A "Ghosted", "Phantom View", "Transparent", or "See Through" technical illustration is one that renders the exterior skin of an object transparent in order to see the interior workings.
A Ghosted illustration will be slightly more time consuming and expensive to create than a Cutaway Illustration. Ghosting an object requires completion of the entire outside AND inside of the subject before the fading or "ghosting" process takes place. The decision to ghost or cutaway a subject is a stylistic one. Although more internal information may be visible in a cutaway version, a ghosted illustration will favor the exterior of the subject which may contain important components, body features, logos, etc.

Photoshop Tutorial - Cruise Ship Cutaway
Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Painting in Photoshop CS for Technical Illustrators
Illustration Stats - Size: 36" @ 350 dpi, 640 mb CMYK File with 35 Layers / Illustration Time: 720 hrs.
Software: Line Art - Adobe Illustrator CS CS2, Color - Adobe Photoshop CS CS2
Drawing Tablet: Wacom

With all of the line art complete, it was time to move on to the color phase. The line art was exported from Illustrator into Adobe Photoshop CS. At this point in the project, photo reference started to come in. The first step was to duplicate all of the floor coverings in "plan" view. The following image is the tile floor of the ship's Solarium. All of the hard floor surfaces were created in vector.

Photoshop Tutorial - Painting Techniques
Basic Photoshop Painting Techniques for Technical Illustrations
Drawing Subject: Chrome Tubing (Mountain Bike Fork Assembly)
Software: Adobe Photoshop CS CS2
Drawing Tablet: Wacom

Before we begin this Photoshop painting lesson it is important to have a cursory understanding of color theory. We will be working exclusively in CMYK and not in RGB. Although there may be many good reasons to work in RGB (web graphics only, smaller file size, etc.), for our purposes, CMYK (A.K.A. Subtractive Color) is a better choice.

Twisting Pixels - Free & Commercial Photoshop Plugins & Filters

Whether you're looking for a memorable portfolio piece, an attention-grabbing set of enhancements, or an artistic masterpiece, Twisting Pixels is your source for a wide variety of Photoshop filters and plugins.

They're ideal for use on the web, for multimedia and in printed publications. These filters are also very popular with photographers who use them to create digital backdrops and digital backgrounds for their photos.

You can download a trial version of any of the Twisting Pixels collections from the Twisting Pixels website. You can also find out more by reading some mini reviews of the following products on our new Twisting Pixels Plugins Page: PixelCreation Visual Effects & Tonal Filters Collection, PixelPaper Photoshop Plugin Filters, PixelPack Visual Effect Filters, and the Twisting Pixels Free PixelPack Photoshop Demo.

PixelSampler is a collection of visual effects for those of you seeking to achieve realistic film style results. You can adjust colors, light or tones in the included presets or create your own effect commands. PixelSampler gives you a wide variety of image enhancement options, all of which can be achieved without ever setting foot into a darkroom. Perhaps most appealing is that PixelSampler can be downloaded absolutely free from Twisting Pixels' website!

Tonal Streak – this effect streaks your image using either a motion blur or rotational blur. It will automatically streak the image farther wherever the image is brighter, giving the effect of a shaken camera.

Black and White – this automatically uses a green and yellow filtering system, which reduces the transmission of blue light. Skies appear darker and clouds stand out more. Orange and red filters are used to lighten tones and darken those of other colors, which produce dramatically darkened skies.

Contrasting Levels – this effect captures the details lost in the shadows. It also reduces the brightness range of an overly contrasted image, by subduing the bright areas of sky, water, snow and sand, which brings the light back to a normal range.

Duotone – creates precise tones comprising two color choices. You can use brushes to paint away parts that you don't want included in your image.

Starlight – add flare to your area. This effect will render brilliant points of light from your image highlights.

Starpoint – this effect is controlled by your touch, as you can easily drop a starpoint to your image to better showcase a brightly sunny day or a romantically twinkling night sky.

Grain – gives your image the look of exposed and processed silver halides left behind on film emulsion. Use this effect to give a unique grain shape that aligns better than its conventional equivalent.

Monotone – creates all the hues, tints and shades of a single color. As a result, the energy is more subtle, thanks to a reduced color contrast.

Warm Cool – use this on color images to give either a cooling or warming effect. Cooling filters are pale blue and will warm a pale straw color, while warming filters will prevent a cold feeling on pictures taken on overcast days or in shady areas on sunny days.

Get special pricing, bundles, and free demos at the Twisting Pixels site.

Adobe Releases Photoshop CS2 Update (9.0.1)

From John Nack: I'm pleased to report that we've just posted the Photoshop 9.0.1 updater for Photoshop CS2 (Mac/Win). In addition to addressing a crummy PDF offset bug, this release means that: