For this month’s tutorial I thought I’d share a technique with you that I used recently on an image that I made during one of my Character Portrait Workshops. (New course date just released for January)

To give you an idea of what my tutorial is about, here’s the picture of my good friend and NAPP UK Evangelist Dave Clayton who stood in as a model for me. Now Dave isn’t, has never been and never will be a smoker but for this shoot I was kind of working on the theme of him looking like a newspaper editor and if Peter Parker’s Boss in Spiderman smokes a cigar, then I guess they all do…right?

I’m going to be really creative here and call this technique Lighting an unlit Cigar as it’s all about making a cigar or cigarette look as if it’s alight when at the time the photograph was taken, it wasn’t.

So, looking at the images below here’s how we can take the cigar from being unlit to lit using a technique in Photoshop that’s not only easy but incredibly fast; here’s what we have to do…

STEP 1: Make a Selection of the end of the cigar and copy this to a new layer using the keyboard shortcut CMD/CTRL + J or by going to the LAYER MENU…NEW…LAYER VIA COPY. I used the Eliptical Marquee Tool, but any selection method you use will work fine.

Now that we have the end of the cigar copied onto it’s own layer we’re going to apply a few Layer Styles. So, to do this we need to first of all get to where the Layer Styles are and we do that by double clicking on this Layer in the Layer Panel.

STEP 2: Now we’re there, we’re going to add 3 layer styles:

*Outer Glow with it’s Blend Mode set to ‘Color Burn’, Noise at 75% and Opacity of 100%

*Inner Glow with a colour of Black and Size of 25px

*Gradient Overlay with it’s blend mode to ‘Overlay’ and a Black to Red Gradient

Ok, so now the cigar kind of looks like it’s lit and you can change the opacity of this layer to suit how strong you want the ‘lit’ part to look.

However, there are a couple of things we can do to really finish off the effect…

Add some Noise by going to FILTER…NOISE…ADD NOISE ( 15% should do the trick) and then to really complete the look simply get a Red Brush, change it’s blend mode to Overlay and paint over some of the ash behind the burning section of the cigar.

And that’s all there is to it. Of course you can always go one step further by adding some smoke and this is easy to do by using some Smoke Effect Brushes that are available for free all over the internet.

Right, that’s all for now so I’ll catch you next time, but as always if you have any questions then feel free to shout them out in the comments section below.

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For this month’s tutorial I thought I’d put together a short video showing you a couple of quick and easy techniques that I regularly use to both Brighten and Colour eyes.

As always if you have any questions about what’s covered in this or any other of my tutorials here on TipSquirrel, feel free to post a comment below or drop me an email to glyn@glyndewis.com Enjoy

Can’t See The Video? Click Here

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Now, have you ever found yourself on a photo shoot with very little time to get the ‘must have’ shots and so have maybe opted to use less lights or maybe a different lighting set up to what you would had done? How about finding yourself on a photo shoot and you don’t have enough lights? or simply wishing you’d used an extra light here and there?

Well one such shoot found me in a situation just like that because of time and space restrictions, however going into the shoot I knew I had some lights I could add in during the editing stage…

Can’t See The Video? Click Here

Of course using the real thing out on a photo shoot is the best option but there will always be those times when you just can’t use them or indeed, you don’t have them or you wish you’d used them. With this simple technique though, time and space are irrelevant and you can add as many lights as you like because after all this is  “The Never Ending Lighting Rig”
Enjoy

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So, that being said I thought for this month’s tutorial I’d expand a little on a use for my ‘Pain Free Tattoo’ technique to create an effect I may well end up using on an image taken during the Workshop.

Now the main body of this technique is nothing new but I thought I’d show you how I’d approach it to maybe look at adding a little more realism or believability…if there is such a word

Step 1: Duplicate your image

The first thing to do is to duplicate your image as we’re going to create a Displacement Map. To do this simply go to IMAGE…DUPLICATE

Doing so will open up the following dialog box asking you to give your duplicate image a name. In this case we’ll call it something creative like ‘displacement map’ and click OK.

