Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to create Low Poly art.
This is an update of a tutorial I did many years ago on a much earlier version of Photoshop.
For your convenience, I provided this photo of a lion that you can use for this project.
Its link is in the video's description or project files.
Feel free to use another photo if you like.
Just make sure the face is looking straight at us.
We'll be copying the right or left half of the face and flipping it to the opposite side to make a full face.
Doing this, will ultimately save us a lot of time and work.
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First, let's straighten out the head.
To do this, open the Ruler Tool and place it at the bottom of the middle of the chin.
Drag the tool up, making sure the line is directly between the eyes.
If you need to reposition the line, just go to either end and move it.
Go to Image, Image Rotation and "Arbitrary".
Tick "Clockwise" and click OK.
Open your Rectangular Marquee Tool and drag a selection over the half of the face that you want to keep.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + J to cut and copy the image inside the selection onto its own layer.
Click the eyeball icon next to the background to hide it.
Next, we'll create a grid over the face that we'll use to snap our polygons to.
Go to Edit, Preference and "Guides, Grid & Slices".
In the "Grid" section, we can choose the color of our grid, as well as the style of grid
- lines, dashes, or dots.
If you're using an earlier version of Photoshop, you can choose the style by clicking here.
Personally, I like using dots, because I find it easier to see the image under them than
with lines or dashes, but feel free to use whatever style of grid you prefer.
My suggestion is to make the gridline between 20 and 25 pixels.
Make "1" for the subdivisions, which doesn't subdivide the grid.
If you don't see the grid, go to View, Show, and "Grid".
Since we want our polygons to snap to the grid, go back to View and if "Snap" isn't checked, click it to activate it.
Let's zoom into our image by pressing "z" to open the Zoom Tool and dragging it over
area that includes the edge of the head.
If the grid isn't lined up to the edge of the head, press "v" to open your Move Tool
and drag the head to the left or right util it snaps to the grid.
To reposition the image on your screen press and hold the "Spacebar" as you drag it.
Let's zoom into the eye area.
Open your Zoom Tool and drag it over the eye.
We'll make our first polygon by opening our Polygonal Lasso Tool.
The Feather is 0 pixels and uncheck "Anti-alias".
This ensures that the edges of our polygons will be as sharp as possible.
It's important to understand that each polygon represents the brightness or darkness of the
shape we're drawing over, as well as its general color.
The smaller the polygon, the more detail we'll see in the final image, but the longer it'll take to finish it.
I find that the best results contain both large and small polygons.
For this demonstration, we'll use triangular paths.
For my first polygon, I'll start with this dark tone under the eye.
I'll analyze its general shape and size to determine which dots I want to use to make its shape as a polygon.
I'll click this dot and then click this dot to make my first line.
For my second line, I'll click this dot and finally, I'll click back on the first dot to close the path.
We know the path is closed when we see this small circle.
Once the path is closed, it immediately turns into a selection.
Go to Filter, Blur, and "Average".
This filter averages out the color and tone of the shape inside the selection.
Deselect it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + D.
We can automate these steps by creating an action for it, but first, we need to make another path.
Open the Actions panel.
If you don't see it, go to Window and Actions.
Click the icon at the upper, right of the panel and click "New Set".
I'll name it, "Low Poly".
Then, click OK or press Enter or Return.
Open the list again and click "New Action".
Name it whatever you'd like.
I'll name it "LP" for Low Poly.
Open the "Function Key" list and assign a shortcut key for this action, which will record the steps and then stop the recording.
Because this shortcut key will override any existing command that's assigned to it,
Photoshop lets us know in advance what the existing command is presently assigned to this Function key we choose.
For example, I'll choose F2 as my shortcut key.
Once I click the "Record" button, a window pops up letting me know what action is presently assigned to it.
If that command isn't important to me, I'll click OK.
If it is important, I'll click "Cancel" and choose another function key to see if I want to use that one for this action.
Once we click "OK", we'll see a red button at the bottom of the Actions panel.
This lets us know that it'll record all the actions we do.
Keep in mind, it's only recording the actions themselves and not the time between the actions,
we don't have to rush.
