Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I’m going to show you how to create this powerful, retro-looking, vertical strips portrait
design of yourself or of a person you know.
Open a high resolution, close-up photo of a face that you'd like to use for this project.
I downloaded this one from Shutterstock.
We'll make the background behind our subject white.
If your subject already is on a white background, the next few steps won't be necessary, so
you can just skip ahead if you want.
First, we'll need to make a selection around the subject.
There are many ways to do this and your choice should depend on the characteristics of photo.your
I find that the Quick Selection Tool does a fine job in most cases.
Starting in version CC 2020,
you can automatically select your subject by clicking the "Select Subject" button.
However, if you're using a version earlier than CC 2020, just drag the Quick Selection
Tool over your subject to select it.
If you need to remove areas of the selection, press and hold Alt or Option as you drag those areas. over
To refine soft or feathery edges like hair, go to Select.
If you're using a version earlier than CC 2015.5, click "Refine Edge".
For later versions, click "Select and Mask".
If you prefer to use "Refine Edge", Shift-click "Select and Mask".
I did in-depth tutorials on both of these filters, so if you want to watch them, I provided
their links in the description below the title of this video.
Check "Smart Radius", which detects soft and hard edges.
I'll drag the Radius a bit to the right.
To make your brush bigger or smaller, make sure your CapsLock key isn't on and press
the right or left bracket key on your keyboard.
Brush over soft edges to refine them.
Output it to "New Layer".
We'll make a new layer below the active layer by Ctrl-clicking or Cmd-clicking the New Layer icon.
We'll fill the empty layer with white, but before we do, check your foreground and background colors.
If they aren't black and white respectively, press "D" on your keyboard.
Since white is our background color, press Ctrl or Cmd + Delete to fill the empty layer with white.
We’ll merge these two layers by Shift-clicking the top layer to make it active as well
and pressing Ctrl or Cmd + E. Now that we have our subject over a white background, we'll
create a document for the design, itself.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + N or go to File and New.
Let's make it 12 inches by 12 inches and 300 pixels per inch, so if you ever want to print
it, it'll look nice and sharp.
Its color mode is RGB and 8 bits per channel.
Make the background black and the color profile: sRGB, which is standard for most web profiles.
I'll zoom out a bit by pressing Ctrl or Cmd and the minus key on my keyboard.
Open back your subject and press "v" to open your Move Tool.
Drag your subject onto the tab of the black background.
Without releasing your mouse or pen, drag it down and release.
To resize it, open your Transform Tool by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + T. Go to a corner and
drag it in or out until the face fills the document approximately this much.
Then, press Enter or Return.
Open your Rectangle Tool.
Go to the top and choose "Path".
Drag out a rectangle.
Depending on your version, you'll either see the shape as an outline or you'll see 4 small
points that are the corners of the rectangle.
At the top, click "Mask".
This creates a vector mask.
If you don't see "Mask", Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the Layer Mask icon.
Open your Transform Tool and drag the anchor points to create a vertical rectangle that
approximates this size and shape.
Then, press Enter or Return.
Make a copy of it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J.
Open your "Path Selection Tool" and drag the copy to the right.
Make another copy and drag it to the right.
Make one more copy and drag it over.
Scroll to the bottom face layer and click its vector mask to make it active.
Open your Transform Tool and drag it over.
Go to a corner and when you see a curved, double arrow, rotate it to an angle you like.
Remember, you can always adjust the vector mask at any time.
Press Enter or Return.
If you see this message, just click "Yes".
Make the next vector mask active, open your Transform Tool and position and angle it the face. over
Continue to make the vector masks active and position them over the face of your subject.
Next, we'll make each section of the face a different color.
Double-click the face of the top layer to open its Layer Style window.
Click "Color Overlay".
For the Blend Mode, click "Color".
Click the color box and pick a color.
I already know the color I want, so I'll type it into the hexadecimal field.
Once you pick a color, press Enter or Return, twice.
Go to the "Color Overlay" effect and press and hold Alt or Option as you drag a copy
of it onto the layer below it.
Double-click "Color Overlay" again to open it in the Layer Style window and click the color box.
Pick a different color for the next section of your subject's face.
Continue these steps to change the colors of the other sections.
Next, we'll add text, but before we do, let's place the face layers into a folder to save
space in the Layers panel.
To do this, Shift-click the top layer to make all the face layers active
and press Ctrl or Cmd + G. I'll name it, "Face".
Make a new layer.
Open your Horizontal Type Tool and press "x" to invert your foreground and background colors,
so white will be our text color.
I'll pick a font called, "Dense Regular".
If you'd like to use it as well, I provided its link in the video's description or in my project files.
I'll make its size 76 points, but feel free to use whatever size you like.
The aliasing is Smooth and left alignment.
Click on your document and type out the first letter of the first word or name.
Open your Move Tool and make sure Auto-Select" isn't checked.
Then, drag into position.
We'll rotate it a bit using our Transform Tool.
Make a copy of it and double-click the copy to highlight the text.
Type the second character of the first word.
Open back your Move Tool, drag it across and rotate it.
Continue these steps to add the rest of the text for your first word.
Scroll to the bottom character layer and Shift-click it to make all the characters active.
Then, place them into a folder.
I'll name it, "First Name", but you can name it whatever you like.
Make a copy of the folder and drag the original folder to the top.
Name the folder below it and with you Move Tool active, drag the text to the bottom.
Open the bottom folder and double-click the top character to highlight it on your design.
Type the last character of the bottom word.
Double-click the next character to highlight it
and type the second to the last character of the bottom word.
Continue these steps to replace the characters.
If your bottom word has more characters than the top word,
make a copy of the last you typed and repeat the steps.
Then, position and rotate each letter to your liking.
Next, we’ll add the lines.
Close the folder and make a new layer below it.
Place the empty layer into a folder and name it "Lines".
Make the empty layer active and open your Pen Tool.
Go outside a top corner and click.
Release and click below the opposite corner to make a diagonal path.
Open your Pencil Tool and Pencil Picker.
Pick a hard, round point.
Make its size 8 pixels, the Hardness: 100% and opacity: 100%.
Click the foreground color and for the Brightness, type in 50%.
Click OK or press Enter or Return.
Open your Paths panel.
If you don't see it, go to Window and Paths.
Click the icon at the upper, right and click "Stroke Path".
This will open the "Stroke Path" window.
Make sure the Pencil tool is selected and click OK.
To hide the path, click anywhere in the Paths panel.
Open back the Layers panel and drag the "Lines" folder down just above the black background.
Make the empty layer active and open your Transform Tool.
Rotate it and position it, so the top part of the line is centered over the last character
of the first word.
Name it that character.
Make a copy of it and name it after the next character of the word.
Move the line, so its positioned in the middle of the next character at the top.
Feel free to rotate it.
Continue to copy lines and place them over the rest of the characters of the top word.
Scroll down and Shift-click the bottom line layer to make all the lines active.
Place them into a folder.
I'll name it, "Lines first name".
Make a copy of the folder and drag the original folder directly above the copy.
I'll name the copy, "Lines last name".
Open the bottom folder and click the top line to make it active.
Move it over the first character of the bottom word and rotate it.
Continue the steps until all the bottom characters have lines through them.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!