Step 2: Prepare the Displacement Map

The image in front of you is now the duplicate so we’re going to make this a displacement map by turning it to black and white. This doesn’t need to be an award winning black and white conversion so we’ll just go IMAGE…ADJUSTMENTS…DESATURATE then boost the contrast a little by IMAGE…ADJUSTMENTS…CURVES and choosing Medium Contrast from the presets menu…

Next go to FILTER…NOISE…DESPECKLE and apply that about 3 times.

To finish off the displacement map all we need to do now is to save it as a .psd (Photoshop) file.

Step 3: Add texture

Now that you’ve saved your displacement map close it and then left on your desktop is your original image. We’re now going to place a texture on top of this image and in this case we’re going for a peeling paint image which will be used to give the final impression of peeling skin…

With the peeling paint layer uppermost in your layers panel and positioned to where you’d like the finished effect to appear, first off desaturate it by IMAGE…ADJUSTMENTS…DESATURATE and then change it’s Blend Mode to Multiply

Step 4: Apply the Displacement Map

Now we’re not finished just yet but already we can see the effect starting to take place. Next thing to do is make use of the displacement map we made earlier. So, go to FILTER…DISTORT…DISPLACE. Doing so will bring up the following dialog box…

This is one of those dialog boxes where it’s very much trial and error so my advice would be to go with a value of 10 in each box and click OK. Then you’ll be asked to locate your displacement map so do that and click OK. Once Photoshop has done it’s thing we’ll see the peeled paint layer mould around the contours of the our main picture which in this case is our subjects face and neck area…

If you feel the ‘wrapping’ isn’t quite enough just repeat this step but increase in the first dialog box (i.e. Where we used 10 in each box before)

Step 5: Finishing Touches

Once we’ve done this we’ll choose IMAGE…ADJUSTMENTS…LEVELS

and bring the highlights slider over to the left until you’re happy with how it all blends…

Lastly we just need to finish off the blending in so first off we’ll add a layer mask to the peeled paint layer and then with a soft edged black brush we’ll paint away the outline of the layer…

*If you feel the effect isn’t strong enough then you can always duplicate the Peeled Paint and Layer Mask Layer…

Now like I said at the beginning , blending textures using Blend Modes is nothing new but I thought I’d just share with you how I introduce a Displacement Map to mould the texture to the contours of the picture (subject) in addition to using the blend modes.

It’s these extra little techniques that can increase the editing time but I really think are worth doing as it’s the attention to the details that finishes the image off…even if the difference is barely noticeable.

See you next time, if not at the Workshop on Saturday 13th.

Enjoy

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This is one of those techniques that when used on the right image can really add that something extra and an example of where I recently made use of it was in a composite that started off in the studio.

Here you can see the shot taken in the studio and then edited in Photoshop up to the point where we’re just about finished except for adding in the smoke/most and playing with the colour a little:

So, on to the technique…

Step 1: Add some Clouds

With your image open in Photoshop, the first thing we need to do is to add a photograph containing clouds.

Now one thing I’m always doing is taking photographs of textures and sky whenever I’m out and about and so consequently I have a folder on my Hard Drive containing clouds. So, all I needed to do was choose a suitable picture and bring it into Photoshop as the uppermost layer:

Step 2: Desaturate

Next thing to do is to remove all the colour from your ‘Clouds’ layer and so to do this go to IMAGE…ADJUSTMENTS…DESATURATE:

Step 3: Screen Blend Mode

With our cloud layer desaturated, the next step is to change the Blend Mode of this layer to Screen:

Step 4: Layer Mask

The 4th and final step is to add a white Layer Mask and then using a soft black brush, paint away the obvious outline of the clouds layer and lower the opacity of this layer to around 40(ish) percent.

