Photo Effects with Photoshop
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
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Little design is done these days without a photo being used at some point. Photos can be part of a design or can be the design themselves. In this chapter, we will explore a few ways to take your photos to the next level and turn even the most seemingly mundane shots into amazing design elements!
Sketch Fade Effect
This is a really cool effect I have used for years. It’s really quite simple to achieve and can be used on almost any photo. I will often use this effect to make an otherwise dull photo a bit more interesting, or it can be used in a commercial sense as a background image for a product.
STEP ONE: Begin by pressing Command-O (PC: Ctrl-O) and opening the photo you want to apply the effect to (or just download the photo I am using here from the book’s downloads page, mentioned in the book’s introduction).
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STEP TWO: Now, press Command-N (PC: Ctrl-N) and create a new document that is 2000 pixels wide by 1300 pixels tall to build the final design in.
STEP THREE: Once the document is created, let’s add a light-colored texture to it. This will be the base texture the design will be built on. You can also use a simple solid color if you like, as well. So, open the texture image (you can download this one from the book’s downloads page, too), use the Move tool (V) to drag-and-drop it into your new document, and then press Command-T (Ctrl-T) to activate Free Transform and scale it to fit. Press Return (PC: Enter) when done.
STEP FOUR: Now, let’s drag-and-drop the photo from Step One into this document. Activate Free Transform, again, and scale it to fit in the canvas area. Press Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to make a duplicate of the subject layer, then click on the duplicate’s Eye icon to turn it off for now. Reselect the original subject layer.
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STEP FIVE: Go under the Filter menu, under Stylize, and choose Find Edges. This will create an instant sketch look on the photo. You will see some color in the lines, so press Command-Shift-U (PC: Ctrl-Shift-U) to make it black and white. Now, open Levels by pressing Command-L (Ctrl-L) and adjust the highlights (white) and midtones (light gray) sliders (beneath the histogram) to force the background to white and reduce other light gray areas. Click OK.
STEP SIX: In some cases, the lines may be thicker than you want them to be. To fix that, go under the Filter menu again, under Other, and choose Maximum. Set the Radius to 0.5. Other images may require a higher setting, so you will have to experiment a little. Choose Roundness from the Preserve pop-up menu and click OK.
STEP SEVEN: Change the layer’s blend mode to Multiply to hide the white area, and then drop its opacity to around 75%. Next, press Command-U (Ctrl-U) to open the Hue/Saturation dialog. Turn on the Colorize checkbox, and then set the Hue slider to whatever color you’d like the lines to be. Here, I chose a light blue color by setting it to 191. Click OK.
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STEP EIGHT: Turn the duplicate layer at the top of the layer stack back on, and then select it. Go under the Filter menu, and choose Filter Gallery, and then under Texture, click on Grain. Again, the settings here will vary with different images, but for this one, I set the Grain Type to Speckle, the Intensity to 10, and the Contrast to 15. Click OK. (Note: To have all the Filter Gallery filters appear in the Filter menu, open Photoshop’s Preferences and, on the Plug-Ins tab, turn on the Show All Filter Gallery Groups and Names checkbox).
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STEP NINE: Set this layer’s blend mode to Multiply, as well, then press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key and click on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. This will add a black layer mask, which hides the entire layer.
STEP 10: Select the Brush tool (B) from the Toolbox, choose a simple, round, soft-edged brush from the Brush Picker in the Options Bar, and then open the Brush panel (Window>Brush). Now, if you are using a pressure-sensitive tablet, click on Transfer on the left and set the Opacity Jitter and Flow Jitter Control pop-up menus to Pen Pressure. This allows you to reveal the image based on how hard you press. If you do not have a pressure-sensitive tablet, then just set the brush Opacity to 50% in the Options Bar. Each stroke will build upon the next as you paint.
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STEP 11: Once the brush is set, press D to set your Foreground color to white, and then start painting on the layer mask in the area of the subjects you want to reveal. How much you reveal is up to you, but like I always say, don’t overdo it.
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Once it looks good to you, you can drop in some text (I used the font Futura Medium with a Stroke layer style) or a logo for a finished commercial look.
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