Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to create the look of solid chocolate from single-tone objects
whether they're white, black or tones in-between.
This is an update of a tutorial I did many years ago on an earlier version of Photoshop.
This update is quicker and more flexible.
This effect looks the best on objects that are one color and have a variance of natural shadows.
For your convenience, I provided this image of a stone statue, so you can follow along.
Its link is in the video's description below or in my project files.
The first step is to separate the statue from the background by making a selection around the statue.
There are many ways to do this, but for this image, let's use the Quick Selection Tool.
If you're using CC 2018 or later, click the "Select Subject" button.
This automatically analyzes the entire image and selects its prominent subject or subjects.
To check the selection, press "Q" on your keyboard to see it as a quick mask.
If you noticed that it missed some areas, revert the quick mask back into a selection
by pressing "Q" again and drag over those areas it missed.
If you're using a version earlier than CC 2018, just drag your Quick Selection Tool
inside the subject to select it.
To remove areas outside the subject, press and hold Alt to Option as you drag over those areas.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + J to cut and copy the subject onto its own layer.
We'll convert it into a Smart Object, so we can add filters to it non-destructively.
To do this, click the icon at the upper right corner of the Layers panel and click "Convert to Smart Object".
We'll make a new layer below it by Ctrl-clicking or Cmd-clicking the New Layer icon.
We'll fill the empty layer with black, but before we do, 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.
Next, we'll smooth out the surface of the subject.
Make the cut-out subject active.
Go to Filter, Blur and Surface Blur.
Surface Blur essentially blurs an image while preserving its edges.
As I click and unclick on the Preview window, you can see that it removes noise and graininess.
The Radius option specifies the size of the area sampled for the blur, while Threshold
controls how much the tonal values of neighboring pixels must be before they're blurred.
For this image, I'm using 10 pixels for the Radius and 5 levels for the Threshold.
If you're using a different image, feel free to adjust these amounts based on the size,
resolution and the amount of grain and noise in your image.
To save space in the Layers panel, let's collapse the Smart Filters.
Click the Adjustment Layers icon and click "Exposure".
It's important to know that adjustment layers affect all the layers below them in the Layers panel.
If we want them to affect just the one layer below it,
we need to clip them or restrict them to that layer.
To do this, either click the Clipping Mask icon or press Alt + Ctrl + G on Windows
or Option + Cmd + G on a Mac.
You could also go to Layer and "Create Clipping Mask".
For this image's Exposure, I'll type in minus zero point two, for the Offset: minus zero point 1
and for the Gamma Correction: point four.
Depending on the lightness and darkness of your image, feel free to adjust these amounts.
Click the Adjustments tab.
If you don't see it, go to Window and Adjustments.
Click the "Hue/Saturation" icon
and clip it to your subject.
Check "Colorize".
Make the Hue: 15 and the Saturation: 40.
Make your subject active.
Go to Filter and Filter Gallery.
Open the Artistic folder and click "Plastic Wrap".
For this image, I'll make the "Highlight Strength": 5, the "Detail": 5 and the "Smoothness": 15.
If you're using a different subject, you'll most likely want to adjust these amounts to
achieve the best results.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!