Design with Photos In Clip Studio (iPad)

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Intro & Video

Hello everyone, today we will see different techniques and features that you can use in Clip Studio Paint to improve and transform photos taken with your iPad or tablet. We are going to create designs that you can use in any type of digital or printed projects.

Youtube Video Tutorial

Note: If you are on an iPad you can watch the video on fullscreen at 1920x1440 pixels.

The images below are going to be use as the main examples on this tutorial. That been said, you can apply any of these techniques and features on any type of project whether is an illustration for design, comics or webtoons, concept art, digital painting and more.

Note: All the photos were shot by the author of this tutorial. And the texture photos, baked goods, guitar and splashing water were shot with the camera app on a iPad 9th generation with natural lighting.

Burst Mode on iPad Camera

To shoot water splashing or sequence of images Press and hold the shutter button before the action start and release it a couple of seconds later.

Then tap select and choose the images you want to use. If you want to preserve the burst file tap Keep Everything and you will get separate still images from the ones you have selected. You can quickly built a library of photos shooting in burst mode on your iPad.

How to Import and Export photos

Create new from photo library

You can create a new document from File Create new from photo library.

Choose any image from the photo library and tap to open.

The image will appear in the Layer palette as a Raster layer.

The size of the document in pixels will be the same from the resolution of the photo taken with your iPad or image you selected from the photo library.

Import

Now you can also import Image material layers from File > Import > Camera or From photo library.

If you choose Camera you will see a simplify version of the camera app where you can take a photo but the image will not be saved directly onto your photo library. Now If you don’t like the shot you can Retake the photo and tap Use Photo when you are happy with the result.

The image is going to adapt to the width or height of the document according to the vertical or horizontal orientation. If you choose Import from photo library the image will also adapt to the document orientation. In both cases the images will appear in the Layer palette as an Image Layer with a small icon next to the thumbnail.

This will allow you to resize the image to its original size with the handles from the bounding box or controls in the Tool property palette without losing quality.

Export to photo library

If you want to save an image or Export a Logo with transparency go to File and choose Export to photo library.

Remember to hide the layers below and your image will be save with the size of the canvas of the document from Clip Studio Paint app.

Transform Image & Raster Layers

On the Layer palette you can quickly differentiate a Raster from an Image layer by the small icon next to the thumbnail. Let’s see how you can transform or scale each type of layer.

If you want to transform or scale a Raster layer you will first need to apply the command Transform and then see all the available options in the Tool property palette.

Use the handles and reduce its size to place it into the photo you shot with the iPad and try to blending it as part of the design.

Just be aware that if you try to scale up the raster layer you will notice that you lose quality in the edges of the logo.

When you use an Image layer instead you don’t need to apply any type of command. By default you can see the bounding box and Scale or rotate the image with the handles around it.

You can reduce the size of the logo to a little square and scale up to its original size with the controls in the Tool property palette. You can also flip the image as you need it. Now you can freely scale the image without any fear of losing quality.

But sometimes you might need more that just scale or rotate to incorporate the layer into your design or photo. So you can use different modes to transform the logo with transparency and jump between them to better integrate the image to your existing document.

If you don’t like the result you can always go back with the reset button in the tool property palette.

Retouch with Masks & Copy Stamp

We are going to see two techniques and learn how you can retouch and hide areas in a photo on both Image and Raster layers.

Selection & Mask

You can use the first technique on Image layers. Choose a Selection tool and find an area similar to the one you are going to replace. Make the selection and Copy a paste the area.

A new Image layer with a Mask will appear on the Layer palette. Then select the Move layer tool and try to place it around the area you want to hide in the image.

You might exceed the edges of the subject so in order to fix that choose a Soft airbrush or other brush and select Transparency below the main and sub colors.

Tap over the mask in the Layer palette and start painting to hide the section that pass the edges.

If the Brush size is to big you can adjust the size from the Tool property palette to paint with more precision.

Then you can choose any color and paint over the mask to reveal the areas you need to make visible again.

Copy Stamp Brush

You can use the second technique only with Raster layers. For that select the Copy stamp subtool under the Blend tool.

And since our guitar photo is an Image layer we are going to Tap and hold to Duplicate and tap and hold again to Rasterize the Image layer.

Now we are going to need a keyboard for the next step. If you don’t have an external keyboard swipe from the left or right to bring the Clip Studio edge keyboard. Find the option key and hold and tap with your finger or pencil to specify the location that is going to be the copy source.

Then you can start painting and see both the source and the copy in real time. Try to find areas similar in color and texture. You can use sections close to where you are painting Or in other side just make sure that the illumination is similar to the area you are replacing with the rounded brush shape.

You can also duplicate and customize your own Copy stamp brush. On the Tool property palette Tap over the wrench icon to open the Sub Tool Detail palette. Here you can change the brush tip, density, pressure dynamics and flip horizontal or vertical to create random orientation while painting.

This might be helpful if you need to paint textures or large areas and you want to use a different brush tip and not just the default circular one.

Using these techniques for both Image and Raster layers you can retouch, remove or hide different areas in the photo shot with the iPad or any other project. Here you can see the photo before and after applying the 2 techniques we just saw.

