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Making panels look less "plastic?"

T

TurboCompound

Resource contributor
Messages
190
Hi all, while I've had a blast making invisible systems logic gauges, I decided that I wanted to actually see the results of what I've been coding. At first, I used actual photos of panel sections, Photoshopping anything that moves out of them. This worked extremely well, but I couldn't find photos of every panel section, plus I started to worry about copyright and using other people's photos. I decided to use Photoshop to draw elements from scratch, with the aim of mimicking Fraser McKay's style of panel artwork. I know my way around Photoshop, so I didn't have any trouble using beveling effects and shading with the burn tool to create gauge elements. But everything I make looks too smooth and shiny. Here's what I mean:
PhMtLbo.png


The real thing is a bit "grainier," and adding noise doesn't seem to help. Any suggestions?

Thanks
 
Noise and any type of blur? Plus maybe some strokes with a brush here and there that is set to lighten stuff up?
 
The strange thing is that the noise tool seems to work reasonably well on lighter objects, but darker ones such as the one shown aren't particularly benefitted by it.
 
Do you have other noise tools in PS? Maybe something akin to RGB noise?
 
I use a photo overlay in Photoshop set to Multiply to introduce uneven texture effects. A scratched and scuffed metal overlay was quite effective.
 
LockeFP said:
Could you do a side-by-side comparison between the real thing and what you've got?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, the photos I have are gathered from YouTube videos and aircraft lease offers, and none of them show it very clearly. The "grained" look I describe is from how I remember it looking when I flew on the aircraft (as a jumpseater). Here it is anyway:
fObPMAt.png
 
Hi Folks,

Well my first rule of thumb is never ever texture anything with just a solid color - even on something painted a uniform color - light makes areas of lighter and darker shading... I use PSP and the best way to do something like that - is use the "layer types" (as hairyspin mentioned) and various real world textures... The real world textures don't even have to be related to the subject on hand - just surf some of the free texture sites and experiment - maybe some glass textures... I'm sure PS must have something similar feature set - try applying a layer with "soft light" to add subtle highlights and shading... If I were painting this from scratch - the bottom layer would be a fairly dark greyscale image with shadow and details - then other layers would be stacked to make it appear more realistic and the proper color...

Regards,
Scott


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Get out your camera and start taking pictures of blank areas around the house. And while you're at it take some pictures of screws and nuts and bolts which you can overlay onto the top.

This is your panel which I have quickly replaced the black with a picture of my dirty and dusty laptop top (which was originally dark blue but changed to match the 24,24,24 gray in your image). I'd start with a real texture as a background coloured to match your panels and then add elements on top. Bevelled can be done by drawing them on a separate layer in then adding noise and finally using an eraser to slightly rub some bits just to lose that perfect finish. Use pictures of real screws to replace your ones.

example.JPG
 
Thanks to all of you for the advice; I'll be sure to test these methods out and report back. By the way Anthony, those aren't regular screws, they're special DZUS fasteners. Those actually look fairly good as they are in the actual panel element if you look at pictures of real ones (Uploading to the internet and compressing the item caused a bit of a loss in sharpness). I don't feel the need to change them.
 
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