So there you have it, a really simple, fast technique for adding realistic looking smoke/mist into your images…

Of course as is always the case with Photoshop, there are seemingly countless ways to create a similar effect but this is one that I favour because it makes use of real clouds and because of that I feel it gives a much more realistic final look.

Enjoy

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STEP 1: With your Foreground Colour set to ‘Black’ choose a Soft Edged Brush from the Tool Bar.

STEP 2: Enter Quick Mask Mode by clicking once on the icon at the bottom of the Tool Bar or by simply pressing ‘Q’ on your keyboard.

STEP 3: Brush over the area where you want to apply the makeup with your Black Brush in Quick Mask Mode; this will be visible by the Red Overlay.

STEP 4: Exit Quick Mask Mode by clicking once on the icon at the bottom of the Tool Bar or by again pressing ‘Q’ on your keyboard.

STEP 5: Choose a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer and place a click in the ‘Colorize’ check box.

STEP 6: Change the Blend Mode of the Adjustment Layer to ‘Color’ and then simply move the Hue, Saturation, Lightness sliders to apply the makeup.

Of course it’s always best, if you’re able, to work with a Makeup Artist but for those times when that’s simply not possible or maybe you want to ‘tweek’ makeup that had already been applied, then this technique can do a great job.

Enjoy

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Step 1: Duplicate the Original Image

Ok so the first step is to create the actual Displacement Map which is basically a black & white version of the original image but with a few tweaks.

We’re going to make a duplicate of our original image so with it open in Photoshop go to the EDIT MENU and click on DUPLICATE. You’ll now be asked to give this duplicate copy a name which in my case I called ‘Displacement Map’ … just to keep things simple

Step 2: Black & White Conversion

Now we have a duplicate image in front of us we’re going to convert this to Black & White. For the displacement map we don’t need to concern ourselves with making the perfect black & white conversion here; choosing IMAGE…ADJUSTMENTS…DESATURATE will work perfectly just fine.

Step 3: Increase the Contrast

For the displacement map to work really well it helps to have an image that is quite contrasty so there is an obvious distinction between the Shadows, Midtones and Highlights. Most of the time I’ll increase the contrast at this stage by simply choosing IMAGE…ADJUSTMENTS…LEVELS and just simply moving the sliders around a little to increase the contrast sufficiently.

Step 4: Dodging & Burning

The next thing I like to do is to enhance the Shadows, Midtones and Highlight areas that much more with a little dodging and burning. Simply add a new blank layer and fill this with 50% Grey by going to the EDIT MENU and choosing FILL, and from within there choose 50% GREY…

Then change the Blend Mode of this 50% Grey Layer to SOFT LIGHT

Now all we need to do is a little dodging a burning, so choose say the DODGE tool from the Tool Bar and with an EXPOSURE setting of 20% and RANGE set to MIDTONES paint a few strokes over all the highlight areas on the image so as to make them stand out that much more.

Repeat this process but this time with the BURN TOOL, again keeping the EXPOSURE setting to 20% and the RANGE set to MIDTONES.

Here’s what my displacement map looks like after this stage…

Step 5: Reduce the Roughness/Texture

The final stage in making the displacement map is to reduce the roughness or texture in the skin of our model. The reason for this is that if we keep it in, it will be exaggerated when we finally add in the tattoo which will then leave it looking rough and have jagged edges; not ideal if we want this to look as realistic as possible.

Now the way to do this is by using the Despeckle tool found in the FILTER…NOISE…DESPECKLE menu. I tend to find that applying this particular filter say 3 – 4 times does a good enough job of removing any unwanted roughness/texture. If we’d used a blur filter of some description like the Gaussian Blur it would have smoothed out the dodging and burning that we’d just worked on meaning it wouldn’t be as effective when we finally use the displacement map itself.

