PS7+ Tutorial: Photo manipulation: The Wizard: icon

noctuidae in icon_tutorial

PS7+ Tutorial: Photo manipulation: The Wizard

Dec 05, 2005 06:28

A word of warning before I start the tutorial - this is geared toward advanced users of Photoshop, this is probably not translatable to other graphic programs, and if it is, I don’t know how to and don’t plan to find out. Also, this method described here probably only works with certain images, but I’m sure that using it on any kind of image should produce results that are a) interesting or b) entertaining.

Things you need:

- PS7 or higher
- Knowledge: Blur Tool, Burn Tool, Gradients, Brushes, Layers
- Image of person of choice
- Brushes; depending on what kind of picture you want, tribal-y brushes
- Patience. Lots.

Tutorials/methods you should be familiar with:

- smoothening skin ( optional; this manip works with grainier images, too )
- replacing eye-colour
- rotating layers

To start, we chose an image, preferably of a face, gender doesn’t matter. Your picture doesn’t have to be high-quality, but it certainly helps. It also needs to be of a certain size so you won’t be squinting at the screen all the time. Rule of thumb: if you can count individual pores, it’s too large. We’ll be adding layers to the original image and it’s likely you’ll end up with a 1MB+ file ( I certainly did ).

Here’s my image, at its original size:

Angelina Jolie. I chose this image because it focuses on her face and gives me lots of room to work with. If you can’t find a suitable image, use this one.

Prepping the base

Make your image pretty. There are a thousand and one smoothening tutorials in the memories, if you don’t know how to. All I did to my image here was using the Blur Tool to smooth out her skin, leaving the eyes and lips alone. Then I duplicated the background and set the copy to ‘Soft Light’.

From here on out, we’ll be working solely with layers. Make sure you’re happy with your ‘base’, because changing anything about the base will end up changing the entire manipulation later on.

Changing the eye colour

Again, there are tutorials on how to do this, and I’m probably using a method similar to the ones described. Since the original goal of what later turned into this tutorial was to create a likeness of a video game character I play ( *waves tiny Neverwinter Nights flag* ), sticking to natural colours wasn’t mandatory and I chose a sated, glowing yellow ( there will be an example at the end of this tutorial where I’ve chosen a different colour ).

To change the eye colour, make a new layer above your background copy ( Yellow Eyes ) and pick the Brush Tool. Pick a round, small, hard brush, use the Colour Picker to get #FCD001, and adjust the size of the brush to the size of the eyes. To make it look more natural, try to pick a size that leaves the black ring around the iris alone.

Duplicate the ‘Yellow Eyes’ layer. Set the first layer to ‘Colour’ or ‘Multiply’ and the second to ‘Overlay’. You can play around with the blending modes and colours here, if you like. I like yellow, so that’s what I picked.

Now merge all your layers. Duplicate your background layer. We’re doing this simply so we have a ‘work’ layer - in case something goes wrong that you cannot undo, you can always delete the work layer and make a new layer from the background. It saves you tons of time and frustration.

Shading

Set your burn tool to a size 17, soft brush that comes with PS’s default ones. Depending on how large your image is and which areas you want to shade, you might need a larger or smaller one. Set the Burn Tool’s exposure to something around 50 - again, with a different image, this can vary - and the range to ‘Shadows’. Zoom into your image and go over the eyelashes, seam of the lips and eyebrows. I also used the Burn Tool to
add a little shadowed area to the pupil, but that’s up to you.

Done? Stick to the Burn Tool a little longer. Change the brush size to something around 60 and lower the exposure to 20-30, with the range still at ‘Shadows’. We’re going to give the face a little more depth. Zoom out until you can see the whole face, then drag the Burn Tool along the face contours, mostly cheekbones, skin-to-hair area, eyes ( just click over them once or twice with the Burn Tool ), and jaw line.

Let’s make a comparison between the two images so far...

I’m happy with the image as it is. There will certainly be people who want a lot more done to their image before they declare it ‘good’, but this is enough for me.

Are you remembering to save your work as you go along?

Let’s go on. Duplicate the ‘work’ layer you just used the Burn Tool on, click CTRL+SHIFT+U to greyscale the layer, and set it to ‘Multiply’ to give it a darker, grittier look:

This is a good point to proof your image. Take a close look at it. Are there areas that look odd? Shadows where there shouldn’t be? Smudges? Now’s the time to undo them. Personally, I like this look because it is gritty, and the woman who manages to go through hordes of demons without getting some dirt on her has yet to be born.

Now we come to the interesting part... brushes. Basically, anything tribal-y will do. Or anything else, for that matter, but the idea of a battle-hardened wizard with a heart on her cheek terrifies me, so let’s not go there. Instead, if you want to use the brushes I used, go to Erendisblack's LJ and download her ‘Arrays’ set. Below is a shrunken image of the brush I used:

I chose this brush because it corresponds with the contours of the face I’m working on. I realize that choosing the right brush for this is probably the hardest task in completing this tutorial, but there are literally hundreds of tribal brushes out there, and you can make your own.

At any rate, once you have a brush you’re happy with, make a new, blank layer above the other three and apply the brush:

Looks pretty horrible, but don’t worry. We’ll rotate the layer to shift the brush to a place where the lines conform to the face. Hit CTRL+T and the brush will be in a ‘box’ with four little corner boxes. Move your mouse above and outside one of the little corner boxes and you’ll see that your cursor will turn into a two-headed arrow. You can now rotate the entire brush layer. If you move your mouse near to the centre of the large box, you can drag the entire layer around.

Once you’re happy with the rotation and angle, hit RETURN to apply the rotation.

Next, go to FILTER > BLUR > GAUSSIAN BLUR and apply at a range that makes the jagged edges of the brush a little less jagged. I used 0.4, myself.

Now set the Brush layer to ‘Soft Light’. Pick your Eraser Tool and erase the lines from around her head, the hair, shoulders, and the parts of her face where you don’t want them. A neat little trick here is to lower the Eraser opacity to something around 50-60, use a large, soft brush, and click once on the parts of the face that are lighter than the rest. It will make the whole brush look more natural:

Happy? Merge all your layers, duplicate the background, CTRL+SHIFT+U to greyscale the duplicate and set it to ‘Multiply’. Pick your Eraser tool and erase the multiplied layer over the pupils:

Instead of using ‘Multiply’, you can also use different blending modes. Play around a little. As previously stated, I was going for ‘gritty’, so I left it at ‘Multiply’.

Technically? We’re done. What follows now is completely optional and involves a gradient; you can skip this step if you want.

Make a new layer above the last layer and choose a gradient with colours going from #0C0C0A at its darkest and #4E4549 at its lightest.

Set the gradient layer to ‘Overlay’ or ‘Soft Light’:

...and we’re done.

Here are a few quick modifications:

1. Background copy set to ‘Screen’, gradient layer set to ‘Vivid Light’:

2. Background ‘Colour Burn’, gradient ‘Overlay’:

3. Background still at ‘Colour Burn’, no gradient:

4. Background ‘Linear Burn’, gradient ‘Colour Dodge’:

And finally...

- duplicated background, set to Screen, opacity 100%
- original duplicated background, set to Multiply, opacity 100%
- first ‘eye change’ layer, light grey, set to Hue, opacity 100%
- duplicated eye change layer, set to Screen, opacity 30%
- gradient, set to Overlay, opacity 100%