Category — Photoshop

Open your portrait image, hold down the Alt/Opt key, drag the original image layer to the “Create a new layer” icon, call the new layer “Cut Away,” and click OK.

Use selection tools such as the Magic Wand and Color Range to roughly select and delete the background pixels from the new layer.  I like the Lasso Tool and the Pen Tool as well.

Add a new, color-filled layer directly below the working layer—making it a Bright color so you can better see the final result.

To make the high-contrast image, ensure the Cut Away layer is active and select Image > Adjustment > Threshold. Move the slider so that the image contains only enough shadow to show the picture’s essential shapes.

Roughly select each image area that you want to paint with a single color, and copy the selection into its own layer.

Name each new layer, set the blending mode to Multiply, and click OK.

Activate each item’s layer in the Layers palette in turn. For each one click the thumbnail so that only its non-transparent pixels are selected, and choose Edit > Fill. Even if the Fill dialog’s Use drop-down shows Color, select it again. This triggers the Color Picker. Select a strong color and click OK twice.

Once you have repeated steps 4 and 5 for each colored item, you have a completed silkscreen-style image. Save the file and make copies in which you use permutations of the same colors. Each colored area is in its own layer, so it is easy to select and recolor it with a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Finally, combine all the versions in one large image.

Tweet This Post 

Here is one of my favorite tutorials.  Making new photos old.  I’m going to use one of the photos I took last week at my pho photoshoot.

Choose the crop tool (c). Hold shift while you click and drag the crop tool to keep it square. Crop your picture a little bigger than you want it to be.

Then duplicate the layer by dragging it to the new layer icon.

Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. You want to blur the picture enough that some of the detail goes away, but so that you can still see what it is.

Give the layer a mask by clicking the button at the bottom of the layers palette that looks like a circle in a rectangle.

Pick the gradient tool (g) and set it to radial.

Start at the point of the picture you want in focus and drag away from it. The further you drag, the more will be in focus.

Now a grain Duplicate the bottom layer and move this layer above the blurry layer.

Go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise. Add enough so that you can still make out the picture.
In the layers palette, change the blending mode from Normal to Soft Light.

Click the button at the bottom of the layers palette that looks like a circle half-white and half-black.

Select Hue/Saturation. When the dialog box comes up, check the Colorize check box in the bottom-right.

Change the hue to a yellow-reddish color and pull down the saturation.

When your image looks good to you, select ok.


Create a new layer.

Make a selection with the marquee tool that’s a bit smaller than your image.

Go into the quick mask mode.

Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and raise the level until it’s very blurry.

Exit the quick mask mode.

There should be a roundish selection around the center of your image.

Go to Select > Inverse (ctrl+shift+i), and fill with black.

To do that, make sure your background color is black, then hit ctrl+delete.

Change the opacity of the layer until it looks good to you.

  

Tweet This Post 

Adobe Photoshop CS4 of course just came out, as I’m sure you all know.  Make sure to check out the photoshop blog for all the new features.  Before I run out and get it, I thought I would use this week to go over my favorite tutorials.  I wanted to start by just listing out my favorite photo blogs as well as an old tutorial i’ve posted on the blog which is always fun to do.

Dash of Color

Photojojo

Deke of NAPP fame

Lynda - Home of all tutorials

National Association of Photoshop Professionals

Photoshop Plugins

Please post any that you think other might benefit from.

Tweet This Post