Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV. I'm going to show you create a powerful, typographic portrait poster of someone from a photo. Open a photo of someone you'd like to use for this project. The result will look best when your subject is facing directly into the camera. The photo can be color or black and white. If it's in color,
desaturate it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + Shift + U. We'll make a selection around the subject to separate it from its background. The method you choose to make the selection should depend on the characteristics of your photo. For this example, I'll use the Quick Selection Tool. If you're using this tool as well, its size should depend on the the size and resolution of your document. You can either drag the tool inside or outside the subject. For this example, I'll select the ouside. To remove areas of the the selection, press and hold Alt or Option as you drag over those areas. Invert the selection by those areas.
pressing Ctrl or Cmd + Shift + I. Click the Refine Edge button or go to Select and Refine Edge. I did an in-depth tutorial on Refine Edge and I provided its link in the video's description. We're going to brush around the hair.
To resize your brush, you can use the slider. Check Smart Radius and increase the Radius a little bit. Drag around the hair and output it as a New Layer with Layer Mask. Then, click OK. The hair doesn't have to be perfect. We'll take care of the edges in a minute.
Make a new document by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + N. Let's name it "Poster". Change the Pixels to Inches and make its Width and Height whatever you'd like. I'll make my poster's height inches and its width inches. Make its resolution pixels per inch if you're going to ultimately print your poster. We'll make the background color black. If you're not working on a recent version of Photoshop, I'll show you how to make it black in a minute. If you are working on a recent version, open the Background Contents. Choose "Other" and pick black.
Then, click OK on both windows. If you're working on an earlier version, click okay on the New document window and press "D" to make your foreground and background colors black and white, respectively. Since your foreground color is black, press Alt or Option +Delete to fill the background with black. To fit it on your canvas, press Ctrl or Cmd + . Open the face document and drag the image up onto the Portrait tab. Without releasing your mouse or pen, press and hold Shift as you drag it down onto the background and release. Pressing Shift kept it centered on your background. To resize it, open your Transform Tool by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + T. Go to a corner and when you see a diagonal, double-arrow, press and hold Alt or Option + Shift as you drag it out or in. To reposition it, go inside the Transform and drag it.
Continue until the face is centered and fills the document. Then, press Enter or Return. To adjust the brightness and contrast of the face, open your Levels window by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + L. Adjust the Input levels until the shadows of the face are pure black and the lightest parts are bright enough. Then, click OK. Next,we'll blend in the edges of the hair with the background. Click the Layer Mask to make it active and open your Brush Tool. Open your Brush Picker. We'll take care of the brush size in a moment. Make the Hardness % and the Opacity & Flow % To make your brush larger or smaller, press the right or left bracket key on your keyboard. Brush over areas of your subject that you'd like to blend in better. Doing this reveals more of the black background through the layer mask. We're going to ultimately place our text on the side of the face that's brighter, which in this case, is the left side. If the light on your subject is evenly distributed, you can place your text on either side. Go to View and make sure "Rulers" and "Snap" are checked. If they aren't, just click on them. Go to the ruler on the left, and drag out a guide line to the center of your document. It'll snap in place because we have "Snap" checked.
If you don't see the guide line, press Ctrl or Cmd +H. Open your "Rectangular Marquee Tool" and go to the top corner of the side of the face that has less shadows. Drag a selection over half of the doucment and making sure it snaps to the center guideline. Click the New Layer icon to make a new layer. In this empty layer, we'll fill the selection with black. Assuming your foreground color is black, press Alt or Option +Delete. To deselect it, press Ctrl or Cmd +D. To hide the guideline, pressCtrl or Cmd +H. We're ready to add text. Open your Horizontal Type Tool. Open your list of fonts and choose a san-serif, heavy font. I'm using "American Captain Regular". If you'd like to use this font, I provided its link in the video's description or project files. Make its size between to points and Sharp. If your text will be on the left of your poster, click the "Align Right" icon. If your text will be on the right of your poster, click the "Align Left" icon. Click the color box and pick white. Place your cursor near the top, middle of your document and type out the first lines of text.
To adjust the space between lines, also known as "leading", go to Window and Character. The Character panel will open. Highlight your text and drag the "leading" slider to the left or right. Keep the space tight between the lines. Click next to the last character of your second line and continue to type out the rest of your text. Open your Move Tool and go to View and click "Snap" to deactivate it. Drag your block of text, so its almost touching the edge of the black background. To resize it, open your Transform Tool and go to the outside, bottom corner and press and hold Shift as you drag it out. Then, press Enter or Return. Ctrl-click or Cmd-click on the large "T" of your text layer to make a selection of your text's shape. Click on the eyeball next to the layer to hide the text. Make the black shape active and press the "Delete" key on your keyboard to delete the area inside the selection. Then, deselect it. If there are areas of the portrait that are a bit hard to read, I'll show you how to make the words more legible. Make the face active and open your Dodge Tool. Open the Dodge Picker . We'll care of the size in a moment. Make its Hardness %, the Exposure % and make sure "Protect Tones" is checked. Make the Range Shadows and adjust the size of your tool. Now, brush over the areas you want to brighten. This time, make the Range Midtones and brush over the same areas. Open your Brush Tool and reduce its opacity to %. Repeat brushing over those words. Continue to use the Dodge and Brush Tools until those words are easier to read. Next, we'll add a thin border set in from the edge of the poster. Make Layer active and click the New Layer icon to make a new layer above it. Fill it with any color. I'll fill it with the foreground color, which is white. Reduce the Fill's opacity to %. This makes whatever is filling the layer invisible, but any effects that we add to it will remain visible. Double-click on the layer to open its Layer Style window.
Click "Inner Glow". Change its Blend Mode to Normal, the Opacity % and the "Choke" %. I'll make the Size pixels, however, you may want to adjust this amount depending on the size and resolution of your poster. Click "Stroke" and make the Size between to pixels less than the amount you used for "Inner Glow". Make the Position Inside and change the Blend Mode to "Lighten". Then, click OK. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
