Photoshop | Photo Manipulation Tutorial

This tutorial describes how to amalgamate several images to quickly describe a design direction or create a bodykit for an existing car using parts from other donor cars.

It is a quick and easy way to come up with something different without actually having to design anything new. Its a good start to a project but shouldnt be used to create a final design because there is nothing new. A new design should be just that, new.

I am currently in the process of writing a tutorial which will describe how to take an image and create a completely new design without the need for donor cars. Such a technique is useful to get the perspective correct and help with highlights but without having to depend on existing design features.

1. Starting Off

Firstly gather an image for the base. Make sure its a good quality image at a nice angle. Then search for donor images of other cars at a similar angle. The colour isnt important. Look for features that you might use on the new design. In this case Ive used a Gallardo and a Murcielago.

2. Blank Canvas

Using a combination of the clone stamp tool and the brush tool erase all the areas which will be different.

In this example I blank out the frontal area, the shutlines and window frames.

3. Colour Matching

In order for the new parts to look realistic the colours must match. Cut and paste a piece of a donor part and place it above the base car. Go to Image>Adjustment>Hue/Saturation, make sure colorize is ticked and move the parameters to match the colour of the donor car.

4. Front Bumper

After following step three to match up the colour I used the front bumper from a Lamborghini Gallardo and positioned it in place. Firstly I used Edit>Free Transform followed by Edit>Transform>Warp

5. Headlamps

The headlamps are also from the Lamborghini Gallardo but they did not need any colour matching. However the shape did not fit well so I used the Free Transform tool to improve the shape and size.

5. Side Scoops

As before I used the Free Transform and Warp tools to incorporate the Lamborghini Gallardo's side scoop.

Be careful when adding such features to your design and consider why it is there. In the Gallardo the purpose is to feed air into the engine which at the rear, the engine in the Audi A2 is at the front so this would be pointless.

I might argue that I have placed the scoops here because this concept features the engine behind the driver to create a better weight distribution or that the engine is too big to fit where it is in the A2.

6. Wheels and Finishing Touches

I took the wheels from the Lamborghini Murcielago, enlarged them and repositioned them to make the car look more planted.

The sill was selected and using Image>Adjustment>Hue/saturation I altered the parameters to match the colours up.

Shutlines were reintroduced using the path tool and the Lamborghini Logo was added to the hood (bonnet).

If you have any questions or would like anything explained in more detail please contact me.