Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. I'm going to show you how to create the look
of fine art mezzotint prints from photographs. A mezzotint is a form of intaglio etching in which
a metal plate is roughened evenly and then smoothed to bring out an
image. This printing technique produces soft gradations of tone with rich, velvety blacks.
Open a photo you'd like to use for this project. I downloaded this one from Shutterstock.
Before we begin, if you want to know as soon as I upload new Photoshop tutorials,
smash that "Subscribe" button and please remember to click that "Like" button, which
lets You Tube know you like my stuff. To ensure that your results will look similar to mine,
check your photo's size and resolution by going to Image and Image Size. Its width and height
should be approximately within 500 pixels of mine and its resolution should be 150 pixels per inch.
We'll convert our photo into a Smart Object, so we can modify it non-destructively. Doing this also
allows us to replace it with a different photo without having to re-do the effects. Click the
icon at the upper, right of the Layers panel and click "Convert to Smart Object". We'll
make two copies of it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J twice. Name the top layer, "Blur / Mezzotint",
the middle layer, "Find Edges", and the bottom layer, "Crosshatch". Hide the top two layers
and go to Filter, Brush Strokes, and Crosshatch. If you don't see it, click Filter Gallery,
open the Brush Strokes folder, and click Crosshatch. Make the Stroke Length: 30,
the Sharpness: 5 and the Strength: 2. Make the "Find Edges" layer visible and active.
Go to Filter, Stylize, and "Find Edges".
Change its Blend Mode to Multiply and reduce its Opacity to 50%. Make the
top layer visible and active. Go to Filter, Pixelate, and Mezzotint. Choose "Fine Dots".
Go back to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur. Blur it 1 pixel. Change its Blend Mode to Hard Light
and reduce its opacity to 50%. If you want your mezzotint to be a black and white monotone image,
click the Adjustment Layer icon and click "Black & White". For this image, I like the color version
better, so I'll hide the black & white adjustment layer. Next, we'll add a border surrounding it.
Go to Image and Canvas Size. Change pixels to "percent". I'll type in 110 for its Width
and 115 for its height. Feel free to adjust these amounts for your border.
Ctrl or Cmd-click the thumbnail of the image to select its shape. Go to Select, Modify,
and Contract. Contract it 3 pixels. Go back to Select, Modify and Feather. Feather it 3 pixels.
We'll place all our layers into a folder by scrolling to the bottom
and Shift-clicking the bottom layer to make all the layers active. Then, press Ctrl or Cmd + G.
Click the Layer Mask icon to make a layer mask of the selection next to the folder. This will
confine all the layers inside the folder to the shape of the layer mask. Notice, this softens the
edge of our image. Ctrl or Cmd-click the New Layer icon to make a new layer below the active layer.
We'll fill it 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. If the colors are inverted,
press "x". Since white is our background color, press Ctrl or Cmd + Delete to fill the empty layer
with the background color. Mezzotint prints always have an impression in the paper from the inked,
metal plate being forced into the paper. To recreate that look, Ctrl or Cmd + click the
layer mask to select it and go to Select, Modify and Expand. Expand it 10 pixels.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + J to cut and copy the inside of the selection
onto its own layer. Double-click the thumbnail to open its Layer Style window. Click "Outer Glow".
If the color box isn't black, click it and when the color picker opens, pick black. The
Blend Mode is Normal, the Opacity is 8% and the Noise is 0. The Technique is "Softer",
the Spread is 0%, and the Size is 10 pixels. The Contour is linear and the Range is 50%.
I'll name that layer, "Plate Impression". Make the top layer active
and click the New Layer icon to make a new layer. We'll fill it with white and since our background
color is white, press Ctrl or Cmd + Delete. Change its Blend Mode to Multiply and go to Filter,
Texture, and "Texturizer". Again, if you don't see it, click Filter Gallery,
open the Texture folder, and click "Texturizer". The texture is "Sandstone", the Scaling is 100%,
the Relief is 5 and the Light is from the top. Lastly, we'll blur the texture a bit
to make it look softer. Go to Filter, Blur, and Gaussian Blur and blur it 2 pixels.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. Thanks for watching!