This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to create a retro, sci-fi, laser scan portrait.
I provided this dark wall for our background.
Its link is in my video's description or project files.
Feel free to use another image, but just make sure it's dark, so our laser grid scan can be seen.
Before we begin, if you haven't already subscribed to Blue Lightning TV, click that "Subscribe"
button to let you know as soon as I upload new Photoshop tutorials.
Open a photo of someone or something that you'd like to use for this project.
I downloaded this one from Shutterstock.
We'll place our subject over the background by pressing "v" to open our Move Tool and
dragging it onto the tab of the background.
Without releasing your mouse or pen, drag it down and release.
Reduce its opacity, so we can see the background under it.
To resize our subject, open the Transform Tool by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + T. At the top,
make sure the chain-link icon is active between the Transform's width and height and drag
the scrubby slider on either the width or the height to the right or left.
To reposition it, go inside the Transform's bounding box and drag your subject.
Then, press Enter or Return twice or click the checkmark at the top.
Increase its opacity back to 100%.
If our subject extends beyond the visible boundaries of the background, we'll need to crop them off.
Doing this ensures that the displacement map that we'll be adding later, will be correctly sized.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + A to select our document and go to Image and Crop.
Deselect it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + D.
Next, we’ll separate our subject from its background by making a selection around the subject.
For this example, let’s use the Quick Selection Tool.
If you’re using CC 2018 or later, press the “Select Subject” button
which automatically detects our subject and makes a selection around it.
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.
Go to Select. If you’re using a version earlier than CC 2015.5, click “Refine Edge”.
If you’re using a later version, click “Select and Mask”.
If you prefer to use Refine Edge, 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 smoot and hard edges.
To adjust the size of your brush, make sure the CapsLock key is off and press the right or left bracket key on your keyboard.
Brush over soft or feathery areas.
Feather it 2 pixels, make the contrast 100%, and shift the edge to approximately minus 28%
Check “Decontaminate Colors”. This prevents the background from leaching into the edges of our subject.
Make the amount 100% and output it to a “New Layer with Layer Mask”.
We’ll convert our subject into a Smart Object, so we can modify it non-destructively.
To do this, click the icon at the upper, right and click “Convert to Smart Object”.
Make a copy of it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J.
We'll use this copy to create a "Displacement Map".
The displacement map will bend the grid that we'll be creating in a minute to conform to
the contours of the tones of our subject.
Since displacement maps look best when they're blurred, go to Filter, Blur and Smart Blur.
The Radius determines how far the filter searches for dissimilar pixels to blur, while the Threshold
determines how different the pixels values must be before they're blurred.
Let's make the Radius: 3, The Threshold: 25 and the Quality: Low.
As I click on the Preview window, you can see the before and after.
Go back to Filter, Blur and this time, click Gaussian Blur.
Blur it 3 pixels.
Click the icon at the upper, right and click "Duplicate Layer".
In the Document list, click "New" and name it "Displacement".
We now have a separate document of the same name.
In addition to blurring it, we'll remove its color in order to get the best results.
Click the Adjustment Layer icon and click "Black & White".
Go to File and "Save As".
Save it to your Desktop for quick access 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, as well as delete the layer that we used for
the displacement map.
Either drag it to the trash or in later versions, press the Delete key.
Next, we'll create the grid.
Create a ne document by going to File and New.
Make the Width and Height 10 pixels each, the Resolution: 150 pixels per inch and background white.
It's extremely small, so we'll fit it onto our screen by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + 0.
Press "v" to open your Move Tool since it'll be easier to navigate our cursor at this magnification.
Click the lock icon to unlock the background and double-click it to open the Layer Style window.
Click "Stroke".
If the box isn't black, click it and when the color picker opens, pick black.
Make the Size 1 pixel, the Position: Inside, the Blend Mode: Normal and the Opacity: 100%.
Click the icon at the upper, right and click "Flatten Image".
Go to Edit and "Define Pattern".
Name it "Displace grid".
Now that we saved it as a pattern, we can close it.
When this window pops up, just click "No".
We'll make a new layer below the active layer by Alt-clicking or Option-clicking the New Layer icon.
We'll fill it with black and since our foreground color is black, press Alt or Option + Delete.
Hide the top layer and click the Adjustment Layer icon.
Click "Pattern".
Open the Pattern presets and scroll to the bottom.
You should see the pattern you just saved.
Click it and make sure the scale is 100%.
We'll merge the pattern with the black background by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + E.
Invert the layer by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + I.
Then, convert it into a Smart Object, so we can modify it non-destructively.
Go to Filter, Distort and Displace.
Make the Horizontal and Vertical Scales 20 each, Stretch to Fit and Repeat Edge Pixels.
Click the "Displacement" file you saved earlier and click "Open".
Since the grid became displaced 10 pixels vertically and horizontally, we'll size it up to fill our document.
But before we do, Shift-click your subject above the grid to make it active, as well.
Open your Transform Tool.
