By Prof. Jose R. Buitrago, assistant professor, University of Georgia School of Environmental Design

Fig. 30

Many illustrators enthusiast are discovering that Adobe Photoshop CS2 is an excellent tool to create the feel of a wet media rendering technique such as water color.

Fig. 31

The first step is to import your CAD drawing into Adobe Photoshop CS2 as a PDF. [In Adobe Photoshop CS2 under File menu, select Open, browse until you find your Adobe PDF drawing, then hit the OK button, which opens the Import PDF pop menu window. There, on Select, choose Page, Thumbnail?EUR??,,????'??+Size Fit the page, Crop to?EUR??,,????'??+Bounding Box, Resolution to 300 dpi or larger, Mode to RGB, and Bit Depth to 16 bit. Hit OK. Your drawing should carry the same paper size dimensions of your CAD drawing. Under the top menu option, Image, select Canvas Size and match the canvas size to the size of your original drawing. There is a small percentage distortion in changing the AutoCAD file into a PDF and then into Photoshop CS2.]

Fig. 32

Next, make the background layer the active layer and turn off the line drawing layer. From the tool bar, click on ?EUR??,,????'??set background color.?EUR??,,????'?? This should launch the ?EUR??,,????'??color picker?EUR??,,????'?? window. Scroll up or down on the color bar to get a color that resemble the water color paper. A solid off- white or light pastel colors are the most common water color papers available in the market. See Fig. 30. Using the rectangular marquee tool, select the entire background layer, then the bucket tool and select an off-white color from the background color box of the side tool bar. Click inside the field previously selected with the rectangular marquee tool. Make sure the background layer is active. This action will fill the background layer with a solid tone of your chosen color. After completion, deselect the area. See Fig. 31. Remember that the background color layer is under the line drawing layer, so make sure that your layers order is correct, otherwise the line drawing might end underneath the solid field of tan.

Fig. 33

Most of the water base paper use and available in the market for wet media such as water color has some kind of texture. Adobe Photoshop CS2 will allow you to texture your drawing to match the texture of the wet media paper, thus enhancing the water color feel of your rendering. In order to ?EUR??,,????'??texture?EUR??,,????'?? your drawing, the Image mode must be set in RGB Color and set to 8 Bits per channel. See Fig. 32.

Fig. 34

After you set the drawing to RGB Color ?EUR??,,????'??? 8 Bits per channel look at the top tool bar, under Filter ?EUR??,,????'??? Texture ?EUR??,,????'??? and select Texturizer. See Fig. 33. A new pop window will be launch, with several textures to choose from. Select the one that best suit your aesthetic needs. Also, explore modifying the scale, relief, and light source. Hit ok when the desired texture is accomplish. See Fig. 34.

Fig. 35

The next step is to create a new layer, between the Line Drawing and Background layer. This is done in order to prevent the black line drawing be cover by color, or screening the color render under the background. Label this new layer Color Render 1. Make the color rendering layer the active layer. Next select the brush tool and choose the texture with brush option. Also select the Drippy Brush, and change the brush Master Diameter and Hardness to the parameters that best suit your needs. The Mode should be set to Normal, the Opacity to 50 percent, and the Flow to 50 percent. This will allow you to create the transparent and soft look created with real water color. See Fig. 35.

Fig. 36

The next steps, select your color choices from the Color Pickler box, and hit OK. See Fig. 36. Try not to get a perfectly even color distribution since water color renderings have the tendency not to be even. Experiment with the different brush diameter, hardness, and opacity to get a softer or harder look. Imagine that the mouse is a brush, so try to recreate the same movement and direction of an actual brush. You might consider overlapping the same color over the same in other to get low and high values of color rendering. See Fig. 37. There is no wrong and right in this technique since is we are trying to recreate the feel of ?EUR??,,????'??hand rendering?EUR??,,????'?? media, i.e., imperfection.

Fig. 37

Do not hesitate in creating more ?EUR??,,????'??Color Render?EUR??,,????'?? layers. This will allow you to overlap one layer over the other, thus preventing one layer screening the other by accident. Uses the eraser to clean some of the overspills created by the drippy brush, or use the marquee tool to isolate specific areas to be rendered. Ones you render your composition, you need to ?EUR??,,????'??texturize?EUR??,,????'?? all the color layers in order to enhance the water color paper feel. Merge all the color layers first before texturize. See Fig. 38. It is extremely important to match the texture type, scale, relief, and light source of the background paper texture. You might try also to texturize the line drawing as well but this might create some distortion thus weakening the general appeal of the composition. See Fig. 39.

Fig. 38

Ones you reach the desired ?EUR??,,????'??water color?EUR??,,????'?? feel. Save the drawing as an active Adobe Photoshop drawing and also save a copy as the ?EUR??,,????'??final drawing.?EUR??,,????'?? The last one is the copy that you need to flatten all layers to create one simple drawing. See Fig. 40. The first one you keep as a back up copy, in case that further revisions are needed.

Fig. 39

It?EUR??,,????'???s is extremely suggested that you print your drawing using Adobe PDF as well. This will turn the drawing into an easy format to print, plus reduce the file size considerably. Make sure that under ?EUR??,,????'??Print ?EUR??,,????'??? Properties,?EUR??,,????'?? you select the correct page layout, paper size, color print, and under the Adobe PDF Setting you select High Quality Print.

Fig. 40

Fig. 41 shows the finished product.

Fig. 41

Prof. Jose Buitrago, assistant professor, University of Georgia School of Environmental Design. Prof. Buitrago has extensive work experience in hurricane restoration in San Juan, Puerto Rico and field knowledge in Hispanic-Caribbean landscape architecture history, economy, ecology, cultures and traditions. His current teaching includes courses in advanced computer graphics and desktop publishing techniques and their application to environmental design projects. Auto CAD, Photo Shop Elements, Sketchup, In Design, and Power Point. He also teaches landscape architecture design theory courses and hand graphics. Buitrago has a BS in landscape architecture from Pennsylvania State University and an MLA from Harvard University Graduate School of Design.