Hello, I'm Helen Bradley.
Welcome to this video tutorial.
In this tutorial I'm going to show you how to create a monochromatic image effect in
Photoshop.
This is the effect that we're going to be creating in this tutorial and we're going
to convert this image into this one.
What makes this one a little bit different or a little bit more complicated perhaps is
that this sign is very dark and this building is very light and yet they're going to convert
into the same sort of color combination here.
So we're going to address the issues that you would face with an image like this.
So let's get started with the process.
So I'm just going to hide this one for now and we're going to have a look at this starter
image.
Now I'm going to duplicate the background layer just simply because that will give me
a reference point if I need to use it.
And I'm going to start by pulling out the blue in this image, the sky, because it's
quite dark and I really want to get rid of it because I want it to convert to the lighter
color.
So for this image I'm going to choose the Magic Wand tool because it is a pretty even
blue sky here.
So I've got quite a high tolerance of 25 and I'm just going to click to select the blue
sky.
Notice that I don't have contiguous enabled here because I want it to pick up all the
blue sky around these areas that are sort of dividing it up.
Now I know there are a few little bits in here of lighter sky so I just want to make
sure that I'm getting all of those while I'm at it.
So I'm making a really good selection of the sky area here.
And having done so I just want to mask it out so I'm going to click on the Layer Mask
icon here.
And that's going to drop the building out because the selection is the wrong way around.
So I'm just going to click on this and press Ctrl I to invert the mask.
So now we've dropped the blue sky out of the way and that's a really good starting point
for our image.
I'm going to add a new layer in here.
I'm just going to fill it with white so that we can see what we've got and just double
check that everything is looking ok.
The next thing we're going to do is test this threshold conversion and then see what we
need to do to fix it so I'm going to choose Layer, New Adjustment Layer and I'm going
to apply a threshold conversion.
Now threshold is a feature that converts an image into black and white so every pixel
is either black or white.
There's nothing in between.
And this slider tells us at which point the image is going to white or the pixels are
going to black.
So obviously dragging across here is going to give us a lot of detail in this building
here but what we've done is we've forgone all the detail in the sign and if we go the
other way and get the sign then we're going to forgo the detail in the building.
So we can take whichever we want.
Because the building is going to be just a little bit difficult to select we may opt
to go for the building and ditch the sign or we may go for the sign and ditch the building
and just fix that up another way.
Either way I'm probably going to have to fix it.
So I'm going to go for the building right now and forgo the sign so I'll just click
to accept that as the threshold adjustment.
But now let's go back and separately adjust the rest of this image.
I'm going to this time grab the Quick Selection tool and with this image layer selected I'm
going to drag over the building because I want to separately adjust it.
It's just such a lovely building.
It has such a nice shape that we really don't want to lose the shape in what we're going
to do with the adjustment.
Now I'm going to take this piece of the building and we're going to adjust it.
So with the selection made I'm going to choose Layer, New Adjustment Layer and I'm going
to choose a curves adjustment.
What the curves adjustment allows me to do is to darken this image in isolation from
the rest of the image.
But I want to see my threshold adjustment as I do it because what I'm really looking
for is an adjustment of the building that is going to make my threshold look better.
So I'm going to just drag up on it a little bit so that I can get a little bit more of
a lighter color into the building and then I can perhaps drag down a little bit until
I get what I'm looking for.
Now this is sort of butchering the image underneath but we're really not so worried about it because
all we're looking for is a really nice threshold adjustment.
So now I think I'm happy with this part of the building being white so I'm just going
to close that.
And now we've got this separate adjustment for this building to make it look good.
Now what we want to do is to go back to the original image and let's go and grab the sign
because it needs a different adjustment.
Let's just get rid of the history there and again I'm going to take the Quick Select tool
because this is really a pretty easy shape to select.
So I'm just going to select over it.
Again, I don't have to be overly fussy because we are just going to black and white.
But I do want to get the basic shape of this sign because again, I need to separately adjust
it because we have to make it lighter so that we can see the detail on the sign because
at the moment it's just killed.
When we look at this we've got nothing happening there at all.
So again we're going to apply a curves adjustment to this area so I'm going to choose Layer,
New Adjustment Layer, Curves and click Ok.
And again, I want to be seeing the threshold on the image because what we're doing to the
image is just trying to see where that sign detail is.
So we want to bring it out.
