ManiPulaTions

Before/After

You can see a Before/After below (just roll over the image once it's all loaded in). I bought my image from iStockPhoto - here's the item (Note if you download the sample PSD file from PSDTUTS Plus, the image has a watermark over it, so you'll need to purchase it and swap it in).

Step One:

Create a new Solid Color Adjustment layer and fill it with White. Above that layer, create a new blank layer by hitting the New Layer Button at the bottom of the layer palette. Name that layer "Basic Shapes." Now turn both of those layers off.

Step Two:

We are going to use the Pen Tool (P) to trace all of the basic structural elements of the image. In my case, it will be the outline of the body and the outlines of the clothes.

With the Pen Tool selected, simply click anywhere you would like to start then continue to click and drag to trace the part you are working on with the path. To make it look more like a sketch, we are going to use a lot of small paths rather than trace the whole thing with one long path. When you come to a place where you think the path should end, hold down the Cmd (or Ctrl) key ,and click anywhere off the path. That will deselect it and now you are free to create another one. Keep doing this until all of your basic shapes are traced. Here are a few shots of how I traced my image:

A common misconception is that a path needs to be a loop. Not true. We are going to use all "open paths" in this tutorial.

Step Three:

Turn on your white layer and your blank layer. Select the blank layer. In the paths palette, drag your work path down to the New Path button at the bottom of the palette to save it. Select the Brush Tool and open the brushes palette. Select any round, hard brush preset. Under the Brush Tip Shape section, modify the brush to create a thin ellipse by bringing the roundness down to 12%. Make the angle 45 degrees. Turn on the Shape Dynamics section bring the Size Jitter to 100, the Minimum diameter to 35, and the Angle Jitter to 5.

With the blank layer still selected, hit D to make black your foreground color then right/control - click on the path and choose Stroke Path. Make sure that Simulate Pressure is checked and use Brush as your source. Hit OK. You might have to adjust the Master Diameter in the brushes palette if the lines are too thin or thick.

Repeat steps 2 and 3 a few more times, each time getting more and more detailed in what you trace. The more detail you trace, the thinner you should set the Master Diameter on the brushes palette. Each time you do a pass, make sure to apply the stroke onto a new layer.

Step Four:

Now that we have the outlines, let's paint in some color. Duplicate the the layer that contains your photograph. Put the copy at the top, above all the other layers. Set the Blending Mode to "Color".

Hit B for the Brush Tool. In the Brushes palette set the Brush Angle to -45 degrees and turn off the Shape Dynamics. Make the brush a bit larger.

Make a new blank layer and call it "Paint." Make sure that it's below all of your outline layers. Make sure that your foreground color is still set to black. In the properties bar, set the Opacity of the brush to 10%. Very roughly paint in the color where you want it. Be sure to release the mouse every now and then so that the color begins to multiply over itself. Don't worry about staying in the lines too much. I used a Wacom Tablet so it was easy for me to get nice strokes but if all you have is a mouse just do the best you can.

Step Five:

Hit E for the Eraser Tool. Set the eraser brush up the same way that we did the paint brush. Make sure that the eraser brush's Opacity is at 50%. Now go back and tidy up your paint job. I like it when you can still slightly see the paint going over the lines.

Step Six:

On my image, I want the pants to be blue instead of that peachy color, so I am going to make a new Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer at the very top of the layers palette. Drag the Hue slider over until you get the hue that you like. Adjust the saturation as you like. Wait, the whole image changed! Thats Ok — we are going to fix that.

Click on the layer mask thumbnail on the Hue/Sat layer and hit Cmd+I to invert it. The image will go back to the way it was before. Set your background color to white and select the Eraser Tool. Set the eraser's opacity to 100% and paint on the mask so that the hue adjustment we made appears. Now just paint where you want the color shift.

Continue this way until you are happy with the colors.

The shirt adjusted.

The skin tone adjusted.

Step Seven:

Make one more new blank layer just below the "Paint" layer. Call it "bkg paint". Select the brush tool again and make the master diameter huge. Mine is at 200. With the brush opacity at 5% do a few really broad strokes across the whole image just to bring in a little color to the background.

Effect cooCk Book

Cross-processing is developing color print or slide film in the wrong chemicals — for example, color negative film in slide chemicals ("C-41 as E-6") or slide film by the color negative process ("E-6 as C-41"). Not surprisingly, this causes wild color and contrast shifts and requires lots of trial and error. But for a period in the 1980s and 1990s, cross-processed images were very much the vogue, with Nick Knight's fashion and studio work being arguably the most influential.

With many possible permutations of film stock and processing technique, there is no single, identifiable, cross-processed appearance. The most common combination is C-41 as E-6, in which slide chemistry is used to process color negative film, and it's a quick job to imitate it in Photoshop. Image contrast is usually high with blown-out highlights, while the shadows tend toward dense shades of blue. Reds tend to be magenta, lips almost purple, and highlights normally have a yellow-green color cast.

As for subject matter, try fashion or portraiture, but there's no need to restrict your imagination. I chose an elegant outdoor portrait shot — the skin tones and red lipstick look especially striking in cross-processed images.