Having done all this FLATTEN the image by going to LAYER…FLATTEN IMAGE, then just SAVE the displacement map as a Photoshop file (.psd) to your desktop for ease of finding in a short while and close it.

Step 6: Adding the Tattoo

Ok so having saved and then closed the displacement map you’re now left with the original image open in Photoshop, so now it comes to adding the tattoo.

I like to add the tattoo as a SMART OBJECT for reasons I’ll cover in a short while, but for now just go the the FILE menu, click on PLACE and then find the image you’re going to be using as your tattoo.

Now that you have the tattoo image open in Photoshop, using the adjustment handles surrounding it resize it to taste by holding down your SHIFT key and clicking and moving one of the ‘adjustment handles’, and then also rotate it by positioning your cursor outside of the adjustment handles and dragging your cursor up or down. Once then positioned correctly simply press ENTER/RETURN.

Now my particular tattoo image was black with a white background, and as a side note and an extra little tip, we can actually remove all this white with one click by using blend modes i.e the MULTIPLY BLEND MODE.

Step 7: Using the Displacement Map

So now our tattoo is positioned correctly, we just need to make it look like it’s real by following the contour of our subjects muscle and this is exactly where our displacement map comes into play.

Go to the FILTER menu and choose DISTORT followed by DISPLACE. Having clicked on this you will then be presented with the dialogue box below which basically controls the amount of distortion you want to be applied to the tattoo. I like to start off with low numbers in both the HORIZONTAL SCALE and VERTICAL SCALE choosing ‘5‘ for both.

When you now click ‘OK’ you’ll be asked to locate your displacement map which in this case was saved on the desktop. Locating it and clicking on OPEN will then cause Photoshop to map your tattoo onto your subjects physique so that it now realistically follows the shape of the muscle as would a real tattoo. Now, if the distortion isn’t to taste that’s no problem. You see the tattoo is a SMART OBJECT so all we need do is double click on the filter which then re-opens the filter dialogue box so that we can then adjust the HORIZONTAL and VERTICAL SCALE to taste.

Step 8: Finishing Touches

The final stage is just a little bit of tidying up. in my case some of the tattoo needed removing so I simply added a white layer mask to the tattoo layer and then using a black brush, painted away what I didn’t want in the picture.

Finally, reducing the opacity of the tattoo layer down to around 50-60% gave that final bit of realism and also allowed a little of the model’s skin texture to show through as it would.

So there you have it…the ‘Pain Free Tattoo’.

Displacement maps offer endless creative possibilities and can be used on almost anything, so have fun experimenting and I’ll catch you next time

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Now this technique it could be considered a little on the unconventional side seeing as it makes use of the Unsharp Mask Filter but as you’ll see it’s incredibly effective and what’s more, it’s incredibly quick and easy; so here goes…

Step 1: Duplicate the Layer and convert to a Smart Object

Of course if you’re using an earlier version of Photoshop where you can’t convert layers to Smart Objects that’s not a problem. All it means is that you’ll have to start over if you want to change the final effect. Luckily for this technique though that’s no drama as there’s only 2 steps involved.

Step 2: Apply the Unsharp Mask (FILTER-SHARPEN-UNSHARP MASK)

This is where the magic happens and the good thing is that there’s no hard and fast rules to follow other than keeping the Threshold Slider set to zero.

Simply play around with the ‘Amount’ and ‘Radius’ sliders, pushing them to levels you wouldn’t normally, until you get the desired amount of contrast you’re after. I tend to find that the ‘sweet spot’ for me is with Amount at 25, and Radius at 16…but then it does depend on the image.

Note: You may notice on some images that you see a dark halo around some parts of the image; this is due to the amount applied to the Radius Slider. The good thing here is that as we have used a Smart Object, by default we have a layer mask on this layer too so all we need to do is paint using a black brush around the areas with the halo so that it is removed but the contrast remains everywhere else within the image.

That’s all for now, so I’ll catch you here next time.

