Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to create the look of spray paint, stencil portraits from photos.
This is an update of a tutorial I did many years ago on an earlier version of Photoshop.
This version is quicker and more streamlined.
I provided this grungy, subway tile background, that you can download.
It's link is in my video's description or project files.
Feel free to use your own background if you like.
Just keep in mind - lighter backgrounds works best for this effect.
Open a photo that you'd like to use for this project.
I downloaded this one and the others from Shutterstock.
The first step is to place your subject onto the background.
To do this, open your Move Tool by pressing "v" on your keyboard
and drag it onto the tab of the background.
Without releasing your mouse or pen, drag it down and release.
To resize and position it over the background, open your Transform Tool by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + T.
Go to a corner.
If you're using a Photoshop version earlier than CC 2019, when you see a diagonal, double-arrow,
press and hold Alt or Option + Shift as you drag it in or out.
If you're using CC 2019 or later, just press Alt or Option as you drag it.
To reposition it, go inside the Transform's bounding box and drag it.
Then, click the check-mark at the top or press Enter or Return.
Next, we'll separate our subject from its background by making a selection around the subject.
For this example, I'll use the Quick Selection Tool.
If you're using this tool as well, drag it over your subject to select it.
To remove areas outside your subject, press and hold Alt or Option as you drag over those areas.
To check your selection, press "Q" to see it as a quick mask.
Revert it back into a selection by pressing "Q" again.
We're not going to refine it, since stencils have hard edges.
Click the Layer Mask icon to make a layer mask of the selection next to our subject.
We'll make a new layer below it by Ctrl-clicking or Cmd-clicking the New Layer icon.
We'll fill the empty layer with white, but first, check your foreground and background colors.
If they're not black and white respectively, press "D" on your keyboard.
Since white is out background color, press Ctrl or Cmd + Delete.
We'll convert our visible image into a Smart Object, so we can modify it non-destructively.
To do this, Shift-click the top layer to make it active as well, and click the icon at the
upper right to open the fly-out list.
Click "Convert to Smart Object.
Go to Filter and Filter Gallery.
Open the Artistic Folder and click, "Cutout".
Make the number of Levels: 2, the Edge Simplicity: 5 and the Edge Fidelity: 1.
Go to Image, Adjustments and Threshold.
The default threshold is 128, but feel free to raise or lower the amount.
Next, we'll remove the areas of your subject that you don't want in your portrait,
but first, let's save some space in the Layers panel by collapsing the effects.
Make a new layer below your subject and fill it with white.
Make your subject active and make a layer mask next to it.
Open your Polygonal Lasso Tool and click around the black areas you want to remove.
Fill the selection with black by pressing Alt or Option + Delete.
Then, deselect it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + D. Convert your visible image into a Smart
Object by Shift-clicking the white layer to make it active as well, and clicking Converting to Smart Object.
Make two copies of the layer by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J twice.
Hide the two top layers and make Layer 1 active.
Go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur.
Blur it 10 pixels.
Name the Layer "Blur".
Make the copy above it visible and name it, "Lighten".
Name the top copy, "Dissolve".
Make the Lighten layer active and change its Blend Mode to "Lighten".
Go to the Smart Filter icon and press and hold Alt or Option as you drag a copy of it
to the "Lighten" layer above it.
Open the effect, so you can see it and double-click it to open it.
Reduce the Radius to 4 pixels.
Collapse the Smart Filter to save space.
Make the Dissolve layer visible and active.
Change its Blend Mode to "Dissolve and reduce its opacity to 20%.
Shift-click the "Lighten" layer to make it active, as well.
We're going to move these two layers by pressing and holding the Shift key as you press the
right arrow key twice.
This moves them 20 pixels to the right.
Then, press and hold the Shift key as you press the Down arrow once to move the layers
down 10 pixels.
Click the top layer and Shift-click the "Blur" layer to make all of the subject layers active.
Convert the three active layers into one Smart Object.
Change its Blend Mode to "Darken".
Next, we'll create a displacement map that will warp our portrait stencil over the contours
of our background.
To do this, make the background active and open the fly-out list at the upper, right.
Click "Duplicate Layer".
Click "New" and type in "Displace".
Immediately, its created a separate document of the background layer.
We'll use this document as our displacement map.
Remove all of its color, by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + Shift + U.
We'll increase its contrast by clicking Ctrl or Cmd + L to open the Levels window.
I'll drag the Input Highlights to 207 and the Input Midtones to point 83.
Go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur.
Blur it 2 pixels.
Go to File and Save As.
Save it to your Desktop as a Photoshop PSD document and click "Save".
Open back your portrait document and make your stencil active.
Go to Filter, Distort and "Displace".
Make the Horizontal and Vertical Scales: 10, Stretch to Fit and Repeat Edge Pixels.
Find and click your "Displace" document and click "Open".
Next, we'll blend our stencil into the background.
Double-click an empty area of the stencil layer to open its Layer Style window.
Move it, so we can see our stencil over the background.
"Blend If" uses luminosity to blend layers together.
I did many tutorials showing how to use this feature.
This Layer corresponds to the active layer, which is our stencil,
while the Underlying Layer is our background.
Dragging the slider of the Underlying layer to the left punches through the tones of our stencil.
However, by placing our cursor directly on the middle of the slider icon and Alt-clicking,
it'll split the icon in two.
Drag the left half of the icon to the left to softly and gradually reveal the background
through the stencil.
Experiment with the Underlying layer sliders to get just the right combination of blending
the background through the portrait stencil.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching.