Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to create the look of cobblestone street art from photos.
I provided this cobblestone road texture that you can download.
Its link is in my video's description or project files.
Begin we begin, hit that "Subscribe button" at the lower right to let you know as soon
as I upload new Photoshop tutorials.
Open a photo that you'd like to use for this project.
I downloaded this one from Shutterstock.
The first step is to make a selection around our subject, so we can separate it from its background.
There are many ways to do this, but for this example, let's use our Quick Selection Tool.
If you're using CC 2018 or later, click the "Select Subject" button.
Photoshop automatically analyses our image and makes a selection of our subject.
If you're using an earlier version, drag the tool over the inside of your subject.
If you want to remove areas of the selection, press and hold Alt or Option as you drag over those areas.
Once our subject is selected, click the Layer Mask icon to make a layer mask of the selection next to our subject.
Think of Layer Masks as stencils - white reveals the subject and black conceals the background.
Press "v" on your keyboard to open the Move Tool and drag your subject onto the tab of the cobblestone road.
Without releasing your mouse or pen, drag it down and release.
To resize 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 in or out.
If you're using a later version, just press Alt or Option as you drag it.
To reposition your subject, go inside the Transform's bounding box and drag it.
Then, press Enter or Return.
We'll convert our subject into a Smart Object, so we can modify non-destructively as well
as allow us to replace it with another subject without having to redo the effects.
To do this, click the icon at the upper, right of the Layers panel and click, "Convert to Smart Object".
Change its Blend Mode to "Overlay".
Go to Image, Adjustments and "Shadows/Highlights".
If you don't see the entire panel, check "Show More Options".
Here, we can brighten the darkest areas of our subject, as well as adjust the subject's
highlights, midtones and color intensity.
Keep in mind, since every photo has its own characteristics, feel free to adjust these amounts.
Remember, since we'll be applying all of the filters to a Smart Object, we can always come
back and adjust any of the amounts in any of the filters.
For this example, I'll make the Shadows amount 20%, the Tone: 50% and the Radius: 30 pixels.
I'll make the Highlights amount: 20%, the Tone 50% and the Radius 30 pixels.
I'll increase its color to 100 and keep the rest at their default amounts.
Go to Filter.
For the next filter, you can either click Artistic and Dry Brush or click Filter Gallery.
If you click Filter Gallery, open the "Artistic" folder and click "Dry Brush".
Make the Brush Size: 2, the Brush Detail: 8 and the Texture: 1.
As a side note, if you clicked Filter Gallery, the Dry Brush layer will state Filter Gallery,
however, if you clicked Artistic and Dry Brush under Filter , it'll state Dry Brush.
Double-click the Blending Options icon to open the Blending Options window.
Change the Blend Mode to "Soft Light".
Before we add the next filter, check your foreground and background colors.
If they aren t black and white respectively, press D on your keyboard.
Go back to Filter.
Either click Sketch and Photocopy or Filter Gallery.
If you click Filter Gallery , close the Artistic folder and open the Sketch folder.
Click "Photocopy".
The "Detail" is 24 and the "Darkness" is 10.
Double-click the Blending Options icon next to "Photocopy" and change its blend mode to "Soft Light", as well.
Next, we'll show a bit of the cobblestones through our street art.
Double-click an empty area next to our subject to open its Layer Style window.
We'll use "Blend If" to do this.
Basically, "Blend If" uses luminosity to blend layers together.
The top bar affects the layer we currently have selected in the Layers panel, which in
our case is our subject.
The bottom bar affects our cobblestone background.
Drag the right slider of the Underlaying Layer to approximately to190, which makes the lightest
pixels of the cobblestones punch through our subject a bit.
Next, we'll create a Displacement Map, which will make our street art conform to the hills
and valleys of the cobblestones.
Hide the subject and make the background active.
Make a copy of it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J.
Since displacement maps work best when they're black and white and blurred,
press Ctrl or Cmd + Shift + U to desaturate it and go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur.
Blur it 3 pixels.
Open the fly-out list and click "Duplicate Layer".
When you see this window, open the Document list and click "New".
Name it "Displacement".
We now have a separate document of the same name.
Go to File and "Save As".
Save it to you 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 file and delete the copy in the Layers panel by
dragging it to the trash or by pressing the "Delete" key on our keyboard.
Make your subject visible and active.
Go to Filter, Distort and Displace.
Make the Horizontal and Vertical Scales 10 each, "Stretch to Fit" and "Repeat Edge Pixels".
Click the "Displacement" file you just saved and click "Open".
Our street art is now contoured to the cobblestones.
We'll increase the color's vibrancy even more by clicking the Adjustment Layer icon and clicking, "Vibrance".
We want the Vibrance adjustment layer to affect just our street art and not the cobblestone
background, however, since adjustment layers affect all of the layers below them in the
Layers panel, we'll need to clip the adjustment layer to the one layer below it. To do this,
click the Clipping mask icon or press Alt + Ctrl + G on Windows or Option + Cmd + G on a Mac.
We could also go to Layer and "Create Clipping Mask".
I'll type in 60 for its Vibrance, however, feel free to adjust this amount for your image.
It's important to understand that fundamentally, Vibrance increases the intensity of muted
colors more so than already saturated colors.
It also protects skin tones more.
Next, we'll roughen the edges of our street art.
Make the cobblestone background active and make a copy of it.
We'll place it at the top of the Layers panel.
We could drag it up manually or press Ctrl or Cmd + the right bracket key on your keyboard twice.
Release it from being a clipping mask by pressing Alt + Ctrl + G on Windows or Option + Cmd + G on a Mac.
We'll create a black layer mask next to it in order to mask it out.
You'll see why we're doing this in a minute.
To make a black layer mask, Alt or Option-click the Layer Mask icon.
We want to invert our foreground and background colors, so that white will be the color we
use to reveal the cobblestones through our black layer mask.
Press "x" to invert the colors.
Open your Pencil Tool and Pencil Picker.
Starting in CC, Adobe rearranged some of its default brush sets.
If you don't see the "Natural Brushes" folder, click the gear icon and click the "Legacy Brushes" folder.
When you see this message, click OK to restore it into your Brush Presets.
Navigate to the Natural Brushes folder and open it.
Feel free to experiment with each of the brushes.
I'll use this one.
To adjust its size, make sure your CapsLock key is off and press the left or right bracket
key on your keyboard.
Brush over areas around the perimeter of your subject to reveal back the cobblestones.
Notice that when we do this, our layer mask shows our brush strokes as we brush over our image.
If you want to adjust the brightness of your street art, make the Vibrance layer active
and click the Adjustment Layer icon.
Click "Levels" and clip it to the street art.
If the Properties panel is partially hidden, just drag it down.
In the Output white level, I'll type in 230 to darken it somewhat, so it'll blend in better
with the cobblestones that surround it.
Lastly, we'll angle our entire image in perspective.
Make the top layer active and scroll to the bottom.
Shift-click the background to make it and the rest of the layers active.
Convert them into one Smart Object.
Go to Edit, Transform and "Perspective".
Go to a bottom corner and drag it out.
Then, press Enter or Return.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!