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…

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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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In my last post I used the Warp function to make a page curl effect, but it looks a bit flat.

In this video I add a couple of shadows and a highlight and use Warp again to get just the right shape.

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This is the perfect type of photograph to use for this technique. It’s available for you to download but is a part of a private family archive and is to be used for the purposes of this tutorial only! I’d love to see what you do with the technique, but please send it to me privately and don’t post to the internet, unless you use your own image, of course!

Here’s the image after a little basic restoration work. The work was done with the Content Aware Fill feature in Photoshop CS5. Since the work was done before I lessened the texture a bit, other tools just could tend to make a mess, so work in small areas with the patch tool, and with small brush sizes if you use the healing brushes…or you can smooth the texture first to make the whole process easier!

We just want to soften the texture slightly, so go to Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur, and keep the Radius down to a relatively low Pixel value. I used a radius of 0.8 pixels on a resolution of 200 pixels per inch.

I wanted to bring a little of the clarity back after the softening, so my next step was to duplicate the image (Image> Duplicate) and flatten it (Right Click over the layer panel, than all the way to the bottom, Flatten Image). Go to the Image menu, Adjustments, then HDR Toning. I went with the Photorealistic preset, but brought the Detail slider up just a bit more.

Click ok. Select the Move Tool from the tool panel and click on the duplicate image, dragging and dropping it into the original image. Holding down the shift key while you’re doing this will place it in the center of the previous image.  Change the Layer Blend Mode of the HDR image to Soft Light, and bring the opacity down to around 40%. This step also deepens the contrast a bit.

This old style glamour look is noted for its dramatic lighting contrasts, so we want to play that up. We’ll start by darkening the background a little. Add an New Filter Adjustment Layer and select Curves.

Bring the center of the histogram down towards the bottom right hand corner to darken. Click okay. With black as the foreground color, paint in the foreground (the person). Leave the areas you want to darken white. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and blur the mask edges, slightly to blend. Lower the opacity of the mask layer to 45 or 50%.

Add another Curves adjustment Layer, this time using the white eyedropper to select in a lighter area of the image. The object here is to make the image a little brighter, over all, not particularly lighter. Notice where the histogram is after the adjustment; you can also manually bring the histogram to somewhere around this point, if the eyedropper makes it too light. Bring the opacity of the layer down to around 40%.

Make a new, blank layer and change the Layer Blend Mode to Soft Light. With the foreground color set to white, adjust the brush tool to fit inside the eye and paint in the iris. Blur the are slightly with either the Blur Tool or by going to Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur and selecting a low setting. Lower the opacity to around 75%

Add another new, blank layer, change the blend mode to Soft Light and, with black as the foreground color, and paint in the areas of the eyes you want to darken. Soften with the blur tool or Gaussian Blur, and lower the opacity to around 40%

Continue to add new Soft Light Blend Mode layers to lighten and darken other areas. Lighten the teeth and the whites of the eyes, darken the lips, lighten the highlights in the hair, add highlights to the cheekbones, etc. Follow the natural plays of light and shadow in the image. You can add more of these Soft Light layers anytime.

To give the skin a little more softness, use Shift + Ctrl + Alt + E or Shift + Cmd + Opt + E to combine all the layers into their own layer. Go to Filter > Blur + Gaussian Blur. Blur enough to smooth everything out, but still retain definition of the eyes, etc. You don’t want to over blur.

Add a layer mask to the combined blur layer and invert the mask to black. Make sure the foreground color is white and paint in the skin areas. Lower the opacity to around 40%. You can also soften the hair with a Gaussian Blur, but I prefer to do that on a separate layer so I can add a little more or a little less blur by adjusting the opacity percentage.

By adjusting the contrast and softness you can add the drama and glamour of 1940’s Hollywood to an ordinary black and white portrait!

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Let’s start with the stone texture. We’ll begin with a new document, 800×600 pixels, and use the keyboard shortcut “D” to set the default colors to black foreground and white background. Then, choose Filter > Render > Clouds.

Next, press Ctrl-F (Cmd-F on a Mac) several more times to keep changing the clouds until you get something that looks interesting.

Now, with the clouds in place, choose Filter > Stylize > Emboss. Set the Height to a low number (we used 3) and the Amount to a high number (we maxed it out at 500%).

This creates a nice stone texture, albeit a grayscale one. Time to add some color. Press the keyboard shortcut “U” to bring up the Hue/Saturation adjustment, check the option for Colorize, and adjust the color to taste – here are the settings used for this example: Hue = 30; Saturation = 35; Lightness = 0.

Now, we’re ready to add some text. Start by creating some text on a new layer. This is a font called Dwarven Stonecraft, free from Dafont.com.

Now, we don’t need the text, but we need a selection of the text. Control-Click (Mac: Command-Click) On the text layer thumbnail to load the text as a selection, then choose Select > Save Selection… and name the selection “Text.”

Now, a few steps in succession:

1. Press Control-D (Mac: Command-D) to deselect.
2. Turn the text layer visibility off.
3. Then, go to the Channels panel (Window > Channels) and click on the Text Channel to make it active.

Here’s what you should see:

Now, we’ll rough up the text a bit. Choose Filter > Brush Strokes > Spatter and set the Radius to 10, and the Smoothness to 5.

Now, a few more steps to be done in precise order:

1. In the channels panel, Control-Click (Mac: Command click) the Text channel thumbnail to load it as a selection.
2. In the channels panel, click the RGB channel to go back to the composite view.
3. In the Layers panel, click the Background layer with the stone texture.
4. Press the keyboard shortcut Control-J (Mac: Command-J) to copy the selection to a new layer.

Here’s what we have now. You can’t see the new copied layer just yet – but you will:

With the new copied layer selected, let’s add some layer styles. Click the stylized “fx” icon at the bottom of the layers panel, and choose Bevel and Emboss. Change the settings as shown. Note the settings for the Highlight and Shadow Mode color settings – the colors were sampled from some of the lighter and darker areas of the rock texture. Don’t close the dialog yet.

Next, click on Inner Shadow, but don’t change any of the default settings. Don’t close the dialog yet.

Next, click on Color Overlay, and change the settings to match what you see here. Again, the color was sampled from a darker area of the stone texture. The Opacity is set to a low value (14%) to just add a hint of darkness and smoothness. Don’t close the dialog yet.

Now, click Stroke to add a stroke, and change the settings as shown, to Size: 1 pixel, Position: inside, Multiply blend mode, 60% opacity, and another darker brown color sampled from the image. This just adds a hint of edge definition; you may want to experiment with different opacity settings.

Click OK to finish adding layer styles, and we’re nearly done:

This looks pretty good – but we can take it one step further – to add some additional sense of chiseled stone to the interior of the text (and this may be needed more or less depending on the font), we can select the copied text layer, and choose Filter > Pixellate > Crystallize… and select a low number for the cell size. The preview gives you a sense for the size of the chisel marks you’re creating.

With the interior looking a little more chiseled (this also smooths the interior of the text a bit, we have our finished effect. You can adjust the fill opacity of the copied text layer to adjust the intensity of the chisel effect, if you desire, and here we are:

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Combining the images and them post processing within Photoshop Rich gives us a real world example of photographic workflow.

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Rich Harrington’s book   Understanding Adobe Photoshop is available from’

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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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Apologies to our Mac friends, TipSquirrel should have mentioned that all this can be done on your machine too. Alt on the PC=Option on the Mac

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