Correction layers

You can make different adjustments with Correction layers. Go to the Layer menu > New Correction Layer and choose one of the nine options for example Brightness/Contrast.

Adjust the values with the sliders to improve the Brightness and Contrast of the whole image in real time. Tap OK when you are happy with the result.

A new Layer will appear on the layer palette so you can hide the Correction layer to see the before and after.

Now if you want to apply the Correction layer just to an area first we are going to need to create a selection. Go to Select > Quick Mask. Then with any brush start painting over the area you are going to apply the Correction. We will paint with the default red color at 50 percent opacity.

Once you are done painting go to Select again and tap over Quick Mask. The area we just painted it will turn into an active selection.

So with the selection active go to Layer > New Correction Layer and choose another option for example Hue/Saturation/Luminosity. The New layer will appear with a Mask so any adjustment will only affect the area of the selection we just made.

You can move the Hue slider to quickly change the color of the masked area in the photo. And remember that you can always hide and reveal the layer to see the before and after.

Change Black into Any Color

To change Black into any color. First let’s create a Selection over the black areas of the image. Use Quick Mask. With Bezier curve create points over the black parts of the photo and close the shape to fill the area.

Exit Quick mask to Make the selection active and Go to Select > Convert to Selection Layer. A New layer will appear with green at 50 percent opacity. Now create a Selection layer with all the black areas.

I have one already so double tap over the thumbnail to make the selection active and hide the layer.

Go to Layer > New correction layer and choose Level Correction. You will see a histogram with 3 arrows below.

Drag the one from the right to the left to make the selected area brighter so the black in the photo will start looking as gray. Use the middle controller to adjust the contrast in the masked area.

Below on the Output section you can drag the left arrow to the right to change any dark black into a lighter shade of gray.

The Level layer will control the brightness and contrast of black in the image.

Now to change the color of the area go to Layer > New Layer > Fill.

Select any color from the pop up window and tap OK.

On the Layer palette change the blend mode to Color. You will see that the whole image looks blue now but we only want to use the color on the selection we made earlier.

So, swipe from the left to bring the Clip Studio edge keyboard and tap and hold the Option key while dragging the mask from the layer below to the Fill layer.

If you want to change the color double tap over the Fill layer on the Layer palette and select a new color from the pop up window.

You can also double tap over the Level layer to adjust the brightness and contrast to get darker or lighter shades.

Then you can create a mask for the whole guitar body and export photos with transparency to the library and build a collection of colored guitars. You can later export the guitar images into your design and transform them as we saw earlier in this tutorial.

Blending Mode: Screen

Now we are going to see how to integrate the water splashing from the photos we took with the iPad camera in Burst mode into the design with the colored guitars we just made.

Go to File > Import > From photo library ...find one image where you can see the water splashing. With the object tool Place the image onto your canvas close to the colored guitars.

And on the Layer palette change the blending mode to Screen. The image will turn brighter and the darker pixels are going to become transparent.

Then go to menu Layer > New Correction Layer > Level correction. Drag the left arrow to the right to make the image darker. The idea is to turn more pixels into transparent areas. But for that we need to apply the correction layer just to the Image layer.

So, on the Layer palette tap over the Clip to layer below icon. Now the Level correction will only affect to the layer with the image.

Again drag the left arrow to the right to make the photo even darker. Remember that you can use the middle arrow to control and increase the contrast of the pixels to make the brightest pixels of the water more visible. You can also drag the arrow in the Output section to see and try different results.

Now we need to hide the darker areas that still remain visible from the photo. Create a layer Mask on the Layer palette tapping the Mask icon.

Then choose a soft Airbrush and tap at the Transparency rectangle under the Main and Sub color.

And start painting over the darkest pixels to hide those areas in the design. Leaving only the brighter, translucent and crystalline pixels of the water.

Adjust the position of the water on the canvas and keep painting to integrate the Image layer with the rest of the design.

Once you are done painting you can check the result and if you think that the splashing effect looks to weak you can always repeat the process and combine two or more photos into the design we made.

Image Layer & Overlay Texture

Now we are going to add the texture from an Image layer to the background of the design. The feature we are about to see doesn’t work with Raster layers.

So, place the Image layer on the canvas and open the Layer property palette.

There select the effect Overlay texture. And the color of the image will become transparent leaving only the texture of the photo image.

Drag the slider to control and adjust the Strength of the effect over the background. As a non destructive effect you can also turn it off tapping the Overlay Texture icon again.

Now sometimes you might not have a large resolution image so let’s reduce the size of the Image layer or use a small photo to create a repetitive pattern.

Open the Tool property palette from the window menu.

Then select and activate the Tiling option at the bottom. You will probably see the edges from the small photo we used.

So to fix that from the drop down menu select Reverse instead of Repeat. And now you won’t see more cut off edges with the tiling effect anymore.

This is a great non destructive feature that can save you a lot of time and help you to add some final details to improve your design.

Summary and Conclusion

So, with these features and techniques you can quickly take photos and create designs that you can use in different digital or printed projects.