Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to create a very cool, custom, polygon portrait design of yourself
or someone you know.
Each portrait design will be unique to the person.
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Open a focused, high resolution color photo of a face that you'd like to use for this project.
I downloaded this one from Shutterstock.
The first step is to convert our photo into a Smart Object, so so we can modify it nondestructively.
To do this, click the icon at the upper, right corner of the Layers panel and click "Convert to Smart Object".
Smart Objects allow us to adjust or even replace filters without permanently affecting the original photo.
Make a copy of it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J.
Click the eyeball icon to temporarily hide the copy and make the bottom layer active.
Click the Adjustment Layer icon and click "Black & White".
I'll open up the panel, so we can see all of the colors within this adjustment layer.
Open the list of Black and white presets and click "Maximum White", which gives the image
a bright, bloomed-out look.
For this particular image, I'd like to bring back some of the skin tones,
so I'll click the hand icon and drag my cursor over the skin to the left.
Notice as our cursor dragged over the image, the respective color slider moved in tandem
with our cursor.
I did an in-depth tutorial of the Black and white adjustment layer, so if you'd like to
watch it, I provided its link in my video's description.
Make the bottom layer active and go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur.
I'll blur it 15 pixels.
To save space, let's group all the layers that comprise the black and white image into a folder.
To do this, Shift-click the black & white adjustment layer to highlight it, as well
and press Ctrl or Cmd + G. I'll name the folder "BW" for black and white.
Make the top layer visible and active.
Open your "Polygon Tool" and choose "Path".
Click the gear icon and make sure "Smooth Corners" and "Star" are unchecked.
I'll make the amount of sides: 6, but feel free to give your polygons as many sides as you want.
Place your cursor directly on the edge of a side of your document and drag out a polygon shape.
Without releasing, rotate it so the shape is aligned vertically.
For example, if you're shape is a hexagon like mine, make its top and bottom points
centered over the edge.
Open your "Path Selection Tool" and drag the shape anywhere inside your image.
Go to Layer, "Vector Mask" and "Current Path".
To resize it, open your transform Tool by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + T.
Go to a corner and when you see a diagonal, double arrow, press and hold Alt or Option + Shift as you drag
it out or in.
Then, press enter or Return.
If you're using version CC 2019, just press Alt or Option as you drag the shape.
If you want to move the shape, just drag it.
To make a copy it, press and hold Alt or Option as you drag the shape.
To add interesting combinations of shapes to our design, let's subtract the area that
overlaps the two shapes.
To do this, go to the top and click the double-box icon to open your list of how you'd like the
shapes to interact with each other.
Click "Exclude Overlapping Shapes".
This removes the area that intersects between the shapes.
Any shape can be resized or repositioned at any time by clicking on them individually
to make them active and then using your Transform Tool.
Continue to make copies of the shapes, resize them and position them over your subject.
Once you're happy with the arrangement of the shapes, we'll create outlines around them.
Click the New layer icon to make a new layer.
Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the vector mask to make a selection of all the shapes.
Open your Pencil Tool and Pencil picker.
Make its size: 10 pixels and its Hardness & Opacity, both 100%.
Go to Edit and Stroke.
Make the Width: 5 pixels and the color: black for now.
We'll change the color in a moment using a color overlay.
The Location is Inside and the Opacity is 100%.
This strokes the selection with a black border that's 5 pixels wide.
Deselect it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + D.
Double-click an empty area of the stroke layer to open its Layer Style window.
Click "Color Overlay" and I'll pick white, but feel free to click the color box and pick
whatever color you like.
We' add one more layer of outlines to add dimension and interest.
Make a copy of the stroked layer and go to Edit and "Rotate 180 degrees".
If one or more of your outlined shapes are cropped off, open your Transform Tool and enlarge the size.
I'll reduce its opacity to 60% for now and double-click "Color Overlay" to see it in the Layer Style window.
Click the color box to open the Color Picker and click on a color of your subject to copy that color.
Then, click OK or press Enter or Return on both panels to close them.
If you want to adjust the opacity of any of your layers, just make sure that layer is
active and adjust its opacity.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!