2. Drag the landscape photo on top of the portrait image. (If you click file, open for both images, then they will open in separate documents.)
3. Before you start transforming the photo, change the blending mode (in the layers panel) to ‘screen‘. This makes your landscape slightly translucent.
4. Click ‘Ctrl T’ to activate free transform. Scale and position the landscape where you would like it. Press Enter to apply the transformation.
5. Now let’s work on the portrait layer. Before we do anything, right-click on the portrait layer and select Convert to Smart Object.
Doing this will let us edit the layer.
6. Open the Levels tool by going to Image > Adjustments > Levels.
In the chart, drag the white input slider towards the left until the background is pure white.
You can also drag the black input slider towards the right to increase the contrast, but for our photo it isn’t needed.
Finally, adjust the middle grey input slider to fine-tune the opacity of your silhouette. For our photo, we’ll be dragging it towards the left to increase the silhouette’s visibility.
7. Now let’s adjust the tones. Go to the Adjustments panel (Window > Adjustments) and add a Curves adjustment layer.
In the Layers panel, move this layer to the top if it isn’t already.
In the Properties panel (Window > Properties), you’ll see a graph with a line. Drag the top-right point downwards to drop the whites until it’s slightly grey.
Click in the middle of the line to add a point. Then, click about 1/4 from the left of the line to add another point. Drag this point down to increase the contrast or up to lower the contrast.
8. To finalize the look, select any layer and use the Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T or Image > Free Transform) to resize/reposition the layers.
For my image, I started by enlarging and centering the silhouette layer.
9. We’re done! Try rotating the texture for different looks.
10. If you start with a darker image…. try the ‘darken’ blending mode to get something like this….
Open a new file in Photoshop.It should be 5100×3300 pixels with a resolution depth of 300dpi.This size is perfect for keeping as much details as possible
2. Unlock the background layer by double clicking on the layer padlock, until the padlock disappears
3. Select the fill bucket tool (it could be hiding under the gradient tool… if so, hold down the gradient tool until the paint bucket is revealed).
4. Change the foreground colour to black, and then click the background to fill it with this colour.
6. From your downloads folder, click and drag the image onto your photoshop document
7. We are going extract the animal from the background. Draw the path a little bit inside of the tiger’s face. We don’t need to be specifically exact here because we are going to draw all the hair we cut out again.
To extract the tiger from the background there are a couple of methods, depending on what version of photoshop you have.
Select the ‘Quick Selection tool’
Click and drag your curser to select the tiger
TIP: If you go over the edge and into the background, you can hold ‘alt’ white you click and drag to deselect that area
Make sure your selection is just inside the face… like in the image below.
8. Click ‘Select’ along the top bar, followed by ‘inverse’. This will reverse your selection so that you have the background selected instead of the face.
9. Click ‘Delete’ on your keyboard. This will delete the background from your tiger image. If you get a sign saying that Photoshop Couldn’t complete your request, follow the steps below….
Click ‘Layer’ along the top panel, scroll down to ‘rasterize’ and convert to ‘smart object’ … this will make your layer editable, and now you can press ‘delete’ on your keyboard
10. You should now have a floating tiger head on a black background
11. If you still have dotted lines around the tiger selected, you can unselect by going to- ‘Select’ on the top panel, followed by ‘deselect’
12. Now we are going to manipulate the head to deform it so that the tiger appears more symmetric and so it has a double snout that goes with our psychedelic concept.
Make sure the tiger head layer is selected in the layer panel
Select ‘Layer’ along the top panel and choose ‘Duplicate layer’
Then go to Edit>Transform>Flip Horizontal.
13. With the new tiger head layer selected in the layers panel, Select the ‘Layer Mask’ tool on the bottom of the layers panel.
14. (The layer mask tool is a quirky layer that allows you to paint black over your layer and reveal the layer underneath)
Select the Brush tool
Choose a soft (0% hardness) medium (300 px) Brush
Make sure Black is selected as your foreground colour
Paint over the right side of the face to reveal the other layer under it …. until both faces are blended…. don’t go over the nose too much, you want there to be two noses.
The image below shows the area I painted black .. The right image is the result it had.
You will notice the left ear is still duplicated. We need to get rid of this…. Now select the bottom tiger layer in the layers panel and then select the eraser tool….
Rub out the overlapping ear on the bottom layer.
15. Hold shift on your keyboard and select both tiger layers in the layers panel.
16. Select ‘Layer’ Along the top panel, then select ‘Merge Layers’
This turns them into a single layer in your layers panel….
