HiThis is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to create a chalk drawing on a brick wall from a photo and how
to make your subject look as if it's emerging from the drawing.
I provided this brick wall background that you can download so you can follow along.
Its link is 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.
I downloaded this one from Shutterstock.
The first step is to bring out the details in the shadows and highlights.
Before we do this, let's make a copy of our photo so we always have the original intact.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + J. Go to Image, Adjustments, and Shadows/Highlights.
I'll make the Shadows 100% because in this photo, the shadows are extremely dark.
Feel free to adjust this amount for your photo.
I'll make the Highlights amount 10% to add a bit more detail in the brightest areas of my photo.
Next, we'll separate our subject from its background.
There are many ways to do this depending on the characteristics of your photo and what
version of Photoshop you're using.
In CC 2020 and later, open the Properties panel.
If you don't see it, go to Window and Properties.
Scroll down and click "Remove Background".
Photoshop analyzes the photo and makes a layer mask of the subject thereby masking out the background.
In versions CC 2018 and 2019, open the Quick Selection Tool and click "Select Subject".
Photoshop makes a selection of the subject.
Click the Layer Mask icon which makes a layer mask of the selection.
You could also click the "Object Selection Tool" and hover your cursor over the subject.
In earlier versions, just 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.
Once your subject is separated from its background and has a layer mask next to it, we need to
ensure its shape clips the subject tightly.
The reason for this is because the stroke that we ll be adding later that will surround
our subject won t look correct.
Alt or Option-click the layer mask to see it and go to Image, Adjustments, and Threshold.
Basically, Threshold converts an image into high-contrast, black-and-white.
All pixels lighter than the threshold are converted to white and all pixels darker are converted to black.
Alt or Option-click the layer mask again to see our layer.
Open your Move Tool and drag your subject onto the tab of the brick wall.
Without releasing your mouse or pen, drag it down and release.
To resize and position it, open your Transform Tool by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + T. Go to a corner.
If you're using CC 2019 or later, press and hold Alt or Option as you drag it in or out.
On earlier versions, press and hold Alt or Option + Shift as you drag it.
To position it, go inside the Transform's bounding box and drag your subject.
Then, press Enter or Return or click the checkmark at the top.
Now that we have our subject sized and positioned, we'll convert it into a Smart Object so we
can modify it non-destructively.
To do this, click the icon at the upper, right of the Layers panel and click "Convert to Smart Object".
Right-click or secondary-click on an empty area of the layer to open the fly-out list
and click "New Smart Object via Copy".
The reason we didn t just make a regular copy of it is because we want to be able to edit
each one independently of the other.
By making the copy into a "New Smart Object via Copy", any changes we make to one won't affect the other.
Double-click an empty area of the top Smart Object to open its Layer Style window.
Click "Drop Shadow".
If the color box isn't black, click it and when the Color Picker opens, pick black.
The Blend Mode is Multiply and the opacity is 40%.
For this image, I made the angle of my subject's shadow approximately the same angle of the
source lighting in the photo.
For your photo, do the same by approximating the shadow's angle to the lighting in your subject.
The Distance is 130 pixels, the Spread is 0, the Size is 30 pixels, and the Contour is linear.
We'll convert our visible subject into a Smart Object because later, when we make our subject
emerge from the chalk drawing, we'll want the drop shadow to be included.
Hide the top layer and make the layer below it active.
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 black, but before we do, check your foreground and background colors.
If they aren't black and white respectively, press "D" on your keyboard.
Since black is our foreground color, press Alt or Option + Delete.
Make the bottom subject active and invert the foreground and background colors by pressing
"x" on your keyboard or by clicking this icon.
White should be our foreground color.
Go to Filter and Filter Gallery.
Open the Sketch folder and click "Photocopy".
The Detail is 4 and the Darkness is 40.
Next, we'll get rid of most of the small white dots of texture.
Go to Filter, Blur, and "Surface Blur".
Basically, Surface Blur blurs an image while preserving its edges.
The Radius specifies the size of the area sampled for the blur and the Threshold controls
how much the tonal values must be before becoming a part of the blur.
Make the Radius 10 pixels and the Threshold 70 levels.