STEP 1
With the original image open, click the "Create new fill or new adjustment layer" icon in the Layers palette and select Curves. From the Channel drop-down box, select the Red channel and drag the top right of the curve a little to the left. Then drag a couple of points on the curve so that it forms a very gentle S — darkening the shadows and brightening the Red channel's highlights.

TIP
To save your curve to a file on your hard drive, just click the Save button. Applying the same cross-processing adjustment to other images is a simple matter of loading it with the Load button in the Curves dialog box.

STEP 2
Select the Blue channel and drag the curve's top-right point downward. It doesn't need to be much — just enough to take some blue out of the highlights. Then drag the curve's bottom-right point up a little, blocking up the Blue channel in the shadows.

STEP 3
In the Green channel, add another gentle S curve — increasing the contrast, especially in the highlights.

STEP 4
Fine-tune the channel curves to suit your image, but leave the combined RGB curve untouched. Focus on the color balance rather than the contrast, which you can fix later, in step 6.

STEP 5
Blown highlights are a common — if not always welcome — characteristic of C-41 as E-6 cross-processing. They should result from the contrast-increasing curves used in steps 1–3, but in Photoshop it's possible to eliminate them if you wish. Try changing the Curves adjustment layer's blending mode to Color and the image will combine the color shifts with the image's original luminosity.

STEP 6
If you need to fine-tune the image contrast, add a Curves adjustment layer and set its blending mode to Luminosity so it doesn't cause any further color shifts.

STEP 7
Another optional final step is to add a yellow color cast to the picture. In the Layers palette, click the "Create new fill or new adjustment layer" icon and choose Solid Color. Select a yellow-green and click OK, then reduce the new layer's opacity — 10% is as much as you'll need.

FINAL IMAGE
This image was digitally captured and had daylight white balance. In Photoshop you can simulate 1980s-style cross-processing and add the film rebate (border) — another typical affectation of the era.

Retro Comics

How about a fun effect for your incredibly boring photo albums? Creating a old comic book effect for your photos is easy and the results are visually appealing. More fun is achieved when adding captions to your photos using comic book fonts and design elements.

This tutorial will show you how to give a comic book look to your photos using a couple of filters and some additional decorations.

Click on the image below to see a larger and more clear image of the final results.

Original image by Rubén Colorado

Old halftone print effect

Download and open this photo in Photoshop. Now we are going to increase the overall contrast of the picture by burning it a bit. Go to IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > LEVELS…With this image we are going to set the INPUT LEVELS to 60 / 1.00 / 220. But this is only for this example. Choose the best settings for each photo.

In this step we are going to give the photo an illustrated look with some graininess to give the illusion of an old and bad quality paper. It is not a realistic effect, it is just some distortion to the image to help us achieve the final look. Go to FILTERS > ARTISTIC > FILM GRAIN. In this case we are going to use: GRAIN: 4, HIGHLIGHT AREA: 0, INTENSITY: 10. Try different settings for different photos.

Duplicate the layer and name the new layer HALFTONE

In this step we are going apply a halftone pattern to the image to give the final old comic book printing effect. Go to FILTER > PIXELATE > COLOR HALFTONE. Set MAX RADIUS: 4 and leave the rest with the default values. Press OK and then go to the LAYERS PALETTE and set the BLENDING MODE to DARKEN.

Adding comic book elements to the picture

The effect looks nice so far. It is not a realistic old comic book effect, it simple resembles that look. To make it more real, now comes the fun part. We are going to add some unique elements that are very popular on comic books and strips
Select the HALFTONE layer and set a STROKE LAYER STYLE of WIDTH: 20px, POSITION: Inside and COLOR: #F5ECE1.

Add a new layer and draw a small rectangle at the top left of the frame of the image. Give it a STROKE of 3 pixels and paint it orange. An orange to yellow gradient looks better. Draw another rectangle, a bit larger this time, on the lower left corner of the frame. Give it a STROKE of 3 pixels and paint it white. The final result should be like the one below:

Lets add a border to the image: Add a new empty layer above the layer containing the rectangles we created in the previous step. Select the RECTANGLE SELECTION TOOL from the TOOLS PALETTE. Draw a selection from the top left (right inside the frame) to the bottom right border of the image.

Go to EDIT > STROKE, set WIDTH: 4px, COLOR: BLACK, LOCATION CENTER and press OK.

DESELECT the current selection and go to FILTER > BLUR > BLUR MORE. Then apply a small distortion using FILTER > DISTORT > RIPPLE… (Amount 20%, Size Medium). Now, lets sharpen the stroke a bit with FILTER > SHARPEN MORE and there you have a nice simulated hand drawn border.

Adding captions using a comic book font

To add captions to the photo you can use any font you like, but only using fonts specially designed for comic books you will be able to achieve the desired look. Download the free font Digital Strip and install it. At the end of this article you will find a lot of free and commercial comic book fonts and resources.

Using the Digital Strip font you’ve just downloaded, type a date on the top orange rectangle. Play with the first letter of the text by adding a stroke, a shadow and a bright contrasting color.

Then write a caption for the photo at the bottom white rectangle. Highlighting some words in bold also looks good.

And that’s all. Your image should look similar to the one below:

Click on the image to see a larger and uncompressed version.