Masking and blending techniques!

[Shikakapoop]

I'll show you how to do some masking techniques along with different blending techniques, and other crap. Crap yes!

The final result may be stupid (LOL) but you've learned in the process.
I'll be using Photoshop CS2 in this tutorial, though nothing CS2 specific.


1.) Let's play around with a stock image that you wouldn't normally mess with.... hmm... how about a lion? Lions are pretty ferocious, so let's photoshop one. Google search time.


- My dear sweet Jesus.... I think we have a winner. RAWR

2.) Open up photoshop and let loose the lion!

3.) Go ahead and convert him from a background layer to a normal layer by double clicking the layer, giving the layer a name from that dialog box, and pressing okay. It should now be unlocked.



- Drag the layer from the layer window onto the "new layer" button. This will create an exact replica as a new layer (always keep your original image as a layer).

Let's make him look like some sort of epic lion angel... or something.
---

4.) Let's mess around with his fur.

- With the second layer selected, goto "Select" and then "Color range".

- Select the color around his mane and get a selection close to this:

Adjust the "fuzziness" accordingly.

- Press OK.

5.) With your new selection, the results may be a bit of low quality in the end since the color selection may reveal the unseen low quality of the image. We'll fix this.

- Make sure your selection is still visible, and click the "add layer mask" with your second layer selected. This should add the selection you had as a mask to the second layer.
It should look like this:



6.) The selection the "color selection" provided will be unclean with many box-like artifacts.

(yuck)

- Select the mask for the second layer in the layer window, then go to "filter" ---> "blur" ---> "gaussian blur".

- Blur it by about 2 pixels, that should remove the box look.


- Press OK.


7.) Select the second layer again in the layer window.

- From there, select the drop-down menu at the top of the layer window and pick "color dodge".


- Your lion should have some of his first holy angelic white fur!


- This is only the start, let's do another layer of fur.



8.) Select your original untouched layer and drag it onto the "new layer" button to make a brand new layer.

- Drag the newly created third layer under the second layer so you can still see the bright fur.



9.) We're going to repeat steps 4 through 7 for this new layer, but in a different shade of the fur.

(use steps 4 through 7 as reference for this step if necessary)
- Select some of the fur that wasn't selected last time (don't select any of the fur that is newly white).
Here's my selection:


- Do the same for this selection like you did in the past steps. Apply it as a mask for the new layer,



select the mask, gaussian blur it by 2 pixels,



then go back to the layer and set it to color dodge to amplify the colors!
But eek! It's too much!

- Bring the layer opacity down to about 25% for a more subtle glow.



Now there's more gold around the edges. Yay!




This image would be great with a more contrasted look, but a simple contrast adjustment simply will not do! Simply will not!



10.) Begin by selecting the unaltered original layer and drag it onto the "new layer" button . This will be our layer which will contrast the image.

- Stick it above the original color dodge layer (the one at 100% opacity) but below the second color-dodged layer (the one with 25% opacity) like so:



- This will cover the white fur layer, but only temporarily.

11.) We want it to contrast everything AROUND the new white mane, so let's make a mask for it that is inverse of the white mane's mask.

- Ctrl-click "fur 1"s mask (see above image and compare to your own) in the layer window. This should give you the selection in the main window.




- Select the newest layer and click "add layer mask" to apply this mask to the newest layer (don't accidentally lose your selection).



- With the newest layer mask selected, goto "image" then "adjustments" then select "invert" (or, for future reference, use ctrl-i). This will invert the mask.



The original white fur layer on the image should become visible again.


12.) Select the newest layer and from the dropdown menu in the layers window, select "multiply" to darken the image. And we're done here for now!


---> full-sized image here <---



All done! Hope this provides ideas for everyone.
If anything is missing or confusing, just let me know and I'll edit.







And, of course, you can always keep messing around with the pic.
I went a bit further later on:

[Shikakapoop]

Hmm, it posted twice, not sure why. Delete one for me please?

[SaF1]

You could have just edited the post instead of double posting...
But alas, good tut.

I don't like the end product with the lion though. Maybe if you used something/one else.

[ScAreCroW]

Not something too useful. But I'm sure it'll help some people. Good job

[Shikakapoop]

Originally Posted by Ideal Maxima

You could have just edited the post instead of double posting...
But alas, good tut.

I don't like the end product with the lion though. Maybe if you used something/one else.

LOL yeah that's what I was thinking. I'll make another that is better, use something else.


I'm really bad about double posting, sorry, there are other forums that I post on that don't allow you to edit your posts, so it's a bad habit.... ><
Time to quit smoking. And double posting.

Originally Posted by ScAreCroW

Not something too useful. But I'm sure it'll help some people. Good job

Thanks ^_^