Hi there, this is Unmesh from PiXimperfect.
And when it comes to Photoshop, we must understand that there are no limitations.
But it's important to use this freedom in an artistic way which is respectful both,
towards the subject and the audience as well.
Today we're going to turn this portrait to a beautiful abstract form with patterns of
her dress as twisted circular backdrops.
I know it doesn't sound good for YouTube SEO, but still we got to do it.
It's gonna be super easy to do, super hot for you computer.
So without any further ado, let's get started.
Back in the magical world of Photoshop, and you can go ahead and download this photo and
follow along, check the links in the description.
First of all, we need to make a copy of this, actually make two copies.
With the Background layer selected, press Ctrl or Command + J twice, right.
The first one is for the subject separated.
Let's name this Subject and the second one is for the textured background.
Let's name it BG.
That's fine.
Now let's select the Subject layer.
We need to separate the subject right now, right?
So for your reference, you can actually turn these two off, that's fine.
Now let's go ahead and mask the subject out.
There are lots of ways to do it, you can use the Pen tool, you can use the Quick Selection
tool, Select and Mask, Select Subject, tons of ways.
I'm just going to use the Select and Mask method.
So let's select any selection tool right here.
And at the top, just click on Select and Mask.
You need to make sure that the subject, when cut out, looks good on a black background,
and that's why let's choose the view to On Black.
Right now, if the Opacity is at 100, everything is black and only the selected area shows
up.
So, since nothing is selected, it's totally black.
If the Opacity is at zero, everything shows up, irrespective of what is selected and what
is not.
So, let's keep the Opacity somewhere at about 70%, that's fine.
And with the help of the Quick Selection tool at the top, let's go ahead and paint over
the subject.
Just make a selection of it.
You can also select the background and then invert it.
As you can see, it's becoming a little difficult to select her dress.
So let's do the opposite.
Let's try selecting the background.
So if we simply select the background, that might be easier for us and then we can invert
it later.
Now, we need to erase this.
Hold the Alt key, it turns into minus and then just erase this area away.
Do the same for this area.
See how easier this is than trying to select the subject?
I can understand that there is a little bit of difficulty on the sides.
That's fine, we can clear it up later.
Let's just get a basic selection for now.
This works.
Alright.
Now, once you have done this, just invert it.
Scroll down and here you will find Invert button.
Just click on that and it inverts the selection automatically.
Now we can take away the things which was not the subject, for example, right here,
hold the Alt key or the Option key to turn that to minus and you can just erase it the
way.
It didn't do it completely.
We might have to manually do that.
Alright, so we have a basic selection.
It's time for us to clean it up.
You can clean it up right here directly with the help of the brush.
So, this is the brush, you can take the brush and if you want to add something to the selection,
you just paint, if you want to subtract something from the selection, hold the Alt key, it turns
to minus, subtract, and then just erase.
That's the way you do it.
But before we try to refine it, let's just take care of the hair.
So with the help of the Refine Edge tool right there, just paint on the edges of the hair.
It'll take care of it automatically.
As you can see, the hair looks nice right now.
Okay, now let's clean up the edges.
I'm going to fast forward this process so that you don't have to sit through all of
it.
Now that the selection looks okay, let's scroll down, and then make sure Output to Layer Mask
is selected.
Just select that - Layer Mask and hit OK.
Now we have the subject separated.
Now to keep things solid from the very beginning, let's create a Solid Color background.
Select the Background layer and then click on the Adjustment layer icon and then choose
a solid color because we're going to create above the background layer.
So let's choose black as we had decided before.
Hit OK.
Now it's time for us to create that abstract background.
Before we do that, let's go ahead and stretch the image a little bit.
Let's crop it out, give it some space.
Press C, C stands for crop.
C and then just drag it from the right hand side.
If you hold the Alt key or the Option key, it will just enlarge from both the sides.
I'm going to make it this big and leave it at that.
Hit Enter or Return.
It's going to fill that automatically because this is an Adjustment layer, Solid Color Adjustment
layer.
Time for us to work on the background.
Turn off the Subject and turn on the Background.
Now all we got to do is to expand the texture of her dress.
So first of all, let's make it a little bigger, press Ctrl or Command + T and let's make it
bigger just like this.
This looks fine, let's make it a little smaller, I think it's kind of too big.
Now we need to fill most of the areas with texture so that when we apply that blur, the
Spin Blur, the skin color and the background wall don't get mixed.
Now, simply select the Clone Stamp tool right there.
And then just simply zoom in and, you don't have to be careful right here, just take a
sample from anywhere you want in the dress, and fill her skin areas just like this.
Don't have to be careful.
Take a sample, paint.
We can stop here as it covers enough areas.
Now with the Background selected, we just need to twist it.
And to do that just apply Spin Blur.
Go to Filter - Blur Gallery and then Spin Blur.
