This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to transform a face into a flesh-eating, zombie.
I provided a Photoshop template that you can download, so you can follow along.
Its link in my video's description below or in my project files.
It includes 3 layers: a face...a skull...and cracked texture.
Feel free to use a different photo for the face if you like.
Just make sure it's facing directly forward and is lighted mainly from one side.
Before we begin, please join my community of patrons on Patreon for as little as $2
dollars per month or become a channel member by clicking the "Join" button below the video.
Click the Patreon card at the upper, right or the link in my video's description below.
The first step is to make a selection around the head.
If the background in your photo is dark as in this example,
click the adjustment layer icon and click "Levels".
Drag the Input white level to brighten your image until you can see a stronger delineation
between your subject and the background.
Make a composite snapshot of your image by pressing Alt + Ctrl + Shift + E on Windows
or Option + Cmd + Shift + E on a Mac.
Open your Quick Selection Tool.
I generally find that a radius of 5 to 15 pixels works well.
Drag the tool over the inside of your subject.
To remove selections that are outside your subject,
press and hold Alt or Option as you drag over those areas.
The outer edges don't have to be perfect.
To check your selection, press "Q" on your keyboard.
Revert it back into a selection by pressing "Q" again.
Go to "Select" and "Save Selection".
Name it, "Head".
Deselect it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + D. Now that we have the selection of the head, Shift-click
the Levels adjustment layer to make it active as well and drag it along with the composite
snapshot to the trash.
Next, we 'll create dried blood.
Click the New Layer icon to make a new layer.
We'll fill it white, but before we do, check your foreground and background colors.
If they aren't black and white respectively, press "D" on your keyboard.
Click the foreground color to open the Color Picker.
In the hexadecimal field, type in: 870000.
Then, click OK or press Enter or Return.
Since your background color is white, press Ctrl or Cmd + Delete.
Go to Filter, Render and Fibers.
Make the "Variance: 5 and the "Strength": 10.
We'll bloom out the lightest areas of the streaks by opening your Levels window.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + L. In the Input white field, type in 200.
We'll convert it into a Smart Object, so we can modify if non-destructively.
To do this, click the icon at the upper, right and click, "Convert to Smart Object".
We 're going to duplicate the Smart Object, but not link it to the original.
It's important to note that whenever you do duplicate a Smart Object, whatever changes
you make to one will automatically be repeated in the other.
However, if you want to make changes to one and not affect the other, then we need to
create an unlinked copy of it.
To create an unlinked copy, you can either right-click or secondary-click the Smart Object
and click "New Smart Object via Copy" or go to Layer, Smart Objects and "New Smart Object via Copy".
Let's name the copy, "Skull blood" and the original layer, "Face blood".
Temporarily hide these layers and make your subject active.
We'll create displacement maps of the face and the skull, which we'll use to make the
blood conform to the contours of the face and skull.
Make a copy of the face by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J.
Remove all its color by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + Shift + U.
Since displacement maps look best when they're blurred, go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur.
Blur it 3 pixels.
Open the fly-out list again and this time, click "Duplicate Layer".
Open the "Document" list and click, "New".
Type in "Displace Face".
Immediately, it created a new document named, "Displace face".
Go to file and "Save As".
Save it to your "Desktop", so you can access it easily.
Save it as a Photoshop PSD file and click "Save".
If you see this message, just click OK.
Then, close the "Displace Face" document since we have it on our Desktop.
We can delete the face copy by either dragging it to the trash can icon or on later versions,
by pressing the "Delete" key on our keyboard.
Since every face has its own unique characteristics, we can manipulate the skull to conform to those variances.
I already made this particular skull conform to the face of this subject, however, if you're
using a different face for this project, I'll show you how to manipulate the skull.
Make the skull layer active and visible.
Reduce its opacity, so we can see the face under it.
Open your Transform Tool by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + T. Click the "Warp Transform" icon
and drag the anchor points and lines to better match your subject's face.
When you're happy with it, press Enter or Return or click the check-mark.
I'll click the "cancel" icon, since I don't want to change the original skull.
Increase its opacity back to 100%.
Make a copy of the skull.
Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the eyeball icon next to the skull to hide all the other layers.
Desaturate its color and blur it by pressing Alt + Ctrl + F on Windows or Option + Cmd
+ F on a Mac, which repeats the last filter we used - Gaussian Blur.
Open the fly-out list and click "Duplicate Layer".
As before, open the Document list and click "New".
Type in "Displace skull".
Go to File and "Save As".
Then, click "Save".
Close the file, since we saved it onto our Desktop and delete the skull copy layer.
Make the Face layer visible, as well as the "Face Blood" layer.
Click the "Face blood" layer to make it active.
Go to Filter, Distort and Displace.
Make the Horizontal and Vertical Scales: 10 each, Stretch to Fit and "Repeat Edge Pixels".
