Catch You Letter: Tutorial
For this week’s Catch You Letter Tutorial, I’m going to walk you through how I create my iPad Instagram photos. I’ve received a few questions asking how I capture photos of my iPad without the glare of the screen or weird shadows. The secret is that I actually take my photos with my iPad turned off and then do some photoshop work. That is what I’ll walk you through today!
Why not just post the artwork?
I personally think that the variation of content is more visually interesting! In my opinion, posting both artwork and iPad shots adds a nice variety to my feed and can create contrast. I also think flatlays can allow you to incorporate your own style. You can create a very stylized flatlay or snap a quick photo while you’re working. Either way, this gives your audience insight as to where you create the art.
Steps
To begin, I take a photo of my iPad with the screen turned off. I typically use my iPhone but will also use my Nikon DSLR. Try to use natural lighting if you can!
The next step is to take the image into Lightroom or whatever app you use to edit your photos. I use my preset and pay specific attention to boarder of the iPad and the surrounding scene. You don’t need to worry about what the screen looks like because that will be photoshopped out! Make sure you put your filter or preset onto the photo before you photoshop in the artwork or else it can drastically alter the colors of your art!
The third step is to open the photo with the edits in Photoshop. The first step here is to duplicate the first layer by pressing COMMAND J. I always do this so I have a place to go back to if I make a mistake. After duplicating the image, name the bottom one “Background” and click the EYE icon to hide the layer.
Using the Polygonal Lasso Tool, I select the black screen part of the iPad. Use this tool to select each of the corners until the whole screen is selected. In the example below, I had to go around my hand. When you get all the way around the screen, a circle will appear where you started. Click this and you will have selected the full shape. You’ll know when the lasso tool has selected a full shape because the “marching ants” will be surrounding the screen. Now press DELETE. You should see the grey and white checker board where the screen was. You may need to go in and touchup a couple areas-I usually have to fix a couple spots around any areas that are rounded and not straight lines.
Now it’s time to place the artwork into the file! Open your artwork in Photoshop and place it underneath the Scene layer that has the screen taken out. (See screenshot below for an example of how the layers should be organized).
Press COMMAND T to rotate and resize it until it looks right on the iPad. Hold down SHIFT when resizing so that the proportions stay the same and the artwork is not skewed.
To make it look a little more realistic, I create a new layer in between the background layer (that is still turned off) and the artwork. Using the paint bucket, I make this layer a light grey color.
I then lower the opacity of the artwork just a touch- sometimes it’s at 80% and sometimes it’s at 95%- it depends on the artwork! You do this by opening up the Layers palette and selecting the artwork layer. In the top right of the layers palette, there is a place that says opacity. In my opinion, this helps make it look more realistic and less photoshopped in.
Export your artwork and you’re good to go!
Another way that you can go about this and get the same sort of look is to use the Procreate App. You can take the photo of your iPad, edit it in Lightroom, then import the photo into a new document in Procreate. You can then use the Eraser tool to get rid of the black iPad screen and replace it with your artwork. Place the artwork underneath the original photo and resize it! You can get a similar look by going about it this way, I just personally like photoshopping better! I keep a folder full of “iPad Mockups” that I use over and over! Editing in Photoshop is quicker for me but I think you could do it both ways.
If this was helpful, let me know! I’d also love if you tag me in your edits on Instagram, @kelseyhaverdesigns. I’d love to see how this little trick works for you!
The Lightroom edited shot of the iPad with the artwork photoshopped in.
The original artwork that was created in the Procreate App on the iPad Pro then vectorized and formatted in Adobe Illustrator.
Here is a screenshot of my Adobe Photoshop set up. You can see the order of the layers here!