17. Go to ‘Image’ along the top panel, select ‘Adjustments’, ‘Brightness and Contrast’. Increase the contrast to 100%
18. Create a new Gradient Map- Select ‘layer’ along the top panel…. (Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Gradient Map). Press ok on the pop up.
19. Click on the Long gradient strip in the properties panel: This will take you to the gradient editor menu.
You will see little squares along the gradient… these are how you edit the colours.
I would keep the left square as black (these are for your shadows)
For the highlights (the right square)…. Double click on the white square to bring up colour selection.
Choose your highlight colour… I chose a bright green for the highlights #62e121
To add a mid-tone colour, click your mouse just under the gradient bar, in the middle. For my mid-tone, I chose a dark blue #04225
20. We not need to attach (or clip) the gradient layer to the tiger head layer. (So that it only applies to the tiger layer). To do this…
Make sure the gradient layer is selected in the Layer Panel.
Hold ‘Alt’ on your keyboard
Click the line between the gradient map layer and the tiger photo layer
They should now be clipped together
21. Paint Effect: Now you need to download a brush preset- it’s too big to upload to this page so please download from:
Sharepoint > Art > Students > Photoshop > Brush Presets
22. To use the preset in Photoshop, go to the brushes panel. If the Brushed panel isn’t visible, go to Windows > Brushes
On the brushes panel, click on the lines in the top right corner
Scroll down to ‘Import Brushes’
Select the brush presets from your downloads or wherever you downloaded the brush presets to.
23. Now when you click on the brush size in the top left of photoshop, you can scroll down to the bottom and select the water colour brushes.
Test them out to get different effects. Below is an image of each of the brushes
Adding the Paint effect:
Click on the black background layer in the layers panel.
Then go to, Layer (Along the top panel) > New Layer (this will create a new layer that is under your tiger layer, so any brush marks you add now, go behind your tiger.
Add brush marks behind your tiger layer. (I set the opacity of my brushes to 72% so that they were slightly translucent.You can also try different colours.
You can then test adding brush marks on top of your tiger.
Click your Tiger layer, then Go to, Layer (along the top panel) > New Layer (make sure the new layer is above your tiger later).
Now test adding brush marks above your tiger.
In this step we are going to apply all the dripping effect that give a melting look to the image.
You can test different colours on your gradient and brushes….
You can also apple gradient overlays to other images….
Choose a photo from the internet, download the photo and open in photoshop.
I chose one of China Town in London, I want to try and bring out the red lanterns, while turning the rest of the photo to greyscale.
2. Along the top panel of photoshop, select ‘Filter’ > ‘Camera Raw Filter’
3. In the Camera Raw Filter, go to Colour Mixer / HSL
4. It will automatically be on ‘Hue’… change this to ‘Saturation’
Pick the colour you want to keep in the photo (I am choosing red). And keep that one set at 0 or more.
For all the other colours, slide the saturation down to -100
This is the result: (press ok)
5. Adjust the brightness and contract: Click ‘Image’ along the top panel, then go to > Adjustments > Brightness & Contrast
6. Now we will remove any colour left in places that we don’t want it…. So I am going to remove some of the red that we can see on the people in the image.
To do this I am going to:
duplication the layer… Click ‘Layer’ on the top panel > Duplicate Later
You should now have…
7. Click ‘Image’ along the top bar, > ‘Adjustments’ > ‘Black and white” and turn the whole top layer to black and white.
8. Now select the eraser tool
And erase the parts of the grey layer that you want to go back to being red (This will reveal the layer below).
3. Press CTRL + T to activate free transform. This will allow you to move and resize the image where you want it. You can either add the cracked effect to the whole portrait or to one side.
4. In the layer panel, where it says ‘normal’, change the blend mode to bland the two images together. I chose ‘Multiply’
My image now looks like this:
5. Now I am going to modify the cracked layer to make it look like it is shaped to the face. To do this, make sure the cracked image layer is selected in the layer panel
6. Now go to Filter along the top toolbar and click ‘liquify’ from the drop down.
7. In the pop up box, you need to make sure that ‘Show Backdrop’ is ticked. This will enable you to see both layers. You can adjust opacity to suit you. (This is not what your image will end up looking like, it’s just to help you as you liquify the cracked image layer)
8. Use your mouse to click and drag areas of the cracked texture to manipulate it so it looks like it folds around the curves of the face.
