Hey, this is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Today, I'm going to show you how to create a really cool smoke effect with a photo of someone's face.
I provided a Photoshop file that provides two smoke images - this one and this one.
When you click on the link I provided, you'll see probably this one smoke image, however,
when you download the Photoshop file, you'll see both.
I also provided a set of smoke brushes that we could use later if we want to add more
smoke or hide the smoke so that we can make areas of our subject more or less visible through the smoke.
The first thing we'll do is make selections of each of them and save them as channels.
To do this, open your channels panel.
If you don't see it, go to Window and Channels.
Ctrl or Cmd-click the RGB channel to make a selection of its shape.
Open back the layers panel.
Go to select and save selection.
Name it "Smoke 1".
Then, click OK or press Enter or Return and you'll see that it created a channel of this image.
Open back your layers panel.
Deselect it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd +D and hide the "Smoke 1" by clicking the eyeball icon.
Go to the Channels panel and Ctrl or Cmd-click the RGB channel to make a selection of this smoke image.
Go to Select and "Save Selection".
Name this one, "Smoke 2".
Open back the layers panel and deselect it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd +D.
Open a photo that you'd like to use for this project.
I downloaded this one from Shutterstock.
We'll separate the subject from its background by making a selection around it.
Now, in this particular case, I'm using Photoshop CC 2023 "Beta".
If you see the contextual taskbar, we really don't have to see it, so if you don't want
to see it, go to Window and click "Contextual Taskbar".
Open the Quick Selection tool and click "Select Subject".
It'll make a selection around the subject.
If you want to check it, press "Q" on your keyboard and if everything looks good, great
and if not, press "Q" again to revert it back into a selection.
Drag your quick selection tool inside to select any areas it might have missed.
To remove areas of the selection, press and hold Alt or Option as you drag over those areas.
To refine the edges of the selection, go to select and click "Select and Mask" or if you
want to open up "Refine Edge", Shift-click Select and Mask.
Click "Smart Radius" which detects smooth and hard edges.
To make your brush bigger or smaller, make sure your Caps Lock key is off and press the
right or left bracket key on your keyboard.
Drag over soft areas like hair.
Click "Decontaminate Colors" which removes the color fringing that might leech into the
subject from the background.
I'm going to make the amount 100%.
Output it to a "New Layer".
Then, click "OK".
We'll place our subject onto the smoke images by pressing "v" to open our Move tool and
dragging it on top of the tab of the smoke images.
Without releasing your mouse or pen, drag it down and release.
To make your subject bigger or smaller, open your Transform tool by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + T.
At the top, between the transform's width and the height, make sure the chain link icon is active.
This will link the width and the height.
Place your cursor over the W or the H and when you see a scrubby slider, drag it to the right or left.
I'm going to drag it about this much.
Then, I'll drag it into position and press enter or return.
We'll convert our subject into a Smart Object so we can modify it non-destructively.
To do this, click the icon at the upper right of the layers panel and click "Convert to Smart Object".
Make a copy of it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J. I'll drag the "Smoke 1" below and I'll
hide "Smoke 2" since we already saved the smoke images as channels.
Make the background copy active and we'll place a new layer below it by Ctrl or Cmd-clicking the new layer icon.
Our smoke effect will look good over pretty much any background.
For now, let's make it white.
Now, before we fill it with white, we'll check our foreground and background colors.
If they aren't black and white respectively, press "d" on your keyboard.
If they're inverted, press "x".
Since the background color is white, press Ctrl or Cmd + Delete.
Make the top layer active and open your channels panel.
Ctrl or Cmd-click "Smoke 1" to make a selection of its shape.
Open back the layers panel and click the layer mask icon to make a layer mask of the selection.
By hiding the subject below it, we can see that the layer mask is revealing the subject
through the white, while the black area of the layer mask is masking out the rest of the subject.
So basically, with layer masks, white reveals and black conceals.
Make the subject below it visible and active.
Open your channels panel and Ctrl or Cmd-click "Smoke 2" to make a selection of its shape.
Open back the layers panel and click the layer mask icon to make a layer mask of the selection.
Unlink both layers from their layer masks.
Doing this allows us to resize or reposition either of them independently of the other.
Make the lower subject active and we're going to blur it.
To do this, go to Filter, Blur, and Gaussian Blur.
Blur it about 140 pixels. That's fine. Then, click ok.
We'll enlarge it by opening the Transform tool.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + T.
We'll see this message which just lets us know that the blur won't take effect until we commit to the transform.
Just click ok.
Go to the top and drag the width or the height out approximately 265% and you can move it around if you want.
Then, press enter or return.
I'm going to slide this over to fill more of the smoke with it.
To fill the Smoke on the right, I'll make a copy of the enlarged blurred subject by
pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J. I'll slide the copy over to the right.
To see it on a black background, click Layer 1 and to fill it with the foreground color.
Press Alt or Option + Delete.
To add or remove the smoke, we'll open the Brush tool open the Brush picker and we'll
open up the brush set I provided.
You could pick any of them.
I'll use Number 2.
I'll press enter or return.
Now, these brushes are really huge so to decrease the size of the brush, make sure the Caps
Lock key is off and press the left bracket key a few times until you see the brush in your window.
Now, to show more of the subject through the top layer mask, make the top layer mask active.
Black is on my brush, so it'll brush in black over the layer mask.
Doing this hides the subject.
I'll press Ctrl + z to undo that and press "x" on my keyboard to invert the foreground and background colors.
Now, I'll click again, and it'll reveal the subject.
I'll undo that as well.
By reducing the opacity, you could reveal the subject, but a little less than before
and you could basically do this in any area of the subject.
That's how you do it!
So, this is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. Thanks for watching!