brushes and use them. Doing that is very simple. Just go to the folder where the brush is and click on Open With , then select Pixelmator. The brushes will be automatically imported to the Brushes Palatte. The brushes I used for this tutorial can be found at misprintedtype.com. They were made by a famous Brazilian designer called Eduardo Recife. The brushes are perfect for this type of grunge style.

Step 12

Select the layers used for the texts and for the rectangles and go to Layer ‣ Merge Layer. After that go to Layer>Add Layer Mask. Select the Brush Tool (B), make sure you have black selected for the color, then start painting with some of the imported brushes to erase some areas.

Step 13

Now add a new layer, and with the Brush Tool (B) and black, paint some dirty spots (1-3).

Step 14

Go to fudgegraphics.com and download the old paper texture set, then import Grungepaper4. Place the old paper texture on top of the other layers.

Step 15

With the old paper texture layer selected, go to Layer>Add Layer Mask. Then, with a very soft brush and black, paint some areas to erase them, mainly in the center of the image and where the text is. Use the image below for reference.

Step 16

Test some Blending modes. The first image is using Overlay for the paper texture, while the second is using Hard Light. I prefer Hard Light because the texture is applied even to the black text and rectangles.

Step 17

Let’s use a great new addition in the new release of Pixelmator, the Noise filter. The noise filter is very useful because you can create lots of effects with it, from stars to simply adding some grain to images. Add a new layer and, using the Paint Bucket Tool (N), fill it with white. After that go to Filter>Stylize>Noise. Use 15 for the Amount.

Conclusion

As I said before, the possibility of importing brushes from other tools to Pixelmator and also creating brushes from images makes Pixelmator a great tool to create grunge style images. We can add layers with dirty spots, and eroded elements using famous brushes, like the ones I used from Eduardo Recife. Now it’s all about playing with the tool.