Finally! Here is my second photoshop tutorial, which will teach you how to do the following effect, that I would describe as cartoon city panorama effect. Of course, if one of you has a better idea, do not hesitate! To tell the truth, I did not really know how to call it…

First of all, we need the basic picture: I found a great one among Wallyg’s photos which will fit perfectly with what I want to show you. Feel free to look among your pictures, if you are living in a big city I am sure you will have a good one! However if you want to use this one, please ask the author’s authorization first.

By the way, while looking for a nice picture for this tutorial, I found out a nice flickR portfolio displaying hundreds of pictures of Tokyo: streets, buildings, people… Check it out! It really worths it!

Now, let’s begin with the tutorial by itself.

First of all, open a new Photoshop document of a panoramasize, for example 900*450px. Then use the gradient tool to create a background. For our example, I used the two colors #a2967c and #55492f.

Then draw a gradient from up to down, in order to obtain something like that.

 

 

Then comes the time to use the picture we selected for this tutorial. Add it to your photoshop file by opening it next to your first document, and then make it slide above your gradiet with the Move tool (V if you prefer shortcuts). If the picture is too big, you will have to reduce the size of it.
In order to do that, click Edit >> Free Transform, and then change the size of your picture. To be sure you will keep the original picture ratio, hold Shift while reducing your picture, or simply click on the “lock” button on the top toolbar.

However, even if these small keyboard shortcuts seem useless at first, I encourage you to learn them, they will be a huge gain of time when you will use Photoshop more often. Speaking about that, I guess I will make a tutorial about that soon! And in all my tutorials, I will try to write down every shortcut I use for every step.

Now, let’s go back to our picture. You should reduce it until it stays in the right downer part of your photoshop canvas, like on the screenshot below:

Then take the polygonal lasso tool (L).

Zoom in your document (Z, then click on your document), and start drawing a line following the downer part of the buildings. If there is no one, then invent one!

 

When you arrive at the total left of the picture, then draw a line till the left of the document, then close your path by coming back on the right. Once it is done, create a new layer, and fulfill it with a light grey, for example #A5997F.

So.. Second step, the bigger buildings: create a new layer and put it right under the previous one.

Then start underlining the medium buildings, like for the first step with the polygonal lasso tool. This time it will be a bit more difficult so do not hesitate to invent some buildings. Then when you are at the left side of the picture, stop here and close your selection. Fulfill it with a darker grey color, like #72664D for example.

That is now the time for the last steps: the skyscrapers. Create a new layer, and put it under the medium buildings, like on the screenshot below:

I guess you have got it now: underline the skyscrapers, and invent some more to be sure that this category of buildings will be well represented. Once it is done, fulfill your selection with a dark grey color, like #55492E.

A few more steps to go…

Mask the original picture, and reframe your canvas with the Crop tool (C) in order to get the best of your previous work.

Personally I got that result:

If you did not, or if at the contrary you think you have got a better one or a few ideas to make this tutorial better, do not hesitate to post links to your own results or to send it to me by mail at the address contact[at]hervedesign.com. I will add them to this post and we will be able to compare all the results!

For further tutorials, do not hesitate to subscribe to my feed!