Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to create compelling newspaper portraits.
I provided this newspaper montage background, this dirty paper texture
and a custom, powder brush that we'll use later.
Their links are in my video's description or project files.
Before we begin, if you want to know as soon as I upload new Photoshop tutorials,
smash that "Subscribe" button and please remember to click "Like".
Open a photo you'd like to use for this project.
The first step is to separate our subject from its background.
There are various ways to do this depending on the version of Photoshop you're using and
the characteristics of your photo.
In versions CC 2020 and later, unlock the background and open the Properties panel.
If you don't see it, go to Windows and "Properties".
If you don't immediately see "Remove Background", simply scroll down the panel.
Photoshop automatically isolates the subject and creates a layer mask of it which masks out the background.
Always remember, in layer masks, white reveals that respective area of the layer next to it
and black conceals the rest of it.
In CC 2018 and 2019, open the Quick Selection Tool and click the "Select Subject" button.
Photoshop makes a selection of the subject.
If you want to remove areas of the selection, press and hold Alt or Option as you drag over those areas.
In earlier versions, just drag the Quick Selection Tool over your subject to select it.
Click the Layer Mask icon to make a layer mask of the selection.
We'll place our subject onto the newspaper montage background by pressing "v" to open
our Move Tool and dragging it onto the tab of the background.
Without releasing our mouse or pen, we'll press and hold the Shift key as we drag it down and release.
Pressing Shift kept our subject centered over the document.
To resize it, press Ctrl or Cmd + T to open the Transform Tool.
At the top, make sure the chain-link icon is active between the Transform's width and height.
This links them together.
Place our cursor over the "W" or the "H" and when our cursor changes into a scrubby slider,
drag it to the left or right to make your subject smaller or bigger.
Feel free go inside the Transform's bounding box and drag your subject to position it.
Then, press Enter or Return.
We'll convert our subject into a Smart Object, so we can modify it non-destructively and
if we want to, replace it with a different subject without having to re-do the effects.
To do this, click the icon at the upper, right of the Layers panel and click "Convert to Smart Object".
Next, we'll bring out more detail in the shadows by going to Image, Adjustments, and "Shadows/Highlights".
Its default Shadows amount is 35%, however, let's increase it to 50%.
Then, click OK or press Enter or Return.
We'll make a new layer below the active layer, by Ctrl or Cmd-clicking the New Layer icon.
We'll fill the empty layer with 60% gray, but before we do, we'll check our foreground and background colors.
If they aren't black and white respectively, we'll press "D" on your keyboard.
Click the foreground color to open the Color Picker.
In the Brightness field, type in 60%.
To fill the empty layer with our foreground color, press Alt or Option + Delete.
We'll convert our overall image into a Smart Object by Shift-clicking our subject to make
it active as well and converting them into one Smart Object.
Press "D" to make your foreground color black again and go to Filter and Filter Gallery.
Open the Sketch folder and click "Halftone Pattern".
The size is 1, the contrast is 6 and the pattern type is "Dot".
Click the plus sign at the lower, right to add another filter.
Close the Sketch Folder and open the "Artistic" folder.
Click Poster Edges . The Edge Thickness is 2, the Edge Intensity is 1, and the Posterization is 2.
Since the filters we added darkened the details in the shadows, let's go back to Image, Adjustments,
and Shadows/Highlights".
Increase the Shadows amount again to 50%.
Next, we'll brighten the newspaper along the edges of our image, bring out our subject
more and finish it by adding the dirty paper texture to the background.
We'll make an inverted layer mask next to our subject by pressing and holding Alt or
Option as we click the Layer Mask icon.
This masks out our subject completely.
We'll reveal back our subject using the powder brush tool I provided, but before we do,
invert your foreground and background colors by pressing "x" on your keyboard.
White should be our foreground color.
Open your Brush Tool and Brush Picker.
Scroll to the bottom of the panel.
If you already installed the powder brush tool, it should be at the bottom.
It isn t in my case because it's part of a brush set, so I'll open that folder and click
the same brush I provided to you.
Make its size 2500 pixels and its Opacity and Flow both 100%.
Place your cursor at the center and click once.
As you can see the white area of the layer mask is revealing the same respective area of our subject's layer.
Conversely, the black area of the layer mask is revealing the newspaper under it because
it s masking out that same area of the layer above it.
Click the lock icon next to the newspaper background to unlock it.
Go to the layer mask and press and hold Alt or Option as you drag a copy of it next to the newspaper.
Change its Blend Mode to Linear Burn.
Open the dirty paper texture I provided.
We'll place it onto our newspaper portrait by pressing "v" to open back our Move Tool
and dragging it onto the tab of our portrait.
Without releasing your mouse or pen, press and hold the Shift key as you drag the paper
texture down and release.
We want to place this paper texture layer below the newspaper layer.
We can either drag the paper texture down manually or we can press Ctrl or Cmd and the
left bracket key on our keyboard once.
Make the newspaper's layer mask active and invert your foreground and background colors.
Black should be our foreground color.
Press "B" to open back your Brush Tool and reduce its size to 1600 pixels.
Go to the middle of your image and click once.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. Thanks for watching!