Now, we can bring down the circle.
So this is the circle which applies the blur.
You can bring it down right there and to expand the circle, just hover over on the outside,
click and drag to expand.
We're going to keep it near the edges, that's fine.
Expand it from the top as well, click and drag.
You can hold the Shift key to expand it in a straight line.
So, this looks to be pretty nice.
Now, as you can see, from these dots, have a look at these dots, right, from these dots
to the edge of the circle, the blur gradually decreases.
We don't want that we want this to be abrupt.
So take the dots and drag it to the very edge.
Now, you can control the amount of blur by increasing or decreasing the Blur Angle right
there.
So let's go ahead and keep it a little higher but, not so high that everything gets blurred.
We need some texture here and there.
Let's zoom out to have a better look if this would be enough for us.
Take the circle a little up.
Let's see how it looks.
Let's take it a little more up.
Interesting.
The value of 16 looks fine, hit OK.
Now get ready to grill a sandwich on your computer, especially if you're using a thin
laptop.
You know what I'm talking about.
Alright, let's zoom in, and we need to clean this up a little bit.
So with the background texture selected, let's name this BG Texture, select the Elliptical
Marquee tool right there.
And if you ever want to create a circle from the center, if you just click and drag from
the center, it won't happen, but if you hold the Alt key, have a look, it just is being
created from the center.
Hold the Shift key to maintain proportions, We're going to stay a little inside the boundaries.
Once it's done, once we have the selection, click on the Mask button.
Now we can turn the Subject on.
Have a look at this, isn't this interesting?
Now we need to add some effects to it but before that, let's center it.
So with the Background Texture layer selected, press Ctrl or Command + T, and then bring
it to the center.
Just like so.
This looks wonderful.
Hit enter once you're happy with the position.
It's time for us to add some shadows and lighting effects.
First of all, let's add some shadows.
To add the shadows, select the Subject layer and double click on the right hand side of
the layer.
This opens up the Layer Style dialog box.
Now, click on the first Drop Shadow.
You might see just one Drop Shadow.
It is because I had added a lot of multiple drop shadows before, that's why you see a
lot of them.
You can actually click '+' to add multiple Drop Shadows.
But anyway, I'm just going to create one first, just one.
Let's turn it off.
Select the drop shadow and you can actually move the angles to kind of move it, Distance
and the Size and everything, that's fine, and the Opacity.
But if you want to move shadows like a pro, here's what you do - just click and drag.
Isn't that fantastic?
So I'm going to move it a little far just like this and add some softness to it by increasing
the size.
Actually, a ton of softness.
Now, decrease the Opacity because we're going to add multiple shadows here.
So Opacity of 56 or 55 is fine.
Now let's add one more Drop Shadow.
You can click on the '+' to add one more.
I'm just going to check this.
So this is the second drop shadow.
If you have Use Global Light checked on both of them, they will follow the same angle.
So you don't have to worry about both the shadows on different angles.
That's fine.
You can take it a little closer and then decrease the size if you wish to.
I'm going to keep the size at about this.
Size looks okay.
And the Opacity, we can adjust that.
This Opacity looks good.
Let's create one more.
I'm just going to check this again.
And let's set the angle.
I think the angle is right.
Yes, it was right.
Now, in here, we're going to set the Size to Low so that we can see where it is going.
This is all right.
Now, let's increase the size.
Let's bring it a little closer.
Control the Opacity.
If you want you can create more shadows.
But. this in my opinion is enough.
Let's create one more and let's decrease the size.
Let's bring it very, very close, just like this and increase the size.
Decrease the Opacity, just the last one.
All right.
Now we have some very nice shadows and this is looking absolutely beautiful.
Hit OK once you're satisfied.
Now let's add some lighting effects.
And to do that, select the Background Texture.
And on top of that, let's create a Curves Adjustment layer.
Click on the Adjustment layer icon and then choose Curves and click a point in the middle
and simply take it up just like this.
Now select the mask, press Ctrl or Command + I to invert the mask.
Now, take the brush white as the foreground color, we're going to make the curves appear
only towards the highlights.
Now keep in mind, in the original image, the light was falling from the left, the shadow
was on the right.
So, on the left hand side we're going to create some highlights.
Just dab with white as the foreground color just right there and have a look at the highlight
that we just created.
Now, keep in mind the concept of mask.
What is it?
Black hides and white shows up.
And that's why the area painted with white shows the effect of Curves.
Let's redo this again.
I'm gonna take it a little at the top and let's do it from here.
It looks a little better.
All right, now that we have the highlights in place, let's create a couple more discs.
So, with the Background Texture selected, we're going to make one more copy of it by
pressing Ctrl or Command + J. At the bottom copy, select the bottom copy, press Ctrl or
Command + T, if we make it larger, have a look, it's not maintaining the proportion.
It's very difficult to do that.
