Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to make someone or something appear from thick, billowy smoke.
Open a photo that you'd like to use for this project.
I downloaded one from Shutterstock.
I provided the smoke brush set that I'm using.
Its link is in my video's description below or project files.
I also provided the link to the website where I downloaded it from.
Once you download the brush set, open your Brush Tool and Brush Picker.
Click the gear icon and click "Import Brushes".
This will open your list of Brush presets in your Brush folder.
Click "Free Smoke Photoshop Brushes 1" and click "Load".
Scroll to the bottom of the Brush panel to see the Smoke brush set you loaded.
Open the folder and scroll down to see all of the smoke brushes that you can use.
Now that you have the brushes, the next step is to separate our subject from its background
by making a selection around the subject.
For this example, I'll use the Quick Selection Tool.
If you're using this tool, as well, drag the tool inside the subject to select it.
To remove selections outside the subject, press and hold Alt or Option as you drag over those areas.
To check your selection, press "Q" on your keyboard to see it as a quick mask.
Revert it back into a selection by pressing "Q" again.
To refine its edges, go to Select.
If you're using a version earlier than CC 2015.5, click "Refine Edge".
If you're using a later version, click Select and Mask.
If you prefer to use Refine Edge instead of Select and Mask, Shift-click "Select and Mask".
I did in-depth tutorials on both of these filters, so if you'd like to watch them, I
provided their links, as well.
Check "Smart Radius" and drag the Radius to the right a bit.
To make your brush bigger or smaller, make sure your CapsLock key is off and press the
right or left bracket key on your keyboard.
Brush over soft or feathery areas like hair.
Output it to a "New Layer".
We want to make a new layer below the active layer.
To do this, Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the New Layer icon.
We'll fill the empty layer with black, but first, check your foreground and background colors.
If they're not black and white respectively, press "D" on your keyboard.
Since black is our foreground color, press Alt or Option + Delete.
Make a new layer above it by clicking the New Layer icon.
Name it "Smoke".
Invert your foreground and background colors by pressing "x" on your keyboard,
so white is your foreground color.
Open your Brush Tool and Brush Picker.
Scroll to the smoke brushes.
In this set, there are 15 from which to choose.
I encourage you to try each one to see which will look best on your image.
For this example, I'll choose number 15.
As you can see, this particular brush is 4,565 pixels in size.
Once you pick your brush, press Enter or Return.
To adjust its size, press the right or left bracket key to make it bigger or smaller.
I'll increase its size to the max, which for this brush is 5000 pixels.
Then, I'll click on my document to see the smoke.
If it's not positioned exactly where you'd like, undo the last step by pressing Ctrl
or Cmd + z and try again.
Next, we'll blend the smoke into our subject, but before we do, double-click the subject
layer to make it active and to open its Layer Style window.
In the "Blend If" section, there are two slider bars.
"This Layer" affects the layer we currently have selected in the Layers palette, which
in our case, is the subject, while the "Underlying Layer" affects our Smoke layer.
Basically, "Blend If" uses luminosity to blend layers together.
We want the lighter pixels of the smoke to gradually be revealed through our subject,
so we'll use the underlying layer to do this.
Dragging the left slider will cause the darkest pixels of the smoke to punch holes through our subject,
and dragging the right slider makes the lightest pixels of the smoke punch
holes through the subject.
The more we drag across the slider, the more pixels punch through.
To create a smooth transition of revealing the smoke through our subject, go to the triangular-shaped
slider icon on the lightest pixels of the Underlying Layer and Alt-click or Option-click
it the middle of it.
This splits the icon in two.
Drag the left half of the icon to the left.
You'll notice that he further we drag it, the more of the smoke's lightest pixels will
show through our subject.
If you're using version CS6 or later, we'll colorize our image by clicking the Adjustment Layer icon
and clicking "Color Look-up".
Open "Load 3D LUT" and feel free to click on each one to see how it looks with your image.
I'll click, "LateSunset.3DL".
If you'd like to make the color less intense, just reduce its opacity.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!