Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. I'm going to show you how to quickly make your photos
pop-out of a smart phone. I provided this photo so you can follow along, which you can replace
with your own if you like. I also provided this image of a smart phone. For your convenience,
I already created the screen's shape into which we'll place our subject and its background later.
Before we begin, if you're not already a subscriber to Blue Lightning TV, click that
"Subscribe" button to let you know as soon as I upload new Photoshop tutorials. The first step
is to separate our subject from the background by making a selection around our subject. If you're
using CC 2018 or later, I'll show you what to do in a moment. If you're using an earlier version,
open the Quick Selection Tool. Drag the tool inside your subject to select it. To remove areas
of the selection, press and hold Alt or Option as you drag over those areas. For versions CC 2018 or
later, click the "Select Subject" button, which does a pretty good job of selecting your subject
automatically. To check it, press "Q" to see it as a quick mask. The "Select Subject" feature isn't
perfect, so you may have to go in and finesse the parts of your subject that will be popping out of
the phone's screen. To do this, press "Q" again to revert the quick mask back into a selection and go
back in to finesse any edges it may have missed. To finesse soft or feathery edges like hair,
click the Select and Mask button on versions CC 2015.5 and later, or go to Select and Select and
Mask. On earlier versions, click Refine Edge. If you prefer to use Refine Edge on later versions,
Shift-click "Select and Mask". I did in-depth tutorials on both of these filters, so if you
want to watch them, I provided their links, as well. Check "Smart Radius", which detects
smooth and hard edges. To adjust the size of your brush, make sure the CapsLock key is off and press
the left or right bracket key on your keyboard. Brush along the edge of soft or feathery areas.
Output it to a Layer Mask. To place it onto the Smart Phone, press "v" to open your Move Tool and
drag it onto the tab of the Smart Phone. Without releasing your mouse or pen, drag it down and
release. Position your subject. To resize it, open the 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.
then, press Enter or Return. Next, we'll reveal the subject's background inside
the phone's screen. Open your Channel's panel. If you don't see it, go to Window
and Channels. Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the black and white screen shape to make a selection of it.
Open back your Layers panel and make the layer mask active. We'll fill the selection of the
phone's screen with white, which you'll see in the Layer Mask. If your foreground and
background colors aren't black and white respectively, press "D" on your keyboard.
Since white is the background color, press Ctrl or Cmd + Delete. Deselect it by pressing Ctrl
or Cmd + D. Notice the background of the smart phone photo is out-of-focus including the area
of the smart phone that's further back. In this particular photo, the grass behind the child is
also out-of-focus, which is what we want to blend it in. If you're using a different photo, whose
background isn’t out-of-focus, you can blur that section of the phone screen by making your photo
active and by opening the Blur Tool. Make sure its Strength is 100%. Then, brush over that area
in the phone's screen until its blurred enough. Lastly, we’ll cast a shadow from the subject.
We'll make a new layer below the active layer by Ctrl-clicking or Cmd-clicking the New Layer icon.
Open your Brush Tool and Brush Picker. We'll adjust the size in a moment. Make its Hardness:
0% and its opacity and Flow 100%. Notice the direction of the shadow cast by the boy. We'll
extend his shadow onto the phone and the wood table. Place your cursor to the right of his
hand and adjust the size of your brush. Brush over the curved edge of the phone and brush over
the tabletop. To fill in the middle of it, open your Paint Bucket Tool and click anywhere inside
the brush strokes. To fill in the rest, open back your Brush Tool and brush over the empty areas.
Change its Blend Mode to Multiply and reduce its opacity. For now, I'll make it 38%.
For this image, I'll hide areas of the shadow that corresponds to the shadow in the photo.
Click the Layer Mask icon to make a layer mask next to the shadow. Invert your foreground and
background colors by pressing "x" on your keyboard. I'll brush over this part of the
curved edge of the phone. I'll reduce its opacity and brush over the tabletop a couple of times
to reduce the shadow's intensity. I'll make the shadow active and reduce its opacity a bit more.
Lastly, we'll blur the shadow the further it is from the subject. Before we do, we'll convert
the shadow with its layer mask into a Smart Object, so we can blur it non-destructively.
To do this, click the icon at the upper right and click "Convert to Smart Object".
Go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur. Blur it 20 pixels.
Notice the Gaussian Blur filter has its own layer mask, which allows us to reveal back any part of
the unblurred shadow above it. Make the Layer Mask active and open your Gradient Tool. Open
the Gradient Picker and click the black and white preset. Make sure the Linear gradient icon is
active. Place your cursor approximately here and drag your gradient tool to here. Notice
the shadow is blurrier the further it is from the subject. This is because the white area of
the blur's layer mask is revealing the blur, while the black area is concealing the blur.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. Thanks for watching!.