Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. For fans of horror and the macabre, I’m
going to show you how to create a flaming skull. For your convenience, I provided this
skull PNG file for you download. It's link is in my video's description or project files.
If you prefer to use your own photo, just cut the face out from its background and copy
it to its own layer. I covered how to cut and copy images in many of my tutorials. I
also provided this image of flames that we'll use later. Open the skull file. If your foreground
and background colors aren't black and white, click this icon or press "D" on your keyboard.
Invert the colors by clicking this icon or by pressing "x".
Click the Adjustment layer icon and click "Gradient".
Open your Gradient presets. If you don't see this set, click the gear icon and click "Reset Gradients".
Click this thumbnail.
Make the Style: Linear, the Angle: 90 degrees and the the Scale: 20%. Check "Reverse" and drag
the gradient up approximately this much. Then, click OK. To remove any of the white gradient
that may be inside the eye sockets, click the layer mask to make it active and open
your Brush Tool. Make the brush size 125 pixels with a Hardness of 0. Make sure the Opacity
and Flow are both 100%. Brush inside the eye sockets to reveal back those areas of the
skull. Click the Adjustment layer icon and click "Hue/Saturation".
Check "Colorize"
and make the Hue: 200 and the Saturation: 40. We'll convert our image into a Smart Object,
so we can continue to modify it nondestructively, as well as allow us to replace our subject
with a different one without having to redo the effects that we'll be adding to it. To
do this, Shift-click on the skull to make all the layers active and click the icon at
the upper, right of the Layers panel. Click "Convert to Smart object". Make 2 copies of
the layer by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J twice. Name the top layer "Blur" and click the eyeball
icon to hide the layer. Rename the middle layer, " Multiply" and change the Blend Mode
to "Multiply". Make the top layer visible and active and change its Blend Mode to "Overlay".
Go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur. Make the Radius: 5 pixels and click OK.
Go back to Filter, Blur and "Motion Blur". Make the Angle: 90 degrees and the Distance: 100 pixels.
To save space in the Layers panel, let's collapse the blur effects by clicking the small arrow
on the right. Click the New Layer icon to make a new layer. We'll fill the empty layer
with white and since the foreground color is white, press Alt or Option + Delete.
Change its Blend Mode to "Overlay". Make a copy of the layer and change its Blend Mode to "Difference".
Name the top layer, "Difference" and name the second layer, "Overlay". Click the Adjustment
layer icon and click "Color Balance".
In "Midtones", make the Yellow / Blue: 30. Open the Tones
and click "Highlights". This time, make the Yellow / Blue: 50. This makes the midtones
and highlights warmer in color. We're ready to add the flames. Make the top layer active
and open the flames image I provided or you can open your own flames image. To place it
onto your skull document, press "v" to open your Move Tool and drag it onto the skull
tab. Without releasing your mouse or pen, drag it down onto the skull and release. Change
the Blend Mode to "Screen".
Click the Layer mask icon to make a layer mask next to the
flames. We'll be making a few copies of the flames layer, but first, let's place the flames
and its layer mask into a folder by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + G. Name the folder, “Flames”.
Make the flames layer active and make 3 or 4 copies of it. Hide all the flame layers
except for the bottom one, which we'll make active. Drag the flames over the eye sockets
and forehead. 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 Shift" as you drag it in or
out. Holding Shift kept the flames retain its aspect ratio.To reposition it, go inside
the Transform and drag it. Then, press Enter or Return. To remove areas of the flames,
make the layer mask active and make sure your foreground color is black. Press "B" to open
your Brush Tool. To make your brush bigger or smaller, press the right or left bracket
key on your keyboard and then brush over areas to mask them out. We'll place more flames
over that area to finesse it. Make the next flames layer visible and active.
Open your Move Tool and drag an area of the flames over the part you want to finesse.
Make the corresponding layer mask active, open your Brush Tool
and brush over the areas of those flames you want to mask out.
Make the next flames layer visible and active. Open your Move Tool and drag an
areas of the flames to the bottom, left. If you want to resize it, open your Transform
Tool and drag it over to resize it.
Then, press Enter or Return.
Continue these steps for your other flames until you're happy with your image.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. Thanks for watching!