So follow along and I'll try to share a few secrets into some of the magic, without the smoke and mirrors.
Well, maybe a little smoke.
Smokin' Woman
In this tutorial, I'm going to show how to create one smokin' woman using a
couple source pics, and just a few of the features associated with
Phoenix.
So follow along and I'll try to share a few secrets into some of the
magic, without the smoke and mirrors.
Well, maybe a little smoke.
With the general idea already in my mind, I needed to find a suitable
background image.
The image I found turned out perfect because of the line of
direction of the main figure's vision. He's looking directly where we're going
to place our smoke, creating unity among our elements. How convenient!
1. The first step was to remove most of the smoke from the original image, as
we'll be bringing in our own later on.
I did this simply by taking the Clone
stamp tool, shift-clicking a clean area of the background to sample, and
painting over the smoke covered areas with our selected sample.
It doesn't need to be perfect at this point,
as most of it will be covered by the end anyways.
2. Next, I brought in a high contrast image of a model. Not only do the
natural stark shadows and highlights of this image look good, but hey, the
contrast will do half the work for us in the long run.
Using a combination of
the Move and Distortion tools, I resized and situated the model right where we
want her.
Then set the layer's blend mode to "Screen".
3. Now that we have our basic composition in place, it's time to get to the
real action.
Using the liquify tool, I smudged the edges of the figure and
pulled out trails to draw a smokey effect.
I did that until I was left with a
wispy looking figure.
And remember, the more work you do in this stage, the
less time it'll take to cover your overlooked areas later on.
It's almost good to go just as is, if I do say so myself.
But since we
saved time by finding excellent source pics to begin with, let's spend our free
time fine tuning this thing up.
4. Our lady could always be more smokin'. And what's more smokin' than, well,
smoke?
Using the Lasso tool, I copied and pasted a segment from an image of
actual smoke onto a new layer.
I set
this layer to "Screen", just as we did with the woman. Using the Move tool, I
resized the piece to situate around our lady friend.
I repeated that step
numerous times until our lady was covered entirely hiding my earlier (now
hideous in comparison) attempts to freehand the smoke entirely.
5. Now we're getting somewhere! But I still wanted to expose a few of the
highlights of the smoke a bit more. Just to give it that extra pop.
I did
this by using a white brush to paint a rough outline around the figure on a new
layer, then set this layer to "Overlay".
6. Then, as a final touch, I filled the entire image in a light blue on a new
layer, then set this layer to "Overlay", and set the opacity to 25%.
Of
course, this step is not 100% necessary, but it adds a little extra mood and
brings the whole image together harmoniously.
And there you have it. With the magic of Phoenix, you've created the smokin' woman of your dreams.
Man and smoke from
www.istockphoto.com
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=1703022
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=1369639
Woman from www.sxc.hu