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    Halloween Photoshop - Skull Face Tutorial

    Uploaded by

    Nottingham Board and wargames Club
    This document provides a tutorial for creating a skull face photomanipulation effect in Photoshop for Halloween. It involves taking a stock image of a face and overlaying skull and flesh textures. Key steps include removing the background and eyebrows from the face image, adjusting skin tones, blending multiple skull stock images onto the face using layer masks and blend modes, and adding gore textures. Final adjustments like levels and color balance layers are used to further enhance the composite image and create a macabre, horror-themed effect.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Halloween Photoshop - Skull Face Tutorial

    Uploaded by

    Nottingham Board and wargames Club
    68 views7 pages
    This document provides a tutorial for creating a skull face photomanipulation effect in Photoshop for Halloween. It involves taking a stock image of a face and overlaying skull and flesh textures. Key steps include removing the background and eyebrows from the face image, adjusting skin tones, blending multiple skull stock images onto the face using layer masks and blend modes, and adding gore textures. Final adjustments like levels and color balance layers are used to further enhance the composite image and create a macabre, horror-themed effect.

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    This document provides a tutorial for creating a skull face photomanipulation effect in Photoshop for Halloween. It involves taking a stock image of a face and overlaying skull and flesh textures. Key steps include removing the background and eyebrows from the face image, adjusting skin tones, blending multiple skull stock images onto the face using layer masks and blend modes, and adding gore textures. Final adjustments like levels and color balance layers are used to further enhance the composite image and create a macabre, horror-themed effect.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    68 views7 pages

    Halloween Photoshop - Skull Face Tutorial

    Uploaded by

    Nottingham Board and wargames Club
    This document provides a tutorial for creating a skull face photomanipulation effect in Photoshop for Halloween. It involves taking a stock image of a face and overlaying skull and flesh textures. Key steps include removing the background and eyebrows from the face image, adjusting skin tones, blending multiple skull stock images onto the face using layer masks and blend modes, and adding gore textures. Final adjustments like levels and color balance layers are used to further enhance the composite image and create a macabre, horror-themed effect.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 7

    HOME TUTORIALS ART TUTORIAL INDEX RESOURCES PRODUCTS CONTACT Enter search keywords here

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    Kiren’s Digital Scream: September 2012 Halloween Photoshop: Evil Eyes SUBSCRIBE
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    HALLOWEEN PHOTOSHOP: SKULL FACE TUTORIAL Email:

    As the mystic season approaches, we celebrate communion Submit

    with the dead in grisly style.. 4 Weeks of Terror!! This is the

    first walkthrough in our Halloween Photomanipulation mini- FIND US ON:


    series; a ghoulish skullface effect created using layer masks

    and blend modes. Terrify friends and family with your reverse-

    makeover (or an amusing ‘before and after’ crystal meth


    TUTORIAL INDEX
    poster..) Read on for the skinny..
    Would you like to learn the art of photo
    manipulation, but don't know where to start?
    Check out our Tutorial Index, which lists all
    I WAS A TEENAGE GHOUL.. articles in order from Beginner to Advanced:

    This composite is put together using a primary figure image, a selection of skulls and some ‘flesh’ SurrealPSD Tutorial Index

    textures:
    CATEGORIES
    ART FEATURES

    ART THEORY

    ARTICLES

    BASICS TUTORIALS

    BEAUTY RETOUCH

    COMPOSITING

    FANTASY TUTORIALS

    HORROR TUTORIALS

    INDUSTRY ADVICE

    KIREN'S DIGITAL SCREAM

    LIGHTING

    RESOURCES

    SCI FI TUTORIALS
    PREPPING THE FACE STOCK CORNER

    The first step is to find a suitable stock image for base figure; it’s worth selecting a portrait style pose, TUTORIALS

    facing straight on; this will make life easier when matching the skull stocks. For the example piece, Ive TYPE EFFECTS

    used an image by MinorphicPhoto (DeviantArt).


    Start off by removing the background from your base figure – I used a Layer Mask and the Pen Tool.

    Check out our Pen Tool Background Removal article if your not familiar with this technique. You may

    want to pull in a new background to start adding a sense of mood, I used some film textures from

    Lost&Taken.com.

