Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to create a powerful game card portrait of yourself or someone you know.
Before we begin, if you want to know as soon as I upload new Photoshop tutorials,
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Open a photo you'd like to use for this project.
I downloaded this one from Shutterstock.
The first step is to separate our subject from its background.
There are various ways depending on the version of Photoshop you're using.
In CC 2020 and later, unlock the background and open the Properties panel.
If you don't see it, go to Window and Properties.
Scroll down and click "Remove Background".
Photoshop analyzes our image and makes a layer mask of the subject which masks out the background.
Always remember, in layer masks, white reveals that 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, which makes a selection of the subject.
If you want to remove areas of the selection, press and hold Alt or Option as you drag the
Quick Selection toll over those areas.
In earlier versions, drag the 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 into a new document.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + N or go to File and New.
For its width, type in 900 pixels and for its height, type in 1200 pixels.
This will give us the general shape of a playing card.
Make its resolution 150 pixels per inch.
Its color mode is RGB and 8 bits per channel.
If the color box isn't black, open the "Background Contents" list and click black.
To zoom into our canvas, press Ctrl or Cmd and the Plus key or you can type in a percentage here.
You could also fit it onto your canvas by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + 0.
We'll place our subject onto the new document by clicking the tab of our subject and with
our Move Tool active, drag it onto the tab of the new document.
Without releasing your mouse or pen, press and hold the Shift key as you drag down and release.
Pressing Shift kept our subject centered over the document.
To resize and position it, open the Transform Tool by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + T. Go to a corner.
In versions CC2019 and later, press and hold Alt or Option as you drag it in or out.
In earlier versions, press and hold Alt or Option + Shift as you drag it.
To reposition it, go inside the Transform's bounding box and drag your image.
Then, press Enter or Return.
We'll convert the cut-out subject into a Smart Object so we can modify it non-destructively
and allow us to replace it without having to redo the effects.
To do this, click the icon at the upper right and click "Convert to Smart Object".
I think I'd like to slide my subject down a bit, so I'll press and hold the Shift key as I drag it down.
Go to Filter and Filter Gallery.
Go to the Artistic folder and click "Paint Daubs".
Make the Brush Size: 8, the Sharpness: 20 and the Brush Type: Simple.
Click the Adjustment Layer icon and click, "Gradient Map".
Click the gradient bar to open the Gradient Editor.
I prepared two gradient maps for us.
We'll use this one for our subject and this one later for the background.
I ll show you how to make them.
Except for the first and last Stop, if you have multiple Stops in-between, click on each to delete them.
If the first Stop isn't all the way to theleft, just drag it across.
Its location should be 0%.
Click the color box to open the Color Picker.
Use the colors I'll be picking.
At the end, I'll show you how to change them if you want to.
In the hexadecimal field, type in 620000.
Then, click OK or press Enter or Return.
Click the below the bar approximately here to add a new Stop and make its location: 80%.
Click the color box and type in FF9000.
Click the lower, right Stop.
Its location should be 100%.
Click the color box and type in FFC600.
Then, click OK on both windows or press Enter or Return twice.
Notice the background behind our subject was also affected by the gradient map adjustment layer.
That's because adjustment layers affect all the layers below them in the Layers panel.
If we want to restrict the gradient map to affect just our subject and not the background,
we'll need to clip it to our subject.
To do this click the Clipping Mask icon or go to Layer and "Create Clipping Mask".
Double-click an empty area of the subject's layer to open its Layer Style window.
Click "Outer Glow" and the color box.
Type in FFBF24.
The Blend Mode is Normal, the Opacity is 50% and the Noise is 0.
The Technique is "Softer", the Spread is 0 and the Size is 50 pixels.
The Contour is linear, and the Range is 50%.
Click "Inner Glow" and the color box.
Type in FFBF24.
Next, we'll add a soft, light glow to our subject, but before we do, Shift-click the
Gradient Map adjustment layer to make it active as well and convert the two layers into one Smart Object.
Go to Filter and Filter Gallery.
Close the Artistic folder and open the Distort folder.
Click "Diffuse Glow".
Make the Graininess: 6, the Glow Amount: 10, and the Clear Amount: 15.
Next, we'll create a multi-faceted burst design behind our subject.
Go to View, Guides, and New Guide Layout.
Make the number or Columns and Rows 2 each and keep everything else empty.
