Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to create the look of beautiful, ink smudge portraits and how
to subtly modify their colors and contrast.
I provided a Photoshop PSD document that includes these 2 ink smudge textures.
They were created by the digital artist, Jukka Korhonen of Finland.
The PSD textures document is located in my video's description or project files below.
Open a photo of someone you'd like to use for this project.
I downloaded this one from Shutterstock.
The first step is to crop your image around the face and hair.
Open your Crop Tool.
To ensure that the filters we'll be adding will give similar as mine, type in 1080 pixels
per inch for its width and height..
For its Resolution, type in 150 pixels per inch.
Go to a corner of the crop bounding box.
Drag a corner in to approximate the size of the face and hair.
Continue to size and position the bounding box until you like the cropping.
Go to the top and uncheck, "Delete Cropped Pixels".
This will ensure that the areas of your photo outside the crop bounding box won't be permanently
deleted . To accept it, click the check-mark.
To fit your image back onto your canvas, press Ctrl or Cmd + 0.
Next, we convert your image into a Smart Object, so we can modify it non-destructively.
To do this, click the icon at the upper, right corner of the Layers panel and click "Convert
to Smart Object".
The first filter we'll apply will brighten the details within the shadows.
Go to Image, Adjustments and "Shadows/Highlights".
For this particular image, I'll leave the Shadows at its default amount of 35%, however,
feel free to adjust this amount.
Then, click OK or press Enter or Return.
Remember, since your image is a Smart Object, you can always adjust the Smart Filters at any time.
Go to Filter and Filter Gallery.
To see more of your image, right-click and click a smaller percentage.
Open the Artistic folder and click "Dry Brush".
I'll make its Size: 4, the Brush Detail: 10 and the Texture: 1.
Go back to Filter, Blur and Smart Blur.
I'll make the Radius: 15, the Threshold: 22 and the Quality: High.
Convert your filtered image into a Smart Object.
Create a new layer below the active layer by Ctrl-clicking or Cmd-clicking the New Layer icon.
We'll fill the empty layer with white, but first, if your foreground and background colors
aren't black and white respectively, press "D" on your keyboard.
Since white is your background color, press Ctrl or Cmd + Delete.
Open the smudge texture file I provided.
Click your Move Tool and Shift-click on the other texture to make it active, as well.
Drag the textures onto the tab of your portrait.
Without releasing your mouse or pen, drag it down onto the portrait and release.
Change the Blend Mode of the textures to "Multiply".
We'll place the them into a folder by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + G.
Open the folder and make the top layer active.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + A to select the entire portrait and Ctrl or Cmd + C to copy it.
Make the folder active and click the Layer mask icon to make a layer mask next to the folder.
Alt-click or Option-click the layer mask, which should make the image on your canvas white.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + V to paste your portrait onto the layer mask.
To deselect it, press Ctrl or Cmd + D.
We'll invert the layer mask by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + I. Click the eyeball icon next to
the top layer to make all the layers visible again and click it once more to temporarily
hide the top layer.
Scroll down until you see the bottom texture and click it to make it active.
Drag it to reposition it.
Make a copy of this texture layer by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J. Then, reposition it.
If you'd like to adjust the size and /or the angle of any of the textures, make sure that
particular texture layer is active and open your Transform Tool.
To see the Transform's entire bounding box, press Ctrl or Cmd + 0.
Go to a corner.
When you see a curved, double-arrow, rotate it to an angle you like and then drag it over
the face until you like its position.
To accept it, press Enter or Return.
If you want, make more copies of the textures and resize, angle and position them, as well.
Next, we'll adjust the brightness and contrast of our portrait.
Make the layer mask active and open your Levels window by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + L.
Drag the Input white to the left and the Input black to the right until your portrait's contrast
looks good to you.
Then, click OK.
Next, we'll reveal back the original color as a texture.
Close the folder and make the top layer visible and active.
Go to the Layer mask icon and Alt-click or Option-click it.
This creates a black layer mask next to the active layer.
We'll ultimately brush in white over the layer mask to reveal the layer next to it.
Open your Brush Tool and Brush Picker.
Click the gear icon and click, "Wet Media Brushes".
When you see this message, click OK to replace your current brushes with the Wet Media brushes.
Click the gear icon again and this time, click, "Large Thumbnail".
Go to the bottom, right corner of the Brush Picker panel and drag it down until you see
all the brush tip shapes.
I'll click this one, but feel free to experiment with the other brushes.
Once you pick your brush, press Enter or Return.
Make sure the Opacity and Flow are both 100%.
Invert your foreground and background colors by pressing "x" on your keyboard.
Now, white is your foreground color.
Reduce the opacity to 60%.
I'll Change the Blend Mode to "Linear Burn", however, I encourage you to experiment with
the other Blend modes, as well, since they'll give your image a wide variety of looks.
To adjust your brush's size, make sure your CapsLock key is not on and press the right
or left bracket key on your keyboard.
Brush over areas of the face to reveal color.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!