So to maintain the proportions, we need to make sure that we are making it larger from
the center.
So to find the center, first of all, let's turn off the subject momentarily, so we know
that this is the center, this particular area.
So all we need to do is to just zoom in first, press Ctrl or Command + T and bring the anchor
point, have a look at the anchor point right there, bring the anchor point to the center.
Another way of doing that is by holding the Alt key or the Option key, click on the center
to just bring the anchor point right there automatically, you can actually hold the Alt
key, click anywhere to bring anchor point right there.
So I'm going to bring it right here.
And then in Photoshop CC, 2018, and below, hold Shift and Alt together.
In Photoshop CC 2019, just hold the Alt key or the Option key on Mac, and drag it to make
it larger from the center.
So I'm going to keep it at about this.
We can create as many as we like.
So, this is the second one.
So, this one is the first one.
Let's just name it 1, 2, 3, 4 so that it is easy for us to see.
And for the second one, let's decrease the Opacity a little bit.
Interesting.
Let's create one more, make a copy of this one as well.
And this is actually the third one.
Let's name this 3.
2.
Ctrl or Command + T, again, hold the Alt key or the Option key, click on the center, and
then let's make it bigger.
I think this looks okay.
Now we can control the Opacity if we wish to, to even a lower number.
Let's go for 40%.
Let's create one more, make another copy of this one, bring it at the bottom, this one
is number 4, and then Control or Command + T. Bring it to the center.
Let's zoom in.
This is the center and make it even bigger.
Interesting, isn't it?
Now, let's set the Opacity of this one to a little lower number.
Let's set it to 35.
Now, let's Fit to Canvas and then done on the Subject.
Have a look at it.
Isn't that wonderful?
You can also create shadows for different discs to make it even more interesting.
So, I'm just getting ideas again and again.
So with the first one, we can double click on the right hand side of the layer and turn
on the drop shadow for the first one, and then we can actually control the Size and
the Distance.
So let's decrease the size and increase the distance just a little bit.
Yes, I like that.
I really like that.
Now once we have that in place, let's decrease the Distance a little bit.
Hit OK once you're satisfied with it, and you can actually copy the effects again and
again.
So you don't have to apply it again.
Just hold the Alt key or the Option key, click and drag the effect of the second one.
Second one has it.
Hold the Alt key or the Option key, click and drag to the third one.
And hence, the fourth one is not required because it has a black background at the back.
So there we are, interesting, isn't it?
How about adding one more circle?
So let's copy the fourth and this time Ctrl or Command + T, and first of all, let's turn
the Subject off so that we can see what's happening.
Turn it off, select the fourth copy.
Let's name it 5.
Ctrl or Command + T, create a point in the middle.
Let's make it bigger, like this.
And this time, it's going to be 30.
And now let's turn on the Subject.
You can create as much as you want, you can actually fill the canvas with all of it.
Now to make it even more interesting, you can do Color Grading on top of it, and you
don't have to do anything complex.
All you gotta do is create a Color Lookup table.
Click on the Adjustment layer icon and then choose Color Lookup.
And I have a specific one in my mind for this one.
Let's choose LateSunset for that funk effect.
Have a look.
Interesting, isn't it?
Just decrease the Opacity, slowly and gradually increase it.
You can keep it at that, you can try something else as well.
So let's go here.
Try different ones, see what you like, and you can stop it that.
That's totally upon you.
That's personal choice, personal preference.
This is interesting as well.
So play with it, see what you like and stick with it.
This is the final result that I ended up with.
Your choice, with Color Grading, without Color Grading, whatever suits your taste.
So that's where we stop for the sake of the length of this tutorial.
To be honest, I don't know where to take this image from there.
That's the most ideas that I have with this image right now.
If you have an idea to take this even further, I would love to see your work.
Just tag me on Instagram @PiXimperfect or @Unmeshdinda.
So that's how to do this abstract composition in Photoshop.
Just a quick little recap - make two copies of the background layer.
The first one would be Subject where you would extract the subject using whatever method
you like.
The second one will be the Background where you will expand the patterns of her dress
and then apply a Spin Blur to it, right.
And then mask the Spin Blur out, keep on adding more and more discs.
And there you go.
That's it.
You can add some shadow effects if you want to, you can add some lights, that's totally
upon you and in the end, you can do some Color Grading if you wish.
So that's pretty much it for this video.
I hope this video helped you and if it did, make sure to give us a like and I can also
don't forget to subscribe and not just subscribe, ring the bell so that you, my friend, don't
miss any other future tip, trick or tutorial.
I would like to take this moment and thank all these nice and amazing people for supporting
this channel on Patreon and helping keep PiXimperfect free for everybody forever.
Thanks so much for all your support.
Thank you for watching.
I'll see you guys in my next one.
Till then stay tuned and make sure that you keep creating.