Click the "Displace Face" PSD file and click "Open".
The streaks immediately distorted to the tonal values of the face.
Open the Channels panel.
If you don't see it, go to Window and Channels.
Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the head channel that you saved earlier 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.
Make the blood layer active and change its Blend Mode to "Color Burn".
Notice how the streaks follow around the contours of the face.
Drag the "Skull Blood" layer above the skull.
Make the Skull layer visible, as well as the “Skull Blood”.
Go to Filter, Distort and Displace.
Photoshop remembered the last settings, so just click OK.
Click the "Displace Skull" PSD file and click "Open".
This time, the streaks were displaced based on the tonal values of the skull.
Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the skull to make a selection of its shape
and click the Layer Mask icon to make a layer mask of the selection.
Make the "Skull Blood" layer active and change its Blend Mode to "Color Burn".
We'll create a black Layer mask next to the skull, which will mask out or hide the skull.
We're doing this, so we can reveal back parts of the skull through the layer mask.
Make the "Skull" layer active and Alt-click or Option-click the Layer mask icon.
If your foreground and background colors didn't invert to make white your foreground color,
press "x" on your keyboard.
Open your Brush Tool and Brush Picker.
If you don't already have the "Dry Media" brush set, I provided its link, so you can install it.
If you're not sure how to install brushes or other presets, watch my tutorial showing you how.
Click the card at the upper, right or the link in my video's description.
I'll use the top brush, but feel free to experiment with the others.
Make its "Flow" and "Opacity": 100%.
To adjust its size, make sure your Caps Lock key is off
and press the right or left bracket key on your keyboard.
Brush over areas of the face to reveal the skull through the layer mask.
Next, we'll adjust its levels to match the shadows of the face.
Click the Adjustment Layer icon and click "Curves".
It's important to know that Adjustment Layers affect all the layers below them in the Layers panel
so if we want them to affect only the one layer directly below them, we need to
clip it or restrict it to that layer.
To do this, click the "Clipping Mask" icon or go to Layer and "Create Clipping Mask".
Now the "Curves" adjustment layer will only affect our skull.
If the bottom of the Curves panel is hidden, just drag it down to reveal it.
The Curves graph represents all the tonal ranges of the skull from black to white.
By dragging the diagonal line, it'll adjust the brightness of the specific tones represented
by the diagonal line.
Make the "Skull blood" layer active and click the Adjustment layer icon.
This time, we want the Curves adjustment layer to affect our entire image, so we won't clip it.
I'll make the darker tones darker and the lighter tones darker, as well.
Open the Adjustments panel.
If you don't see it, go to Window and Adjustments.
Click the "Hue/Saturation" icon and check, "Colorize".
For the Hue, type in: 33 and for the Saturation, type in: 37.
Open back the Adjustments panel and click, ""Levels".
For the Input white level, type in 213 to brighten our image.
Next, we'll reveal the color in the blood streaks.
Make the Hue/Saturation layer mask active and invert your foreground and background
colors, so black is your foreground color.
Make the Flow: 30%.
Flow controls the speed at which paint is laid down (much like painting with a spray
paint can), while Opacity controls the transparency of the paint.
Unlike Opacity, Flow gives you the ability to gradually build up to your darkest color
by doing multiple passes in the same area.
If you want to hide any streaks on the face, make the "Face Blood" layer mask active and
brush over them.
Make the "cracked texture" layer visible and active and change its Blend Mode to "Linear Burn".
Alt-click or Option-click the Layer Mask icon to make a black layer mask, which hides texture.the
If your foreground or background colors didn't invert, press "x", so white is your color.foreground
Brush over areas of the face where you'd like to reveal the cracked texture your
and adjust brush's size accordingly.
Next, we’ll add dimension to the cracked texture.
Double-click the texture to open its Layer Style window and click "Bevel & Emboss".
Let's drag it over so we can see the face.
The Style is "Inner Bevel", the Technique is "Smooth" and the "Depth" is 200%.
The Direction is Up, the Size is 1 pixel and Soften it 3 pixels.
The Angle is minus 57 degrees and the Altitude is 37 degrees.
The Gloss Contour is "Linear".
The Highlight Mode is "Color Dodge" and its opacity is 100%.
The Shadow Mode is "Linear Burn" and its opacity is 60%.
You can finesse any part of your zombie if you like.
For example, I'd like to reveal less of this eye socket and ad a bit more cracked texture around it.
So, I'll scroll to the skull and click its layer mask to make it active.
I'll invert the colors, so black is my foreground color.
I'll adjust the size of my brush and brush over the entire eye socket.
I'll invert my foreground and background colors, so white is my foreground color and reveal
back some of the skull's eye socket.
I'll scroll back up and make the cracked texture's layer mask active.
I'll make sure my foreground color is white.
As I brush over the area, it'll reveal back the cracked texture.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!