Enjoy

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Anyone familiar with my work knows that I’m a big fan of compositing images in Photoshop, and can spend hours sometimes on one image tweeking this and that.

For this short tutorial I want to cover with you what I consider an extremely important part of compositing…the attention to detail; I want to show you how in a few of my recent composites I’ve added a flag onto the background, but done in such a way that it looks as if it was originally in the image by it looking weathered and worn away in places.

So, here’s how it’s done…

Step 1:

In Photoshop the background ‘Wall Layer’ was opened then on top of this the flag was sized and positioned …

Step 2:

The blend mode of the ‘flag’ layer is then changed to Soft Light. This allows for texture from the wall below to show through and gives the impression that the flag has been painted onto it. To increase the ‘aged’ effect the opacity of the flag layer was then reduced to around 25% …

Step 3:
The next stage is to increase the overall weathered look to the flag so first of all select a Brush by pressing ‘B’ on the keyboard and then using the menus, selecting a rough/patterned brush. When selecting a brush in the top menu one of the options is ‘Opacity’ and this will come handy in a moment…

Step 4:
A white layer mask was added to the flag layer and then using the brush tool already selected and the foreground colour set to black, paint/dab randomly over the flag. This will remove parts of the flag in patches giving the overall ‘weathered’ look where over time paint would fade and disappear. To add just a touch more realism, when using the brush vary it’s size and also lower the opacity occasionally so that there are varying degrees of ‘faded’ patches…

And that is all there is to it. Of course you don’t have to use the Soft Light blend mode; choosing ‘Overlay’ for example would give the flag a more ‘contrasty’ look but that’s the great thing about blend modes; just by playing around with them you can come up with all manner of effects.

Enjoy

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On my own blog recently I posted a photograph I’d taken of a guy riding a Harley Davidson motorcycle and went on to explain that on the day of the shoot there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. In fact no lighting or cranking up of shutter speed to Mach 3 would have revealed even the slightest trace of a cloud.

I went on to explain that for this particular shot, as the original brief was to create an image with a moody/dark feel to it in order to match what the rider was wearing, I had to resort to adding in a sky during the post production stage in Photoshop.

It was this ‘adding in’ the sky that I thought I would have been asked about i.e. “How did you do it?” but no…the majority of responses asked how I made the sky look so dark and ‘aggressive’ for want of a better word.

Anyway, I thought the ‘how’ would make an ideal short tutorial for my post here on TipSquirrel; a technique that will take you no more than 60 seconds!

The ‘How’ to making a Moody Sky even Moodier

Step 1: Create a Contrasty Black and White Conversion

It’s fair to say that for all of my Black and White conversions I use a plug in by Nik Software called ‘Silver Efex Pro’, however this technique will work with whatever method you use.

Step 2: Blend Mode

Change the Blend Mode of the Black & White layer to Luminosity so that just the contrast of the black and white conversion is left on the layer.

At this stage the effect has been applied to the whole of your image, so in order to restrict it to just the sky all we need to do is to add a layer mask and then paint over it with a brush to either reveal or conceal certain parts. My general workflow is to add a black layer mask by holding down the ALT/OPTION key on the keyboard and at the same time clicking on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layer Panel. This hides all of the effect and then using a white brush paint over the sky to reveal the effect but only in that area.

And that’s all there is to it.

This technique is one I use on 99% of my images that include ‘sky’. Occasionally I may apply a little dodging and burning to the sky too if I really want to increase the effect in certain areas but generally this particular technique suffices. The two images below show the ‘Before’ and ‘After’ so that you can see the quite dramatic effect this very quick and simple technique creates.

*Note…The ‘After’ image has also had a little burning applied to the road surface which is how it looked at the final stage.

One last thing….

As this particular photo had a ‘sky’ added into it during the post production stage I thought I’d share this video that I recorded a short while back showing a similar technique to that which I used to do it…

Enjoy

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