TUTORIAL: Carbon Fiber

shavedaccord

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1. You'll need a Carbon Fiber pattern so click HERE to download, once you have it downloaded you can either double click it to open Photoshop and load it into the pattern presets or just copy & paste the file to your Photoshop/Presets/Patterns folder.

2. Grab either your "Lasso Tool" or "Polygonal Lasso Tool" (press L) which ever one your comfortable with & select the areas/objects you want to be carbon, remembering to stay close to the edges as you possibly can. TIP: zooming in can be very helpful on this step.
hood_selected.jpg

3. Once you have got the area/object selected to your liking you'll need to copy the selection to a new layer either by pressing "Ctrl+J" or going to Layer > New > Layer via Copy

4. Hold down Crtl & click on the new layer you just created and desaturate it (Ctrl+Shuft+U)

5. Now you're going to want to lower the brightness of the area/object, so with the area/object still selected goto Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast what we want here is more of a dark gray than black look so try between -50 and -80 on the Brightness slider then hit Ok. TIP: Make sure "Preview" is checked so you're able to see what's going on in real time
hood_brightness.jpg

6. Now with the area/object deselected (Ctrl+D) goto Layer > New Fill Layer > Pattern when the dialog pops up make sure you have these settings:

Name: Carbon (Optional)
Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask: Unchecked
Color: Any if you want one
Mode: Normal
Opacity: 100%

Once you have verified them setting above hit Ok this should bring up another dialog use these settings:

Scale: 100% (usually may very but doubtful)
Link With Layer: Checked

To the left side should be a small window with an arrow click on the arrow and select the Carbon Fiber pattern you downloaded if it's not already selected then hit Ok. This will create a new layer. You’re layers palette should now look like mine below if not Re-read the steps and see where you went wrong.
palette.jpg

7. With the layer you just created still selected goto Layer > Rasterize > Layer then goto Filter > Distort > Twirl set it to where you think it looks good (usually around 50) then hit Ok.
carbon.jpg

8. Now you have a layer that is beginning to look like Carbon Fiber and if you notice it's more twirled in the middle than the outside edges, so what you want to do is center the twirled part of the carbon onto the area/object TIP: turning down the opacity on the carbon fiber layer will help you center it but be sure to turn the opacity on the layer back to 100% once centered

9. Almost done, now you need to get rid of the excess carbon fiber this is easily achieved by holding down Ctrl & clicking on the layer with the area/object (in this case the hood) and hitting Ctrl+Shift+I (Select > Inverse) then hitting Delete.
hood_deletion.jpg

10. Last step all you need to do is lower the opacity of the Carbon Fiber layer to where you think it looks good.
final_carbon.jpg

Maybe even switch it up a bit if you want too just by deleting sections you do not want carbon on
final2.jpg

Note: You can take this further by adding a little color to the Carbon Fiber layer to match your car. You can do this by either Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation or Image > Adjustments > Variations
final_color.jpg
 

onefscon73

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TUTORIAL Carbon Fiber

Its not vinyl carbon fiber, the vinyl carbon I have looks a lot better.

If its real carbon it just doesnt have a clearcoat. Which is the worst thing that can happen to carbon; which in turn exposes the epoxy to ultra violet rays from the sun destorying it little by little over time.
 

hiddengamer7

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Re: TUTORIAL Carbon Fiber

Its not vinyl carbon fiber, the vinyl carbon I have looks a lot better.

If its real carbon it just doesnt have a clearcoat. Which is the worst thing that can happen to carbon; which in turn exposes the epoxy to ultra violet rays from the sun destorying it little by little over time.

wtf?
 
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