Change its Blend Mode to Dissolve and reduce the opacity to 80%.
This gives the lines a stippled, chalk-like texture.
Double-click an empty area of the layer to open its Layer Style window.
Click "Stroke".
The color is white, the size is 6 pixels, and the position is "inside".
The Blend Mode is Normal, and the Opacity is 80%.
We'll convert our visible image into a Smart Object by Shift-clicking the black base to
make it active as well and converting them into one Smart Object.
Hide the layer and make the brick background active.
We'll make the brick wall into a displacement map, which will make our chalk drawing conform
to the hills and valleys of the bricks and mortar.
To do this, make a copy of it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J. Remove all its color by pressing
Ctrl or Cmd + Shift + U.
We'll increase its contrast by clicking the Adjustment Layer icon and clicking "Levels".
Drag the Input Black level to approximately between 25 to 30 and drag the Input white level to 160.
Alternatively, you could also type in these amounts in their respective fields.
Displacement maps look best when they're slightly blurred, so go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur.
Blur it 2 pixels.
Go to File.
In versions CC 2021 and later, click "Save a Copy".
In earlier versions, click "Save As".
Save to your desktop for quick access.
Name it, "Displacement" and save it as a Photoshop PSD file.
Then, click "Save".
If you see this message, click "OK".
Now that we saved the blurred, monochrome layer as our Displacement Map, we can delete
it from our Layers panel.
Press the "Delete" key or drag it to the trash.
Make the black and white drawing visible and active.
Go to Filter, Distort, and "Displace".
Make the Horizontal and Vertical Scales 4 each, "Stretch to Fit" and "Repeat Edge Pixels".
Click the "Displacement" PSD file you saved on your Desktop and click "Open".
Change the Blend Mode to Screen.
Next, we'll hide the chalk lines in the shadows under the bricks between the mortar.
Double-click an empty area of the layer to open its Layer Style window.
We'll use the "Blend If" feature to do this.
Basically, "Blend If" uses the luminosity of the layers to blend one into another.
"This Layer" represents the active layer, which is in our case is the chalk drawing.
The "Underlying Layer" represents all the layers under drawing, which is this case,
is the brick wall.
Moving the black and white sliders of the bar on top will cause areas of the chalk drawing to disappear.
Moving the sliders of the bottom bar will cause areas of the brick wall to show through
the chalk drawing, as if it's punching holes through it.
The white slider affects the lightest areas in our image, and the black slider affects the darkest areas.
If we choose to, we can smooth the blending between the two layers by Alt or Option-clicking
in the middle of any of the sliders, which splits them in two.
By dragging each half of the sliders will smooth out the transition.
In this case, however, we don't need to do that.
Drag the black slider of the Underlying Layer to 50 which punches the bricks shadows through the drawing just enough.
Drag the black slider of "This Layer" to 30, which removes much of the lighter midtones of the drawing.
Next, we'll fade in our subject on one side of the drawing.
Make the photo visible and active and click the Layer Mask icon to make a layer mask next to our photo.
Open your Gradient Tool and Gradient Picker.
If you don't see the black to white presets, go to Window and Gradients.
In the Gradients panel, click the icon at the upper, right of the panel and click "Legacy Gradients".
Now, just scroll to that folder, open it and open the "Legacy Default Gradients" folder.
Click any of the 3 black and white presets.
Make sure the Linear Gradient icon is active.
Place your cursor approximately at the center of your subject and drag it to the left or
right at an angle that works for your subject.
To bring out more areas of the chalk drawing, invert your foreground and background colors
so white is your foreground color.
Open your Brush Tool and Brush Picker.
Pick a soft, round brush.
We'll adjust its size in a moment.
Its Hardness is 0% and make its opacity between 35 to 40%.
Its Flow is 100%.
Adjust its size by pressing the right or left bracket key
and brush over those areas you'd like to restore the drawing.
If you see fringes of the chalk drawing surrounding the edges of your photo, to remove them, go
to the layer mask and press and hold Alt or Option as you drag a copy of it next to the drawing.
Make the bottom layer mask active and invert it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + I.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. Thanks for watching!