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Wrinkles - by Messiah
Firstly you need to find a pixture of your chosen flag, In this case I have chosen the Dannebrog (Danish Flag) as my base texture.
Firstly you'll need to open up your flag texture in photoshop and make sure that it's not a background image. If it is, set it to a layer by double clicking on it in the layers window. Then, in order to have some space to work with, we'll increase the canvas size by about 40% of your image both in height and width (Image -> Canvas Size...). After this, you need to create a new white layer beneath the flag texture and call it 'Displace'. Set the opacity of the flag layer quite low so we can see what we're doing, but still see the flag.
Now we need to make the displacement waves that will create the bumps, folds, creases and waves in our flag texture. You'll need to use a big, soft edged black brush and draw waves over the flag in the Displace Layer. It's hard to tell you in a tutorial how to make these waves, so go with what you think looks best. Don't try and make it look a certain way though, as it will look fake. Try and let yourself go and play around with different brush strokes, sizes and directions. You'll end up with something that looks a little like this:
Now, the way the displacer works is by taking the differences between the black and white (dark and light) parts of the layer and displacing the flag texture accordingly. Obviously at the moment we're going to end up with some pretty extreme levels of displacement.
To avoid this, we need to add some blur into our displace layer to even out the transitions between light and dark. Using gaussian blur (Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur...) we can apply a heavy blur onto our image.
To avoid this, we need to add some blur into our displace layer to even out the transitions between light and dark. Using gaussian blur (Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur...) we can apply a heavy blur onto our image.
The amount of blur you use is heavily dependant on your brush strokes, their size and how close they are to each other. Again, like with the brish strokes themselves, you need to experiment to get a good transition.
Once you are happy with how the displacer looks, we need to copy and paste the entire displacement layer into a new document (Ctrl A -> Ctrl C -> Ctrl N -> Ctrl V). Firstly you'll need to flatten the image (Layer -> Flatten Image) and then change the mode to greyscale (Image -> Mode -> Greyscale). It may ask you whether to discard the colour imformation, if so, click yes. Now you need to save the image as a .psd (lets name it FlagDisplacer.psd) somewhere safe, and well be coming back to it in a short while. Close the displacer document.
Now we'll return to the original flag document and duplicate the displace layer. Name it something like 'Light'. Now we need to emboss the layer (Filter -> Stylize -> Emboss). Here again you'll need to play around with the Emboss settings to get a good look. You need to be aiming for a smooth transition of light contours.
Once you are happy with how the displacer looks, we need to copy and paste the entire displacement layer into a new document (Ctrl A -> Ctrl C -> Ctrl N -> Ctrl V). Firstly you'll need to flatten the image (Layer -> Flatten Image) and then change the mode to greyscale (Image -> Mode -> Greyscale). It may ask you whether to discard the colour imformation, if so, click yes. Now you need to save the image as a .psd (lets name it FlagDisplacer.psd) somewhere safe, and well be coming back to it in a short while. Close the displacer document.
Now we'll return to the original flag document and duplicate the displace layer. Name it something like 'Light'. Now we need to emboss the layer (Filter -> Stylize -> Emboss). Here again you'll need to play around with the Emboss settings to get a good look. You need to be aiming for a smooth transition of light contours.
Now we'll go back to the flag layer and apply the displacement layer we created a short while ago (Filter -> Distort -> Displace).
I've used the default settings as my deplacement percentage. Like with all things, experimentation is key. You can always undo the displacement and try new settings. Obviously a higher percentage creates a greater displacement. Once you're happy with the values, click ok and it will ask you for a displacement map to use. Remember the FlagDisplacer.psd we saved? Find it and click ok. You flag wll now be displaced using your displacement map and values you entered, and should look a little like this:
Now this doesn't look very impressive, but we'll get onto that soon. If you overlay your embossed displacement map (called Light) you'll start to see the look we're going for, but you'll also notice the light and dark areas don't line up with the displaced flag. Not to worry, all we need to do is displace the Light layer as well to get them to line up perfectly. If you havn't done anything else since yu displaced the flag layer, then all you'll need to do is go to the Filter menu and click the very top option, which in this case should be 'Displace'. Now we should be getting somewhere close to having a very funky looking flag.
Next you need to duplicate the light layer into a 'Hi' layer and a 'Lo' layer. Hi layer will be our highlights, and the Lo layer will be our shading. Group the Lo layer to the flag layer (Ctrl G) and then with the Lo layer selected, choose 'Multiply' from the drop down panel at the top of the layer screen (should read 'normal'). If you've done that correctly it should start to look like this:
Next you need to duplicate the light layer into a 'Hi' layer and a 'Lo' layer. Hi layer will be our highlights, and the Lo layer will be our shading. Group the Lo layer to the flag layer (Ctrl G) and then with the Lo layer selected, choose 'Multiply' from the drop down panel at the top of the layer screen (should read 'normal'). If you've done that correctly it should start to look like this:
Now thats the shading dealt with, now we can add some highlights to the flag. With the layer we names 'Hi', in the same drop down panel as before we will select the 'screen' mode. Don't panic! Our shading has dissapeared and the flag looks pretty awful but we'll solve that very quickly by creating a levels layer which will be grouped to the Hi layer to adjust it accordingly. Levels layer are added by clicling the small button at the bottom of the layers screen which looks like a circle with half white and half black. After clicking this, choose the 'Levels' option.
You'll now be presented with what looks like a bar chart. Dont worry! Simple adjust the values to create what essentially will look like a solid black background with white stripes on it - this will be what creates the highlight layer. Play around will your flag looks how it should. Incidently, the values I Used were Input: 70, 0.8, 255 and Output: 0, 209. Click ok and then group the levels layer with the Hi layer.
You'll now be presented with what looks like a bar chart. Dont worry! Simple adjust the values to create what essentially will look like a solid black background with white stripes on it - this will be what creates the highlight layer. Play around will your flag looks how it should. Incidently, the values I Used were Input: 70, 0.8, 255 and Output: 0, 209. Click ok and then group the levels layer with the Hi layer.
Ok, we're very close to the finished article now. All we need to do is merge the levels layer to the Hi layer, and THEN group the Hi and Lo levels together. So firstly we merge the layer levels and the Hi layer together by selecting the levels layer and going to Image -> Merge Down. Now we group the Hi and Lo Layers together using Ctrl G and hey presto, you should see your nice wavy flag!
