Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. For those of you who like horror and the macabre,
I'm going to show you how to create this horror movie poster. I provided a PSD file, so you
can follow along. Its link its located in the video's description or project files.
It includes this human skull, concrete texture and movie poster credits. Hide the top 2 layers
and make the concrete texture visible and active. Click the Adjustment layer icon and
click "Levels". Make the Input black: 47 and the Input white: 209. Make the Skull, visible and active.
Click the icon at the upper, right of the Layers panel and click "Convert to
Smart Object". This will allow us to modify the skull non-destructively. Double-click
the Smart Object to open its source. We'll separate the skull from the black background
by using the Magic Wand Tool. Make the Tolerance approximately 40 and make sure "Contiguous"
is checked. Click anywhere outside the skull. This makes a selection around it. Invert the
selection by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + Shift + I. Press Ctrl or Cmd + J to cut out the
skull and copy it to its own layer. Hide the original layer. We'll use the cut-out skull
as a displacement map for the blood streaks that we'll be adding later. The displacement
map will make the blood streaks look like it's wrapping itself around the contours of
the skull. To make the skull into a displacement map, click the icon at the upper right of
the Layers panel and click "Duplicate Layer". Click "New" and type in "Displacement". Then, click OK.
Go to File and "Save As". Save it to your Desktop as a PSD file and click "Save".
When you see this window, click OK and then, close the Displacement tab.
Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the New Layer icon to make a new layer below the active layer.
Ctrl-click or Cmd-click on the cut-out skull to make a selection of its shape. We'll fill the selection with
black, but first, if your foreground and background colors aren't black and white respectively,
press "D" on your keyboard. Since black is your foreground color, press Alt or Option
+ Delete. Delete the selection by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + D. Make the top layer active
and press Ctrl or Cmd + J to make a copy of it. Click the Adjustment layer icon and click "Levels".
For the Input Black, type in 91, for the Input Midtones, type in 1.54
and for the Input White, type in 205. Let's restore back some detail from the top of the skull.
To do this, make the top skull active and click the Layer Mask icon to make a layer
mask next to it. Click the skull under it to make it active and reduce its opacity to
60%. Click the layer mask to make it active. Open your Gradient Tool and make sure the
Linear Gradient is active. Click the gradient bar to open the Gradient Editor. Click the
"Foreground to Transparent" box and click OK. Go to the top of the skull and press and
hold Shift as you drag the gradient line to the top of the eye sockets. Then, close the
Smart Object tab. When you see this window, click "Yes" to save the changes.
Change the Blend Mode to "Overlay". Next, we'll create the blood streaks. Click the New Layer icon
to make a new layer. We'll fill it with white and since white is the background color, press
Ctrl or Cmd + Delete. Click the foreground color and in the hexadecimal field, type in:
9B0202. Then, click OK or press Enter or Return. Now, your foreground color is the color you
just typed in. Go to Filter, Render and Fibers. Make the Variance: 5 and the Strength: 10.
Then, click OK. Press Ctrl or Cmd + L to open your Levels window. For the Input white, type in: 200 and click OK.
Go to Filter, Distort and Displace. Make The Horizontal and Vertical
Scales: 50, the Displacement Map: "Stretch to Fit" and the Undefined Areas: "Repeat Edge
Pixels". Then click OK. Click the "Displacement" file that you saved earlier on your Desktop
and click "Open". Notice. immediately, the blood streaks became distorted based on the
displacement map created from the tonal values of the skull. Change the Blend Mode to "Linear Burn".
Next, we'll add a soft, shadow. Click the New Layer icon to make a new layer. Press
"D" on your keyboard to make the foreground and background colors default to black and
white, respectively. Open your Elliptical Marquee Tool, go to the top, left corner of
your image and drag out a selection to the bottom, right corner. Go to Select and Transform Selection.
Go near a corner and rotate it clockwise. Drag it the left and press Enter or Return.
Go to Select, Modify and Feather. Feather it 200 pixels and click OK or press Enter or Return.
Invert the selection by pressing Ctrl or Cmd +Shift + I. Press Alt or Option
+ Delete to fill the selection with black. Then, deselect it. Open your Horizontal Type
Tool and open list of fonts. I'm using "Abaddon II Regular". If you'd like to use it, I provided
that link, as well. For this font, I'll start with a size of approximately 100 points, Sharp
and right alignment. Click the color box and pick white. Then, click OK. Click on your
document and type out your first 2 lines of text. To adjust the space between the lines of text,
also know as "leading", highlight both lines and go to Window and Character.
The Character panel will open. Drag the Leading icon to the left or right. Since it's easier to adjust
the size of each word if there's a lot of space between them, temporarily make the leading
wide as in this example. Click to the right of your second word and continue to type out
your text. To enlarge a word, highlight it and drag the size icon to the right.
To make a line of text smaller, highlight the line and drag the size icon to the left. Continue
to adjust the words until you're happy with their sizes. To close the space the lines,
highlight the second line and drag the Leading icon to the left.
Highlight the next line and drag it it up.
Continue to adjust your title until your happy with its spacing. To
reposition it and adjust its overall size, click your Move Tool and open your Transform Tool.
Go to a corner and when you see a diagonal, double-arrow, press and hold Alt or Option
+ Shift as you drag it out or in. When you're happy with its size and position, press Enter or Return.
We can close the Character panel now. Convert your text into a Smart Object,
so we can change or edit the text at any point without having to redo the effects that we'll
be adding to it. Press Ctrl or Cmd + J to make a copy of it. Make the bottom text active
and go to Filter, Blur and "Motion Blur". Make the Angle: 90 degrees and the Distance:
200 pixels. Then, click OK. Next, we'll add an ethereal, glow to part of the text, as
well as a drop shadow to your entire title. To do this, Shift-click on the text copy to
make it active, as well and then, convert both layers into one Smart Object.
Open your Lasso Tool and draw a selection around part of your title.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + J to cut the inside of
the selection and copy it to its own layer. Go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur.
Blur it 40 pixels and click OK. Make your title active and click the "fx" icon. Click "Drop Shadow".
Make the Blend Mode: Color Burn, the color: black and the Opacity: 70%. The
Distance is 18 pixels and the Size: 7 pixels. Then, click OK.
Make the Credits layer visible and active
and change its Blend Mode to "Screen".
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. Thanks for watching!