Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to transform graphics in realistic, multi-colored tattoos.
This is an update of tutorials I did years ago on earlier versions of Photoshop.
Find a colorful graphic that you'd like to transform into a tattoo, as well as a focused,
photo of an area of the body that you'd like the tattoo to be placed.
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The first step is to copy of our photo.
To make the copy, press Ctrl or Cmd + J. This copy will become the base for a displacement
map, which will make our tattoo look as if it's wrapping itself around the contours of
the body that its being placed onto.
Displacement maps look best when all the color is removed and is blurred.
To remove its color, press Ctrl or Cmd + Shift + U.
To blur it, go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur.
I'll blur it 4 pixels, but you may want to adjust this amount depending on your photo's
size and resolution.
Blur the photo until it looks approximately like this.
We'll save our image as a separate document by clicking the icon at the upper, right
and clicking, "Duplicate Layer".
Open the Document list and click "New".
Let's name it, "Displacement".
Notice it immediately created a new document of the same name.
Go to File and "Save As".
Save it to your Desktop for easy access and save it as a Photoshop PSD file.
Then, click "Save".
If you see this message, just click OK.
Now that we saved it, we can close the document and delete that layer in the layers panel
by pressing the Delete key.
Open your tattoo graphic.
The first step is to remove the background.
If the background is already removed, you don't have to do the next steps to remove it.
Since most graphics are against a white or other solid background, we'll use the Magic Wand Tool.
Make sure the "Add To" icon is selected.
This makes additional selections every time we click our image.
I'll make the "Tolerance": 20 pixels.
Basically, "Tolerance" determines the color range of selected pixels.
A low value selects the few colors very similar to the pixel we click.
A higher value selects a broader range of colors.
Check "Anti-Alias", which creates a smoother-edged selection. Check "Contiguous", which
prevents the inside of our graphic from being selected.
Click the background, which makes a selection around our graphic.
If there are areas inside your graphic that you want removed, click inside those areas
to add selections inside them.
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.
Click the lock icon on the graphic's layer to unlock it and press the "Delete" key on
your keyboard to delete the background.
Deselect it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + D. To place the graphic onto your photo, press "v"
to open your Move Tool and drag it onto the tab of the photo.
Without releasing your mouse or pen, drag it down and release.
To resize, angle and position it, open your Transform Tool by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + T.
Go to a corner.
If you're using a version earlier than CC 2019, press and hold Alt or Option + Shift
as you drag it out or in.
If you're using a later version, just press Alt or Option as you drag it.
To angle it, go to a corner and rotate it to an angle you like.
To reposition it, go inside the bounding box and drag it.
If the graphic feels like it's sticking to certain areas, go to View and if "Snap" is
checked, click it to deactivate it.
Once you're happy with its size, angle and position, press Enter or Return.
We'll convert our graphic into a Smart Object, so we can modify it non-destructively, as
well as replace it with a different graphic without having to redo the effects.
To do this, click the icon at the upper, right and click "Convert to Smart Object".
Change its Blend Mode to "Linear Burn".
Reduce its opacity to 70%.
Go to Filter, Distort and Displace.
I'll displace the horizontal and vertical scales 15 each,
but, if you find the displacement too subtle or too extreme, you can always go back and adjust the amount.
Tick "Stretch to Fit" and "Repeat Edge Pixels".
Find and click the Displacement file you saved earlier and click "Open".
Go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur.
Blur it 1 pixel.
Next, we'll blend in a soft, subtle outer edge around our tattoo.
Double-click an empty area of the layer to open its Layer Style window.
Click "Outer Glow" and the color box.
I already know the color I want, which I typed in earlier.
Choose a color that's a bit darker and slightly redder than the skin color of your subject.
The Blend Mode is Linear Burn, and its Opacityis 30%.
The Technique is Softer, the Spread is 0 and I'll make the Size: 7.
You may want to adjust the size amount depending on your photo's size and resolution.
The Contour is linear and the Range is 50%.
Open the Adjustments panel.
If you don't see it, go to Window and Adjustments.
Click the "Vibrance" icon.
Before we make the adjustments, keep in mind that Adjustment Layers affect all the layers
below them in the Layers panel.
In this case, since we want the adjustment layer to affect just our tattoo and not the
body base under it, we need to clip it or restrict it to that layer.
Click the Clipping Mask icon or go to Layer and "Create Clipping Mask".
I'll make the Vibrance: minus 20 and the Saturation: minus 30, but feel free to adjust these amounts
to suit your tattoo.
Open back the Adjustments panel and click the "Curves" icon.
If the panel is partially hidden, just drag it down.
The Curves adjustment layer shows an image's tonal range, which is represented by a straight diagonal line on a graph.
The upper-right area represents the highlights, and the lower-left area represents the shadows.
First, clip it to the tattoo layer.
Drag the lower, left point straight up to the second horizontal line on the graph
and the top, right point straight across to the first vertical line on the right.
Let's drag the panel back up, so we can see more of our Layers panel.
If parts of your tattoo extend onto the background or onto areas of the body that you want hidden,
I'll show you how to mask them out.
Click the body base to make it active and open the Quick Selection Tool.
If you're using CC 2018 or later, click the "Select Subject" button.
If you're using an earlier version, drag the Quick Selection Tool over your subject to select it.
To remove areas of the selection, press and hold Alt or Option as you drag over those areas.
In this particular example, the Select Subject button didn't completely select the entire
subject, but it did include the relevant areas, so dragging my quick selection tool over the
rest of the body is unnecessary.
Make the tattoo layer active and click the Layer Mask icon to make a layer mask of the
selection next to the tattoo.
If you want to reposition, angle, or resize the tattoo, click the chain-link icon between
the tattoo layer and the layer mask to unlink them.
Doing this allows us to resize and reposition either of them independent of the other.
Make the tattoo active and open your Transform Tool.
Again, if you see this message, just click OK.
Once you're happy with its position, angle, and/or size, press Enter or Return.
It automatically re-mapped its displacement on the body.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching and remember to subscribe, like and share!