    LOSE THE EYEBROWS


    Eyebrows usually get in the way with this type of work, so it’s a good idea to get rid of them! This

    process is very straightforward, simply use the Patch Tool (J) to draw a rough selection around the

    eyebrow, and then click and drag to a clear area of skin – this will ‘content-aware’ fill the eyebrow area

    and usually works quite well. Repeat for the second eyebrow.

    EVIL EYES
    You may want to tweak the stock model’s eyes to ramp up that evil aesthetic. I used a little technique

    here involving duplicate layers and Screen Layer Mode. I’ll be doing a seperate tutorial on this style of

    eyes in the near future – so stay tuned for that one!!


    MUTE SKIN TONES
    Chances are your stock model will have a healthy skintone like our example gentleman.. A tweak of

    the skintones will help match the muted colours of the bone and also contribute to the macabre nature

    of the work. Create a new Layer Group (Ctrl/Cmd+G), and within the group use Adjustment Layers to

    work with the skin tones.

    I used a couple; Curves, Colour Balance and Hue/Saturation. For your own piece, use your preferred

    method to drain some of the life out of those cheeks! Once you are happy with the overall skintone,

    add a Layer Mask to the group that contains your Adjustment Layers and Invert the mask to Black

    (Ctrl/Cmd + I).

    Create a selection based on your stock model base layer (Ctrl/Cmd + click layer icon) and fill that

    selection with white on the skintone Layer Group Mask. This will apply all your adjustments to the

    figure only, and not the background. Your layer stack may look something like this:

    Before and after our skin muting adventures:


    DEM BONES
    Now it’s time for a bit of ‘bone work.. If your lucky, you may find just one skull image that fits nicely with

    your base stock – that wasn’t the case with me!! Here are the skull stocks that I used to construct the

    example piece.

    Skull1 from my HD, Skull2 by Aleuranthropy (DeviantArt), Skull3 by TheManface (DeviantArt)

    Whatever skulls you are working with, perform a background removal on each stock image so you are

    left with the skull only.

    CONTORTING THE SKULL


    Place your skull over the stock base layer; you may want to temporarily switch your skull to Overlay

    Layer Mode, so you can see how it ‘fits’ the face. Use the Distort Transform (Edit > Transform > Distort)

    to contort the skull stock to fit the model’s face. Once happy with the position, you may switch the

    Layer Mode back to Normal.

    BLENDING ELEMENTS
    This step arguably represents the true ‘art’ of the walkthrough. Add a Layer Mask to your skull layer(s)
    – invert the mask to black (Ctrl/Cmd + I) and then paint the skull elements back into the image using a

    large Soft-Edged Brush (B) set to white. In the screenshot below, all skull layers are set to Normal

    Layer Mode:

    SOFT LIGHT / OVERLAY


    Aside from using Normal Layer Mode, Soft-Light and Overlay are also used for more subtle bone

    effects. Using the techniques outlined above, ‘paint-in’ skull elements over your composite – but try

    using Soft-Light and Overlay modes to achieve a more restrained look. A new Layer Group for your

    skull elements is always helpful to keep things organised. Here’s the layer stack showing all the skull

    elements and their respective Layer Modes / Opacity:

    SLAUGHTER SKIN
    A selection of gore stocks were used for the decomposing skin effects, these elements were sourced

    from the Resurgere Slaughter Pack (DeviantArt)

    These flesh elements were blended using Layer Masks and set to Soft Light Layer Mode. Each of the

    gore layers were desaturated (Shift, Ctrl/Cmd + U), the desaturation basically stops the red tones

    overpowering the composite – but this is down to personal preference. The Layer Group containing the

    flesh elements:

    FINAL ADJUSTMENTS
    To darken / accentuate contours and recesses – use Levels Adjustment Layers to reduce brightness,

    set the mode to Soft Light and selectively paint in using the masks. In the example I also created a

    new layer (set to Soft Light), and painted with a dirty yellow colour to take the greys out of the

    cheekbones. Little touches, but well worth the effort:


    THE RESULT..
    For the final version, I ran our new ‘HD-Raagghh’ Photoshop Action through it, and it spat out this

    beast:

    REVIEW

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