If you see this message, just click OK.
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 until the displaced grid fills your document.
If you're using a later version, just press Alt or Option as you drag it.
Then, press Enter or Return.
Ctrl-click or Cmd-click your subject to make a selection of its shape.
Click the grid layer to make it active and click the Layer Mask icon to make a layer
mask of the selection next to the grid.
We'll make a new layer below the active layer by Ctrl or Cmd-clicking the New Layer icon.
Fill it with black.
Open the Channels panel.
If you don't see it, go to Window and Channels.
Click the circular icon at the bottom, which makes a selection of your visible image.
Open back the Layers panel and hide the grid and the black layer under it.
Make the grid active and make a new layer above it.
Click the foreground color and pick a bright green.
Notice your foreground color is now that same color.
To fill the selection with that color, press Alt or Option + Delete.
Then, deselect it.
Make the subject layer visible and active.
Change the Blend Mode to "Soft Light" and reduce its opacity to 50%.
Click the Adjustment Layer icon and click Black and White.
Adjustment layers affect all of the layers below them in the Layers panel, however, we
want it to affect just our subject and not the green grid below it.
To do this, we'll need to clip the adjustment layer to the subject.
Click the Clipping Mask icon or go to Layer and "Create Clipping Mask".
Next, we'll mask out the bottom of our laser grid portrait, so it cuts off at the bottom of the wall.
To do this, let's group the layers that comprise our grid portrait into a folder by Shift-clicking
the green grid to make it and the layers above it active and clicking the Folder icon.
Click the Layer Mask icon to make a layer mask next to the folder.
Open your Rectangular Marquee Tool and go to the bottom of the document.
Drag across a rectangle whose top is just above the floor.
We'll soften the selection's edge by going to Select, Modify and Feather.
Feather it: 3 pixels.
We're going to fill the selection with black and since our layer mask is active, it'll
actually fill that area of the layer mask with black.
Press Alt or Option + Delete.
Essentially, layer masks are like stencils.
White reveals and black conceals.
We can now deselect it.
Open the folder and make the subject active.
Double-click it to open the Layer Style window.
Click "Outer Glow" and the color box.
When the Color Picker opens, pick a bright green.
The Blend Mode is Normal and make the Opacity: 40%.
The Technique is "Softer", the Spread is 0 and the make the Size: 30 pixels.
The Contour is linear and the Range is 50%.
Lastly, we'll add a reflection on the floor and a glow on the wall.
Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the subject to make a selection of its shape.
Notice, it includes the entire subject including the area that we removed from the floor.
To remove that area from our selection, go to the top layer mask
and press Alt + Ctrl + Shift on Windows and Option + Cmd + Shift on a Mac.
Make the green grid layer active and make a copy of it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J.
Right now, the copy is inside the folder, however, want to place it below the folder.
We could either drag it down or press Ctrl or Cmd + the left bracket key twice.
We know it's below the folder when we see that the layer we jumped down is below and
to the left of the layer above it.
To save space in the Layers panel, let's close the folder.
We'll use this copy of the green grid as the reflection on the floor.
First, let's convert it into a Smart Object, so we modify it non-destructively.
Go to Edit, Transform and "Flip Vertical".
Go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur.
Blur it 3 pixels.
Open your Transform Tool.
As before, if you see this message, it's just letting us know that the blur will be turned
off as we use the Transform Tool.
Just click OK.
Press and hold the Shift key as you drag it down until the top of it is flush with the bottom of the original grid.
Pressing Shift kept it perfectly vertical as you dragged it.
We're going to angle the bottom grid to the perspective of the floor, but to do this,
we need to zoom out, so we can see the entire Transform Tool.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + 0.
Go to a bottom corner and press and hold Alt + Ctrl +Shift on Windows
or Option + Cmd + Shift on a Mac as you drag it out approximately this much.
Go to the bottom, middle anchor point and press and hold the Shift key as you drag it
up approximately this much.
Then, press Enter or Return.
To Zoom back in, press Ctrl or Cmd and the plus key a couple of times.
If you want to drag the reflection down a bit more, press "v" to open your Move Tool
and drag it down or you can press the Down arrow on your keyboard.
Next, we'll fade out the reflection gradually the further it is from the wall.
Click the Layer Mask icon to make a layer mask next to the reflection layer.
Open your Gradient Tool and make sure the Linear gradient icon is active.
Open the Gradient Picker and click the black and white preset.
Go to approximately here and press and hold the Shift key as you drag your tool up to
the top of the reflection and release.
Make the reflection layer active and reduce its opacity to 60%.
Lastly, we'll add a reflective glow on the wall.
We'll make a new layer below the active layer by pressing Ctrl-clicking or Cmd-clicking the New Layer icon.
Open your Brush Tool and pick a soft, round brush.
Make its Size 1300 pixels, its Hardness: 0% and the Opacity and Flow both 100%.
Go to the center and click once.
Change its Blend Mode to Overlay.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. Thanks for watching!