So again, I'm just going to dabble with the curve here until I get the detail back in
that sign.
So when I've got something I like I'm just going to close that.
And again, these are fully adjustable so we could come back and fix them if we wanted
to.
The other thing that I can do is add an adjustment layer here to fix the underlying image.
I think that I wouldn't mind that that building was a little bit lighter.
So I can lighten the image a little bit if I want to.
I'm just looking at this building here so I'm thinking I'll probably just go back and
mask it as well.
So again, probably the Quick Select tool is going to do the deed here isolating it from
the remainder of the image.
I don't want the sign to be included here and I do want the building to be included.
So I'll choose Layer, New Adjustment Layer and Curves and again, Ok.
Again, all we're adjusting this time is that green building.
So with my curves adjustment here I can just lighten that a little bit.
And again, I can tweak this curve by pulling in all the sorts of directions that you wouldn't
normally pull in to get the effect that I want with this building.
And when I'm done I'll just close that dialog.
So now let's add the color layer.
So I'm going to go up to the top here and I'm going to add a fill layer.
So I'll choose Layer, New Fill Layer and then Solid Color.
The reason why I'm using this is that then I can come back and very easily change the
color if I don't like it.
So I'll click Ok.
And now let's blend it into the layers below.
Now we're getting some very dark results here.
But if we head down towards the end of these blend modes something really, really interesting
happens when we get to the Difference blend mode -- and I really love this effect -- is
it pulls in blue and yellow into the image.
So here I'm just going to adjust this blue color a little bit and because I used this
fill layer I can adjust it to be whatever I want it to be just by dragging around here
in the fill color.
So I really like that effect so I'm going to click Ok.
Now what I want to do to finish off this image is I want to add some noise into it.
I just think it needs some noise.
Now you could stop at this point if you wanted to but let's see how we'd add some noise.
The way I'm going to add noise is I'm going to create a new noise document so I'm going
to create a document that's 1,000 pixels square with a white background.
And what I'm going to do is I'm going to make this noise so I'm going to choose Filter,
Noise and then Add Noise and I'm going to add quite a bit of noise.
You can flip between Gaussian and Uniform and just see what you like best.
I like the Gaussian better so I'm just going to add that.
It's monochromatic noise and I'll just click Ok.
Now this is a very small document when compared to the image we're working on.
And there's a really good reason for that because I'm going to drag and drop this background
layer into this image.
And because it's so small I need to enlarge it.
And in enlarging it I'm making the noise grains larger and that's the effect that I want.
So I'm just going to drag it out.
I'm going to make it nearly square because I don't want them to be sort of oval grains.
I just want them to be big grains so I'll just click the checkbox.
And now we've got bigger grains of noise than we would have if we added just regular noise
to the image.
And now we need to blend this in so we can just run down the blend modes and see what
happens when we blend the noise into the image.
And so these are sort of multiply, color burn is a really interesting noise effect, linear
burn.
We can lighten it and if we were to lighten it and if we liked one of these effects we'd
probably be better off pressing Ctrl I on this noise layer to invert the noise so that
we got grainier, whiter noise.
But I'm going back with Ctrl I. I really want to use one of these darkening blend modes.
And I think I'm going to use linear burn but it's a little bit too much so I'm just going
to dial down the opacity of the noise to make the grain a little bit less obvious on the
image.
So there's our final image.
What we've done is we've converted a regular color image into a threshold adjusted image.
But because we've got really light here and really dark here we've had to work at actually
creating that adjustment.
We dropped the blue sky out.
Then we had a go at this building and gave it a sort of darkening effect, just separately
adjusted it and then we separately adjusted the sign here and then adjusted the Transamerica
building.
Then we added some color with a color fill layer.
And because it's in difference blend mode we've got the yellow and the blue out of the
one fill layer.
And finally we added a grainy noise layer that is a blendable layer.
I really like that for adding noise.
Otherwise you've got to go in through smart filters or you've got to fix the image and
you don't get the ability to adjust the image after you've added the noise.
So there's a really interesting effect that you can create in Photoshop.
I'm Helen Bradley.
Thank you for joining me for this video tutorial.
Look out for more tutorials on this YouTube channel.
And visit my website at projectwoman.com for more tips, tricks and tutorials on Photoshop,
Illustrator, Photoshop Elements, Lightroom and a whole lot more.