If you don t see the guidelines, press Ctrl or Cmd + H. Hide the subject and make the background active.
Open the Elliptical Marquee Tool and place your cursor at the center of the guidelines.
Press and hold Alt or Option + Shift as you drag out a circular selection from the center approximately this size.
Open the Gradient Tool and click the radial gradient icon to make it active.
Click the gradient bar to open the gradient editor.
Click the lower, left Stop.
Its location is 20%.
Click the color box.
Its color is FDD500.
Click the middle Stop.
Its location is 50%.
Click the color box.
Its color is FF9000.
Click the lower, right Stop.
Its location is 100%.
Its color is 370800.
Go to the center and drag the Gradient Tool across to the middle edge of the selection.
Deselect it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + D. Convert it into a Smart Object so we can modify it non-destructively.
Let's hide the guidelines by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + H. Go to Filter, Stylize, and "Extrude".
Tick "Pyramids".
The Size is 30 pixels, and the Depth is 60.
I'll tick "Random", but feel free to tick "Level-based" if you want.
Make a copy of it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J. Make the copy's blend mode: Linear Dodge.
We'll rotate the copy by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + T to open the Transform Tool.
If you see this message, it's just letting us know that the extrude filter of the copy
will be temporarily turned off while we're using the Transform Tool.
Just click OK.
Go to a corner and press and hold the Shift key as you rotate the Transform's bounding box until it snaps 45 degrees.
Pressing Shift made it snap to it.
Then, press Enter or Return.
Make another copy and change its Blend Modeto "Screen".
Click OK if you see this message.
We ll enlarge it.
At the top, make sure the chain-link icon is active between the Transform's width and height.
This links them together.
Place your cursor over the "w" or the "h" which changes our cursor into a scrubby slider.
Click and drag it to the right approximately this much.
Then, press Enter or Return.
To save space in the Layers panel, we'll place all the extruded layers into a folder.
To do this, scroll down and Shift-click the bottom extruded layer to make all of them active.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + G. I'll name it, "Extrude".
Make the subject visible.
If you want to slide your burst design up or down, open your Move Tool and make sure "Auto-Select" is off.
This prevents other layers from becoming active when we click on our image.
Press and hold the Shift key as you drag your cursor up or down.
Next, we'll frame it with a thin inside border.
Make your subject active and make a new layer above it.
Open the Rectangle Tool and make sure "Pixels" is active.
We'll round the corners with a 50-pixel radius.
Click the gear icon and tick "Unconstrained".
Place your cursor approximately here and drag it approximately here.
We'll center it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + A to select our document and open your Move Tool.
Click the Align Horizontal Centers icon and the Align Vertical Centers icon.
Then, deselect it.
Ctrl or Cmd-click the black shape to select it and Alt or Option-click the Layer Mask
icon to make an inverted layer mask of the selection.
Click the layer to make it active.
We'll fill it with black and since our foreground color is black, press Alt or Option + Delete.
Double-click it to open its Layer Style window and click "Stroke".
The color is FFCB28.
The Size is 7 pixels, the Position is Outside, the Blend Mode is Normal, and the Opacity is 100%.
If you want to adjust the size of the burst design behind your subject,
make the Extrude folder active and open your Transform Tool.
As before, click OK if you see this message.
Drag the scrubby slider to the left or right.
then, press Enter or Return.
If you see any empty spaces along an edge of the background,
Ctrl or Cmd-click the New Layer icon to make a new layer below the folder.
Fill it with black.
Lastly, I'll show you how to change our game card's colors.
Make the top layer active and click the Adjustment Layer icon.
I'll show you two ways to do this.
One is with "Hue/Saturation" and the other is with "Color Balance".
Click "Hue/Saturation".
Drag the Hue slider to the left and right.
This is adjusting the hue or color.
You can also slide the saturation and lightness of the entire image.
Open the Adjustments panel.
If you don't see it, go to Window and Adjustments.
Click the "Color Balance" icon.
This filter allows us to change the overall mixture of colors.
Open the Tone balance options.
We can adjust the colors n each of the tones.
I generally leave "Preserve Luminosity" checked.
This prevents the luminosity values from changing in the image while changing the color.
These colors essentially correspond to the red, green, and blue channels.
By dragging a slider toward a color, we're basically adding that color to our image.
Conversely, by dragging a slider away from a color, it subtracts that color from the image.
Have fun experimenting with them.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. Thanks for watching!