You can also adjust the brush size while you do this.
Tip: you only really need to concentrate around the eyes, nose and mouth. You can also compress the cracks around the edge of the face.
Press OK when you are happy with the result.
9. You can adjust the contrast of your cracked layer to enhance its visibility. Go to: Image > Adjustments > Brightness and Contrast
10. In the layers panel (make sure you cracked image layer is selected), click the new layer mask icon
11. Select the paint brush tool
12. Reduce the hardness of the brush and adjust the size to suit you.
13. In the layers panel, make sure you have the mask selected (the white box) rather than the original image.
14. Set the foreground colour to black for your paintbrush
15. A mask layer works by erasing areas that are black, so you can paint anywhere you want to erase your cracked effect. This enables you to remove the edges of the image.
16. Now we are going to start creating the dispersion effect. To begin with, duplicate your layer with your portrait on. Make sure your layer is selected in the layer panel.
Go to Layer > Duplicate Layer
You should now have two portrait layers
17. Select your image. You can do this by going to Select along the top toolbar and then clicking ‘Subject’ in the drop down.
If this doesn’t work, you can use the quick selection tool. Click and drag around your portrait to select them. Tip: hold alt to delete a selection that is wrong.
18. Now you have your person selected, we need to invert this selection so that the background is selected instead. Go to Select > Inverse
19. Click the new layer mask icon
Your layer mask will appear like this next to your top portrait layer.
20. Now click back onto your bottom portrait layer.
Duplicate this layer again… Layer > Duplicate Layer. You will now have another portrait layer between your bottom and top portrait layers.
21. With this middle layer selected, go to Filter > Liquify
22. Your photoshop may automatically recognise that you have a portrait in the photo and will automatically go onto the portrait aware tool (Along the left hand side of the pop-up). Instead, you should click on the top ‘Forward Warp Tool’
23. Drag part of your portrait out to the side like in the image below
24. When you click OK, it may look like your liquify hasn’t worked, but that is because it is behind a layer mask (on the layer above it).
Now we are going to work on the mask of the top Portrait Layer. Make sure it is selected in the layer panel.
25. Select the brush tool
26. From the drop down in the top left, check if you have ‘Dry Media Brushes’ available.
If you don’t have Dry Media Brushes, you can download them from SharePoint: Here
27. From the Dry Media Brushes, select the chunky charcoal
28. Select your foreground colour as Black
29. Adjust the size of your brush as suits you. Start to paint (one click at a time… don’t drag your brush) into the background of your image. Remember, where you paint black, it will reveal the image below (so it will reveal the portrait that you liquified).
30. If you want it to look like there is more broken away, you can use the same brush to add the background colour. First, make sure you select the image, not the mask in the layers panel.
31. Now hold ALT on your keyboard which will activate the dropper tool.
While holding alt, click the background colour that you want to use. This will match the colour from the background with the colour you are using for your brush tool.
32. Now paint the background over the top to make it look like the image is breaking up more.
Extension:
Try this with other images…. Here is one created with a flamingo to show how species are disappearing and becoming extinct:
Open Photoshop and create a new document by clicking File > New. I made my document 2000 px by 2000 px
2. Now it’s time to add a gradient to your background…
Click the padlock next to your layer until the padlock disappears (and your layer is unlocked).
Double-click your background layer in the layers panel.
Double clicking the layer will bring up the layer style window.
Go to Gradient Overlay on the left of the panel.
Change the angle to 34 degrees
Tick ‘Reverse’
Change style of Radial
Set scale to approx 133%
Click on the Gradient bar and change the colours as shown below. (To change the colour, click on the little squares on the bottom left and bottom right of the gradient bar).
Left gradient colour: 317b05
Right gradient colour: 7df42e
Press OK
3. Download the brushes:
Go to Hautlieu Sharepoint> Art > Students > Enrichment Brush Presets > Download the Halftone Brushes
4. Import brushes into Photoshop:
Click the brush drop down in the top left.
Then click the little settings cog in the top right of the drop down.
Then click Import Brushes: And choose the brushes you have just downloaded.
5. Create a New Layer: Layer > New > Layer
Select the brush tool
Select the first Halftone Brush from the brush selection:
Set the brush size to 1957 pixels.
6. You can use whatever colour you want, I chose black. Click in the centre of your page to apply the brush
7. In the layers panel, change the fill opacity to 16%
Your design should now look like this:
8. TIP: copy and paste the below shape into photoshop so you can copy it. When you have pasted it into photoshop, resize to fit on your page. .
