The final painting phase resulted in a Photoshop file with 29 paint layers and 6 line layers with a file size of 988 mb. This was merged down to a more manageable 14 layers for delivery to the client. For more information on mechanical and technical drawing techniques, please visit the Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator Tutorials section.

Many people will ask: why not use a CAD program to create an illustration such as this? Although CAD is a powerful tool to create and render 3 dimensional objects, it has inherent limitations that would make it impractical to use on an illustration of this scale and complexity.

[tutorial and images © Kevin Hulsey - not to be reproduced without permission]



More Photoshop Tutorials From Kevin Hulsey
Photoshop Tutorial - Painting Techniques
Basic Photoshop Painting Techniques for Technical Illustrations
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.

Photoshop Tutorial - Ghosting Techniques
Photoshop Ghosting Tips, Tricks and Techniques for Technical Illustrations
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.

Also make sure to visit Kevin Hulsey's site, where you'll find more free tutorials and some really amazing and inspiring work!

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See our Photoshop CS5 Resource Center for Free Photoshop CS5 Tutorials, and the Free Photoshop CS5 Trial Download. See our Photoshop CS4 Resource Center for Free Photoshop CS4 Tutorials.

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Skin Retouching Tips In Photoshop CS4
Transforming Smart Objects In Photoshop CS4
Find more Photoshop CS4 tutorials on our Photoshop CS4 Tutorials Page.

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Adjusting Exposure in Adobe Camera Raw CS3
Photoshop CS3 Tutorial High Dynamic Range

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