In this tutorial, we’ll explore how to add more energy and dynamism to a photo. The effects can be extended and used on a multitude of photos to create a feeling of motion and vibrancy to a static image.
Step 1
Start by choosing an image similar to this one of someone jumping in the air (original image). Pick an image that you feel has a lot of energy already,
even before you’ve added everything else. Create a new document at A3
size with 300dpi, or if you prefer slightly smaller, then go for A4
300dpi.
Step 2
Drag your image into the new document and grab the
pen tool, carefully start adding point by point until you’ve drawn
around the entire body of the girl. Hit A to select the path selection
tool and right click on the path>create vector mask. This will give us a clean edge and knock out the background, ready for us to add our own.
Step 3
With a blank background, let’s create some instant depth to this piece by adding a gradient.
So select the gradient tool and keep it black to white. Now drag from
the bottom right to top left, but drag over the canvas edges so that it
sort of goes from dark grey to light grey.
Step 4
Now I sometimes like to get colour palette and tone
sorted early, and in the case of this piece let’s do just that. What
we’re going to do is something ever so simple but very effective in
creating the mood of the piece. In the menu go to Layer>New adjustment layer>Gradient map.
Now choose the preset blue, red to yellow gradient, hit ok and set this
layers opacity to 40%. It looks a bit washed out, so something you
should always do is add a couple more adjustment layers and for this
piece we’ll add one for brightness/contrast, set to +8 for brightness
and +28 for contrast, and one for levels which we’ll set to 15, 1.00 and
246 for the 3 input boxes.
Step 5
Let’s give some pop to the girl and add some
lighting. Ctrl+click on the original stock layer to create a selection
around the girl, then on a new layer, grab the brush tool and using
varying sizes and the flow set to around 24%, begin brushing areas you
think would look good with some white light on them. Then lower the
opacity to around 15-35%.
Step 6
Give the piece some instant energy appeal by adding
some diagonal stripes in the form of random geometric selections filled
with a pattern. Create a new document 40 x 40 pixels and create a shape
similar to the screenshot on the left below, make the background
transparent then Ctrl+A and go to Edit>define pattern. Now back to your main document and create some random geometric selections with the polygonal lasso tool and Edit>Fill them with your pattern. Keep them in the direction of the energy of your person in the piece and make some black, some white.
Step 7
Time to add some big bright coloured shapes to get this piece moving. Again with the polygonal lasso tool, create some big geometric multi-sided shapes,
and with the gradient tool set from red to yellow, fill your selections
and position/transform until you have a nice arrangement. Place them
above or behind the diagonal striped shapes, whatever you feel looks
good.
Step 8
Now start to layer it up by adding lots more shapes
of various sizes over and behind the girl. Do what we did in the last
step by using the polygonal lasso tool and create sharp shapes. Fill
some with a black to white gradient, others with a yellow to transparent
or red to transparent, play around with it until you’ve padded out the
illustration with a nice amount of shapes.
Step 9
Looking good? I thought so. Now let’s get some
detail worked into this piece. To do this lets create some shards to
enhance to energy of the piece. Grab the polygonal lasso tool again and
create a small angular shape, hold down shift and create another. Repeat
this several times until you have a bunch of shapes. Then fill them
with black/white and position. You could also use the pen tool, but in
this instance the lasso tool is better as the shapes will feel more
erratic and unplanned, which is what we want.
Step 10
Time to develop the piece some more. Grab the
polygonal lasso tool (yet again) and create some more selections, but
keep these quite square and not as sharp to provide some contrast to the
other shapes we created earlier. Fill with black and apply a gradient
overlay with the settings shown in the screenshot below. Notice the
effect on the girls arm, it’s now showing through as a solid shape
because of the lighting we added to her in step 5. So place a shape
behind that layer so it shows through, also feel free to create this
effect with other body parts of the girl.
Step 11
For some added energy, flow and detail we can add some thin lines to the image,
both over the top of most layers and some right in the background. So
grab the line tool and set it to 2 pixels wide, on a new layer start
drawing some lines in the direction of the rest of the shapes, don’t go
too crazy with them though, keep them subtle. Now make the line tool 1
pixel wide and on another new layer draw some more lines, almost as if
the lines are fragmenting.
Step 12
To further enhance the energy let’s create some
light streaks. So create some more thin sharp shapes and fill them in
white. Go to filter>blur>motion blur and make the angle the same
as the angle of your shape, with the distance set quite high to around
4-500. Duplicate and arrange some shapes and play with opacity and
blending modes for more interest.
Step 13
The image is now looking great but it’s not quite
complete, it needs some finishing touches. So create some more particles
with the pen or lasso tool and fill them with white and position them
behind most of the layers. Also create some larger shapes with subtle
gradients and overlay blending mode to give off a nice look, position
them as you’d like to achieve a nice balance. I’ve marked out where I’ve
added some extra shapes to using selections in the screenshot below.
Step 14
Almost there, and to make things abit more dynamic
for some of the shapes. Grab the brush tool at a size around 900 with
the flow set to around 15-20%. Gently brush onto areas to lighten it up,
be very subtle with this though as you don’t want to kill it. Then
lower the opacity to blend it in nicely.
Step 15
For the finishing touch well, you may not be a fan
of textures but I am, and for this piece it will work really well. Find a
high res paper texture like the one in the screenshot and drag it above
all layers in your main document, scale it up to fit if needs be and
set the blend mode to color burn with opacity at around 40%. This makes
the colours really come to life and makes the image more moody.
Step 16
So there we are, check the finished image below!
With images like this, there is a minimalist route and a more chaotic
route where we could have kept on going adding more and more shapes. But
in this instance we’ve settled for something in the middle with a
really nice balance.
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