9 .Create a New Layer: Layer > New > Layer
Select the pen tool (You might find that Photoshop has the pen tool hidden in a drop down from other pen tools. To reveal the pen tool, hold down on the tool to reveal the full list of pen tools).
Select Path from the pen type drop down in the top left corner:
10. Trace the image you have pasted into photoshop:
To do this, make sure you are drawing on the new layer you have made. Click the pen tool at all the corner points. Then select the curvature pen tool and drag all the straight lines to turn them into curves. (Watch the video below for clarity)
11. Right click on the path you have just drawn and select ‘Make Selection’. Click OK in the pop up.
12. Fill this selection with whatever coloyr you want.
Select the paint bucket tool.
Choose the foreground colour
Select the area you want to fill
13. Double click the layer in the layers panel to apply a drop shadow using the following settings:
Press OK.
Hold CTRL + D to deselect
14. Now you can delete the image you traced by selecting it in the layers panel, then delete on your keyboard (or right click the layer and select delete).
Your image should now look like this:
15. Create a new layer: Layer > New > Layer
Create a selection that is the same shape as the red shape. To do this, stay on your new layer. Then hold CTRL while clicking the thumbnail of the previous layer in the layers panel.
16. Select the brush tool
Select the Second Halftone Brush (Half 2)
If it hasn’t done this automatically, change the brush size so it is 2557px
Select whatever foreground colour you like (this colour will not show in the end result)
17. Apply to your brush similar to the below:
18. Set the fill of this layer to 0% (this will make your pattern disappear temporarily)
19. Double click on the layer and select ‘Gradient Overlay’
Apply these settings:
Click on the gradient bar and apply these settings:
Press OK
Hold CTRL D to deselect
Your image should look something like this:
20. Create a New Layer. Layer > New > Layer
Select the pen tool
Instead of ‘path’, change the pen to ‘Shape’
Set the colour to transparent for both Fill and Stroke (this just lets you see what you’re drawing more easily… we will change the colour later on).
Draw a shape that is slightly larger than the previous shape. Remember, use the pen tool to draw the corners, then use the curvature pen tool to drag the straight lines and turn them into curves.
When you are complete, change the fill colour to black.
In the layers panel, drag your new shape underneath the smaller shape.
Here is a video to help:
TIP: The black outline looks better with exaggerated points. You can use the white arrow tool to click and edit the shape
21. Now we are going to add text:
Select the type tool
I will be making the word “POW!” in this example but you can use whatever word you wish.
22. Choose the font: Komika Axis, which you can download from here. When the font has downloaded, double click this ttf file to install it.
Select font size according to your preference
23. Click anywhere in your page to activate the type tool, then type ‘P’ to get started.
TIP: when you want to move text, you need to click the move tool
When you want to go back to adjust the type/ highlight the text / adjust font size etc, you have to be on the Type tool
24. Move your P:
Highlight the text
Choose the text colour from the top bar
I recommend changing the colour to the same yellow that I have. This is because we will be applying slight variations of this colour later on so you might find it easier to use the same colours. However, you’re more than welcome to try any colour you like. I chose the below
25. Duplicate this layer (Layer>Duplicate Layer) and place it under the original “P” layer. We will use it later.
Select the original “P” layer
26. Double click on the layer and select ‘Bevel and Emboss’ from the left of the pop-up.
Apply these settings: (Note that the two colours below are slightly lighter and darker versions of my font. If you have chosen a different font colour, choose slightly lighter or darker versions of your font).
Add a contour with these settings:
Add an inner glow with these settings
Add satin with these settings: (The satin colour is a slightly darker version of my original font colour)
Press OK
Your P should look like this:
27. Now remember that “P” we duplicated, select the duplicated P layer in the layers panel
Select the Move tool
Using your arrow keys move this layer five times to the right and five times downward. (It will look like it’s hardly moved).
28. Take this layer you just moved and duplicate it again (moving it five times to the right and five times downward). Repeat the same steps stated previously to three more “P” layers. So, in total you should have 6 “P” layers including your original “P” layer.
It should look like this:
28. Right Click on the top P Copy and select’ New Group’
This will position an empty group above all the duplicated P layers. Like so:
Hold shift and select all the P Copy Layers.
With all the P layers selected, click and drag them into the group.
29. Double click on the group and apply the below settings:
Bevel and Emboss:
(Highlight colour is slightly darker than original, Shadow mode is slightly lighter than original).