Go to Filter, Blur and Average.
Then, deselect it.
Click the Stop button to stop the recording.
Make your next polygon and press your shortcut key to play the action.
Continue these steps as you build up the polygons.
If you want to zoom out a bit, press Ctrl or Cmd and the minus key on your keyboard once or twice.
Feel free to reposition it on your screen.
If you have polygons that show spaces along an edge - no problem.
Just redraw the paths making sure your cursor snaps directly on the dots.
Then, press your shortcut key to replay the action.
It'll fill those spaces.
Other than manually drawing out paths and creating an action to speed up the process,
unfortunately, there's no shortcut to automatically creating the polygons, however, there are
plenty of Low Poly art generator apps out there that do automatically create Low Poly
art, such as DMesh and PolyGen, that allow us to customize the size and shape of the polygons.
While they are fast and effective, I find that they don't give us as much control of the polygons as Photoshop.
Once you have all the polygons completed, zoom out to see the entire portrait by pressing
Ctrl or Cmd + 0 and hide the grid by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + H. We'll remove the background
behind the polygons, but first, open back your Zoom Tool and zoom into the top part of the head.
Reposition it to include the top of the head.
Press "L" to open back your Polygonal Lasso Tool and draw paths over the outside edge
of the polygons that make up the head.
Feel free to create other angles if you like.
Close the path and zoom back out.
Invert the selection by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + Shift + I. Press the Delete key to delete the area outside the selection.
Then, deselect it.
Make a copy of it and go to Edit, Transform and "Flip Horizontal".
Press "v" to open your Move Tool and press and hold the Shift key as you drag it to the
left until it snaps to the edge of the other half.
Don't be concerned about centering the head, yet. We'll take care of that shortly.
Click the Adjustment Layer icon and click Vibrance.
Drag it to 100% and increase the Saturation to 25%.
Next, we'll give it a somewhat dimensional look by darkening the left half and brightening the right half.
Make the left half of the face active and click the Adjustment Layer icon.
Click "Levels".
It's important to understand that adjustment layers affect all the layers below them in the Layers panel.
If we want an adjustment layer to affect only the one layer beneath it, as in this case,
we'll 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".
Drag the Input mid-tones to point 70 or point 60 or you can just type it in.
Make the fight half of the face active and click the Adjustment Layer icon.
Click "Levels" and clip it.
In the Shadows Input field, type in 14 and for the Highlights Input, type in 210.
Next, we'll convert our Low Poly art portrait into a Smart Object, so we can modify it non-destructively.
To do this, make the Vibrance layer active
and Shift-click the right half of the face to make it and all the layers above it active.
Click the icon at the upper, right and click "Convert to Smart Object".
Next, we'll add more space to both sides of our document.
Go to Image and Canvas Size.
Change the measurement to Percent and change the Width to 120.
We'll center it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + A to select the entire document
and clicking the "Align Vertical Centers" icon.
Then, deselect it.
Let's slide the head up to make room below it for the shadow.
Press and hold Shift as you drag it up.
Pressing Shift, kept it perfectly vertical.
Ctrl or Cmd-click the New Layer icon to make a new layer below the active layer.
We'll fill it with any color.
I'll fill it with black and since my foreground color is black, I'll press Alt or Option + Delete.
Click the Adjustment Layer icon and click "Gradient".
Open the Gradient list and click the black to white thumbnail.
Make the Style: Radial and make the Angle: 90 degrees.
Check "Reverse and make the Scale: 144%.
Ctrl or Cmd-click the low poly art to make a selection of its shape.
Again, we'll make layer below the active layer by Ctrl or Cmd-clicking the New Layer icon.
Fill the selection with black and then deselect it.
Convert it into a Smart Object, so we can modify it non-destructively.
Open your Transform Tool and go to the top, middle anchor point.
Press and hold the Shift key as you drag it below the head.
If you want to move it up or down, just drag it.
If you want to stretch the shadow vertically, go to the bottom and press and hold Shift as you drag it down.
Go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur.
Blur it 10 or 15 pixels and reduce its opacity to 30%.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching and remember to like, Subscribe and share.