Fun With Photoshop: Caricatures

1. Introduction: everyone know here with a fun photo shop class that shows you how to create a caricature from a regular photograph. It's a fairly simple technique with very powerful results, often used by photo editors to enhance and manipulate images in marketing campaigns. While our focus will be on lighthearted and playful characters, the skills learned this class can be carried over the more serious subject matter and roll today to have fun with photographic characters and add a new tool to your photo shop skill set up. Next, we'll begin by setting up our scene. 2. Setting Up Our Scene: for our first lesson will practice our caricaturing skills on a human. Begin by opening your photo and photo shop and unlock it in the layers panel. I like to duplicate the original to have a backup just in case I mess up horribly, which does happen to duplicate right. Click the layer in select duplicate layer or select the layer and click control J or command J on the keyboard. Name your duplicate. Appropriately, before we can begin disfiguring our test subjects, we must first prepare the document by isolating the main objects that will be manipulated. To do this, grab your lasso tool and go around the object you want to isolate. It's OK to leave space between the object in this election. This gives you some wiggle room when it comes time to clean up the image at the end. The main elements that I recommend separating for the project are the head with hair, the neck, the torso, the arms and hands and, if visible, the legs. Usually when you hear the word caricature, you think of a really exaggerated head. So that's where we'll begin our project. But the head now selected it control J. or command J on the keyboard. To duplicate the selection, you will see that on Lee. The head was added to a new layer renamed the layer appropriately, so we can find it easily later in the process. If the feather around the cropped images too big, you can adjust it at the top. Continue to separate the main elements that you want caricatured and exaggerated. Keep in mind the order of the layers when creating your duplicates. For example, in this image, the mother's faces overlapping the child's face. So I want the mother's face to be above the child's layer. Remember to select the main duplicate layer before cropping. A new section now that we have our elements separated will go over the basic tools needed to distort our image. 3. The Liquify Filter Tools: in this lesson will begin with enlarging the head of our character and then move on to the basic tools found within the liquefy filter. We can begin our caricature by scaling up the face layer. It control T or command T to bring up the free transform tool. Or you could go to edit transform scale. Make sure to hold down the shift key while expanding the face to keep the transformation uniforms. With the face now enlarged, we can begin exaggerating it with the liquefy tool. To access this tool, go to filter, liquefy or hit shift control X on the keyboard. A new window will pop up with the current selected layers visible. Let's go over the basic tools available when the liquefy filter is open. The first tool available is the forward warp tool. When you click and drag on the image, it warps the image along the path of the mouse. Next is a reconstructed let's say your images to worked. When you click and hold the mouse down, the image will revert back to the original dimensions. After that, we have the pucker tool, which reminds me of a black hole, found space because anything along its path get sucked inwards. Next is the blood tool. It reminds me of a balloon inflating Hold the mouse down to expand the image below. That is the push left tool, which is pretty self explanatory but a little tricky to handle. But once you figure it out, it can be used to create very smooth curves. Next, you'll find the move and magnify tools. If you've never opened the liquefy filter before, you will only see these basic tools. But if you look to the right hand panel and select the advanced mode tab, more options will be made available to you. If you have a stylus pen, you can allow pressure sensitivity. But perhaps the most important tool is the ability to protect elements of the image. With a mask on the left hand panel, you'll now see the new tools to select. You'll see that frees mask tool, which allows you to paint over areas of the image that you want to protect from the liquefy filter tools. So if I paint over the eyes and mouth and use the bloat tool, you'll see that everything around the painted area is affected. You can take off the mask on the right hand panel. Let's reconstruct our image. Let's say we want to adjust or remove some of the mask. We can use the Thal mask tool, which is basically an eraser for the mask. Okay, now that we have a basic understanding of the tools, let's begin caricaturing. 4. Caricaturing Our Image: Now we're ready to make a caricature from our photo when using the liquefy tool. Certain features of the face, such as the eyes, brows, teeth and lips could become too distorted if one isn't careful. So to prevent this will work on the overall shape. First, isolating areas that need protection. Ben will move inwards towards the main facial. Features begin by protecting the eyes and mouth with a mask. My goal is to accentuate the forehead in the cheeks while bringing in the chin toe a 10 point. As you're doing this, try to look for opportunities to create nice flowing lines or basic shapes such as oval squares and triangles. You'll notice I'm making very gentle adjustments because a small nudge can have a very big impact on the overall image. I'm pretty happy with the left side of the face, but I want to keep working on the hair. So I had a mask to protect what I think is working. You'll often see cartoon characters with very large noses, but in this case I want to do the opposite and try to get a tiny nose with a very smooth ridge that resembles a slide I'll use the pucker tool to shrink the nose and then use the forward warp tool to push the ridge of the nose for a nice, clean swoop. I'll protect the eyes, brows, and now the mass can be annoying. So sometimes I take it off to see the result. When working on your image, always try to keep in mind the personality, every character, its drive to show who they are in their eyes and in their posture. Use. If you mess up, remember that you can always reconstruct the image. The mouth and cheek interaction is another area that you can push the personality when you're happy with the adjustments. Hit OK on the right hand panel to see your changes, you can see how different our character looks compared to the original. All with a few adjustments, you can clean up the edges with a soft edged eraser. Now let's move on to adjusting the torso. I want to exaggerate the waistline and try to get a nice move curve for the posture. Extend and been out the neck. Exaggerate the puffiness of her dress and try to keep the hands large Here. I'm using the push left