Inner shadow:
Add Satin:
Add Gradient Overlay:
Add outer glow:
30. Create a new group for all your P layers: Layer > New > Group. You can call this group P to make it simple to identify.
Highlight your original P and the group of P copies, and drag into the P group.
31. Click on the group in the layers panel:
Duplicate this group: Layer>Duplicate Group
I called this group “O” as it is the second letter I will be adding:
32. Select the Move tool
Move the whole group to the right.
33. Now we will change the “P” to an “O”:
Select the type tool
Highlight the P and change to O.
You will notice that this only changes the Top letter.
To change all the others, go to the layers panel…
double click on the thumbnails for the P Copy,
when the text is highlighted, type “O”….
Repeat this for all the P copies, until they are all “O”
34. Click on the entire ‘O’ group
Hold CTRL + T to activate ‘Free transform’.
Hover your mouse in one of the corners until the rotate button appears. Rotate the O so it is slightly lop-sided
Press ‘Enter’ when you are happy
35. Repeat steps 31-34 for letters ‘W’ and an Exclamation Mark’
36. Now we will add some halftone brushes to the letters.
First we are going to create a copy of all the letters… Select all the groups in the layers panel (Hold shift to select them all).
GO to Layer > Duplicate Layers
37. Now we need to merge each letter group. First click on the P group copy and then go to Layer > Merge group
Repeat for year letter group copy.
Your layers panel will look something like this:
38. Now we are going to add a half tone brush to each letter. First, select the merged P layer in your layers panel.
Make a selection from it by clicking CTRL + the layer thumbnail.
39. Create a new layer: Layer >New > Layer
Select the Brush tool.
I’m using a black colour:
Select the Half 2 brush
Change the size to approx 550 px
40. Apply the brush like shown below
41. Change the blend mode of this layer:
In the layers panel, click where it says ‘Normal’.
From the drop down, choose ‘Overlay’
Type CTRL + D to deselect.
Your P should look like this:
42.Repeat steps 38 to 41 for O, W, !
Below you can see the position I painted the brush, before changing the blend mode of all these layers to an Overlap.
43. Hold shift and select the layers ‘P’, ‘O’, ‘W’, ‘!’ and their overlay layers in the layers panel (not the layer groups)
Merge these layers: Layers > Merge Layers
44. Make a selection from this layer by holding CTRL while clicking the layer thumbnail in the layers panel.
45. Create a new layer: Layer > New > Layer
Select the fill bucket tool
Fill the selection on the new layer with black
46. Double click on this layer in the layer panel… Add a bevel and emboss effect to this layer
47. In the layer panel, set the layer fill opacity to 0%
It might not look obvious but this has added a small highlight to some edges of your text.
48. (Now we are going to repeat steps 44 + 45…) Make a selection from the Merged POW! layer by holding CTRL + clicking the thumbnail of this layer
Create a New Layer…. Layer > New > Layer
In the new layer, fill this selection with black.
Hold Ctrl + D to deselect
49. In the layers panel, drag this layer below all your text layers
50. Now double click on the layer thumbnail and click on ‘Stroke’ from the left of the pop up. I applied a stroke that was about 31 px
51. Now select drop shadow from the left of the menu and apply the below settings:
2. Open the image in Photoshop: Right click on the download and select ‘Open With’… then choose ‘Photoshop’
3. Shift the Hue…
First, you’ll pick two colours and shift the rest of the colours towards those two colours. This technique simplifies the colours.
In Photoshop, go to Filter > Camera Raw Filter.
4. Go to colour mixer
5. Pick 2 colours from the list (preferably two colours that aren’t near to each other). I will picked ‘Aqua’ and ‘Magenta’. You keep the two colours you have picked at zero…. then you move the other colours as close as you can to the colours you picked.
For example… I will shift red as far as I can to the left as this is more of the pink end of the dial that is closest to magenta.
6. Now we need to adjust the shadows by clicking on the ‘Curve’ tab (still in the Camera Raw Filter settings).
7. To tint the shadows purple, I need to select the blue and red channels, and drag the bottom left point upwards.
8. Click ok when you are happy with the colours
9. Go to: Image, Adjustments: Brightness and Contrast
Adjust the brightness & contrast to your liking
10. Go to Image, Adjustments: Vibrance
Adjust the vibrance to your liking
The results (Before and After)
11. Try creating a series of surreal photos as a triptych (A group of three):