tool to squish everything to one side. If I go back to the original image, you can see that the new torso does not have a background image. I used a couple of techniques to build a new background that felt like it belonged in the world of the photo. First I tried selecting the area I wanted to correct by using the content aware fill it'll , but that didn't get me good results. Next, I grabbed an area of the background that didn't touch the characters and duplicated it by hitting control J or Command J on the keyboard. This put this election on a separate layer, stretched the work, the adjustment background until it covered the area that was once exposed and cleaned up the caricatured image to help it better fit into the world. Okay, let's move on to the child character. Start by scaling the head toward abnormally large size. Do it and don't look back. We could make the child more visually appealing by expanding the forehead in the eyes while working too short and the jawline remember to keep the personality in mind and try to convey what the characters thinking to the audience. In my example, a child is tired of waiting for the photographer to take the picture. Try to keep the line smoother if possible. This could be tricky, especially if you're nudging the image. Little by little for the dress. I'll make it big and puffy and in the neck line a little. If we hide some layers, we can see what we started with. What a difference, huh? I can see some areas that need refinement, so I'll grab my eraser and start cleaning up any loose ends. Finally, if you're feeling adventurous, you can create a new empty layer to add extra elements and enhancements. The image, such as darker eyelashes, writer reflections in the eye and a touch of pink in the cheeks. - Make sure to save your image before moving on up. Next will work on a color image with a four legged creature. 5. Caricaturing a Dog: so we've had some fun exaggerating a human. Now let's turn our canine friends into an adorable cartoon hound, in this example will use a new technique in combination with the liquefy tool. To exaggerate our subject. Push the threshold acuteness. We're going to double the size of the puppy's head and will also expand the size of his paws. From a design point of view, I want to streamline the curves of the body and try to create a strong line of action. Let's begin by unlocking and duplicating our original later. Use the lasso tool to outline the puppy and hit control J or Command J on the keyboard. Or go to the top menu and select layer new layer by a copy. Make sure to name your layers appropriately to keep everything organized and easy to locate . With this new technique, I'll be using the mesh warp tool in combination with the liquefy tool. I want to separate the main elements of the face and put them in their own layer. The's elements include the head, the mouth, the eyes and the years. Let's separate the front legs since we know the pause will be expanded and the back legs for consistency. Since I have so many separate elements for the head, make sure the layers are arranged in a manner that will allow them to be viewed correctly. But the main head layer selected goto edit transform for you'll now see a mesh box around the head layer with several adjustment points. If you click and drag the point, you'll see how it affects the layer handlebars that appear on the corner. Points allow you to affect the curvature of the outside bent. The image was getting a little confusing with all the internal facial layers visible, so I turned them off to better see how the work tool was affecting the main head layer. The face is not very appealing, but the point of this warp was to get a big round face for the puppy. You can start to move the individual elements toe where they would fit best on the face and to figure out where we need to spot correct or eliminate old facial features. You can use the content aware fill tool by selecting the area you want to edit and going to edit Phil and make sure the content aware is selected before hitting. Okay, You can also use the spot healing brush tool, which will sample areas of the image that are close by. Let's put the eyes in place and scale them up. Do the same for the mouth and use the work tool to connect the edges as best possible. You can always go back to the head layer and readjusted with the warp tool. Remember to look for nice connecting curves from the head to the body. There are some rough spots visible at the moment, but I'll make sure to clean them up for all the sudden done. We wanted a big, fluffy head and boy, did we get one. When you're happy with the arrangement of facial features, you can clean up any excess from the image before moving on to the liquefied. Filter will need to merge all of the individual body parts by shift, selecting what we want to merge, right clicking on the mouse and choosing merged layers. You'll now see that we have one layer for the new puppy. Go to filter liquefy, and you should see that the advanced settings are still available from the previous example . If not just select the advanced mode check box here. My focus will be on the eyes and mouth for personality as well as trying to create appealing lines around the body. When you're happy with the transformation, it okay to go back to the main workspace. - The original puppy is a little too big, so I'm going to use the content Aware tool, the fill in the area that's overlapping our new puppy. Look out for any warps and mistakes on the background and clean them up as best possible. Here. I'm using the eraser tool to get a little closer to the for. - When you're happy with the results, make sure to save your project up next, we'll go over the class project. 6. Final Project: now that we have an understanding of the tools and techniques that can be used with the liquefy tool, let's put them to use with our class project. Solidify your new skills by picking a picture of either a human or an animal. The goal is to exaggerate the subject and try to imbue a sense of personality and story. Look for opportunities to expand the head. Use the mask tool to protect the structural integrity of the eyes, the brows and the mouth, and look for ways to streamline shapes by creating nice curves. If you're feeling adventurous, enhance your image by painting extra details such as thicker eyelashes or reflections in the eye. If you want some more practice on navigating the painting tools, check out my other class coloring and Photoshopped from sketch to fully colored illustration. I'll include a link in the project description. When you're posting the student gallery, make sure to include your original photo along with the caricature. I'm excited to see what you come up with on when you post in the student gallery. It gives others a chance to learn from your ideas, so let's help each other grow and show off your work. Thanks for joining me in this class. I hope you found value in the tutorial and you learn a skill or two. Thanks again. And remember, keep on creating.