Transcripts
1. Welcome to the class: Over the years, I created
so many pieces of surreal art that some even got featured by
Adobe themselves. And after years of experience, I broke it down into easy
to follow steps on how to create such pieces of art yourself for this class project. We will go through step by
step from where and how to take your picture to
editing it in Photoshop. And while this looks
complicated to do, I can guarantee you
it is not at all. And all you really
need is any camera. A phone camera is more
than good enough. And any laptop. Since photoshop isn't really
heavy software at all. Now, if you have
photoshop, that's great. But if you don't,
it's completely fine. There are ways to go around this without having
to pay anything, and I'll show you
in the later class. This class is suitable
for any level. And if you don't
have experience on photography or photoshop,
that's completely fine. Now, you might think
that photoshop is complicated or has
a lot of tools, but it's actually simple since you only
need five of them, which I'll teach you in
five individual lessons. And these tools are
the most common ones, and learning them are crucial also for other projects you
might have in the future. And the goal is to
have at the end your very own piece
of surreal art. It's way easier than you think. I guarantee you that. With that said, see you
in the next chapter.
2. Importance of location + examples: To have a general idea on the
photo you want to create. First things first, you
need to think of location. It could either be inside
or outside your home, and both are perfectly fine. I created amazing pieces both inside and also
outside of my home, and in any case, for it to be a good photo, it generally needs to be a little more on the simple side. What I mean is there's
not many things in the background to distract the viewer so it
can focus on you. Let me give you some examples. So for example here,
I was at the lake, the first thing you
really notice here at the first moment is my
clothes right in the center. And then you notice
the environment, the ripples of the water. It's just simple. If it would have a
lot of things in the background like a lot
of trees or other people, it wouldn't be as aesthetically
pleasing in my opinion. And this is another example. Although it has a lot of people, there's a lot of
things in between. The first thing you notice
is me in the middle. I mean, me without my
head in the middle. And that's because first, I'm in the middle
and also the colors. My clothes have colors
and the other people's, I photoshopped so that it would be become
black and white. And for me, this is
clear enough for the person to immediately
look at me and notice me and then
the background with so much confusion on where to look at
and where to focus on The color contrast is enough. Here is another example of just me at the
beach with a balloon. I just like the
simplicity, you know? And immediately, again, your
eyes go towards the subject. There's not much more going on. And I feel like something
like this being so simplistic makes you able to
wanting to have it framed. Another thing to take into
account is the time of day because the same place can look completely different at
two different times of day. Usually in the sunset, you have the most aesthetically pleasing soft light
on your face. But this doesn't really
matter since we're cutting our face out
and our arms out. But what's important
here is the feelings that we get when we look at
the picture and the scenario. Okay. So this is in the lake next to the beach and
you really see how the warm colors of
the sunset really make it zen like, I would say. It's very calming to
me when I watch this. And this feeling would only
be possible to achieve if I took the time to wake up really early and go to the
lake at that time. And then here we have again, another example of me at the
beach at a more normal time, actually a little foggy, which gives this
feeling of mystery. Which blends really well with
what I was trying to show. Also, the same space like
the beach, for example, can have several
different angles and several different heights, how you can point it out. Those factors will
play a big importance, but that I will show you in the other chapter where
I actually shoot. In my case, I would think
maybe my next photo would be in the setting that's in an empty cornfield.
I like that idea. A vast land of dirt that I think it's an
interesting place to go for. Now it is your turn. Think of a place first. Where do you think
your next piece of art will be located at? I remember, it could be inside your home or outside.
That's completely fine. Once the location is set, think about the time of day and think about what
weather you'll have. All of these things will influence how your
photo will look and keep that in mind for your future piece
of art. Good luck.
3. Importance of clothes + examples: Now that your photo
location and time is set, I want to shift the
focus to clothes. If the clothes don't set
well with the scene, you risk confusing the viewer. But honestly, there are no
fixed rules to clothes here. You can break these rules. You can have really contrast colors compared to
the background, which also would be a good idea. And maybe that would be something interesting
to experiment. But clothes do make
or break your photo. So let me give you
some examples. In this example where
I was in Munich, I had winter clothes
since it was pretty cold, you know, now that
I think of it, maybe it could be interesting if I was wearing, I don't know, something like shorts or a T shirt because it would fit really well with
the people looking around me. Now, here where I
was on a hay roll. I decided to wear something more simple colors
that would not contrast with the
yellows of the hay roll, and also not too far
away from the sky. In this case, it just
blends well in here. Honestly, I really
like this one. In this case, if I were to
wear more modern clothes, I wouldn't think this
would work as well. And this lamp post idea, I thought it'd be better to
only wear black clothes, so it blend in and be in one
piece with the lamppost. And I think the
end result turned out pretty fine. I
really like this one. And here at the creepy corridor, I wouldn't do it
any differently. I really like how the light
really focuses on me. It really lights me
up, creates a contour. And also, I like the dark color of and in this case,
was my bed sheet, and I think the creepiness 100% blends well
with this injury. I really like this
one. And here, since the scene was
all black and white, only whites grays, black, I decided to also wear
whites grays and blacks. So it would blend well. In this case, it could
also contrast nicely if I would wear maybe
all bright red clothes. That would also work fine. But at that time, I
didn't have such clothes, so I went for all
black and white. Which ended up
working nicely too. And for the example
I'm going to give you, I'm going to wear this green
shirt and these beige pants. Since these colors would
blend well in the cornfield, and I was thinking I could
be maybe a scarecrow. And these clothes
are pretty simple. Something that a
scarecrol would wear. Now, it is your turn, what colors of
clothes or types of clothes you think would
best fit your scenario? Maybe it could be
something completely contrasting or maybe it could be something
that completely fits. What do you think? Good luck.
4. Importance of objects + examples: Extra objects are something
additional that I like to sometimes use to give that
extra umph to the photo. It interacts with me, and it becomes really interesting when it
morphs together. Now, if you are
taking any objects, I want to make
sure that you take them with you because
if you add them, for example, like
an Internet photo or you just take a
photo in the next day. The lighting and colors
sometimes don't match, and it makes really complicated to match them together
in photoshop. You need to really modify
or in some places, it's just not possible. And let's see some examples
where I use some objects. Okay. Here, I was sitting
in this bench and I decided it'd be interesting if I could add a
stick in between me. So I took the time and took a picture of the stick alone
at the same position so that the lighting and every
reflection would match the photo scenery and make it really easy for me
to add afterwards. And the result, I think
it's pretty good. But another example
I'm going to show you is if the object isn't
possible to be placed there. You can always take
the picture of the object with the same
lighting conditions, make sure the shadows match
and with the same angle. So let's see here
in this example. Here in this photo, I first
just took a photo of me almost falling off because I was imagining I would have
a heavy object on top. And then I took a picture
of the light pole. I made sure that when I took
a picture of the light pole, I would be at the same angle. So the sun is at the back. And when I merge these
two photos together, it becomes smooth
to combine them together because I
don't need to mess around with shadows, lighting. They all match together, and it's the best
scenario you can do. What I did here
was I had to take individual pictures of each
object and me jumping, and in this case, I threw the bottles up and
then took the picture. And other bottles as well, and also the wooden
palette or just balance. And photoshop this
took more work than I was expecting it to be
because of the shadows. This is something also
important to notice. And once you're
working with sunlight, it creates shadows
and you have to make sure to become realistic is that the shadows
interact with each other. And in the case I'm going
to do for this class, I'm thinking of
bringing a shovel. A shovel because it has a stick, and all scarecrows have a stick through their
body for them to sit on. And I think that'd be a good
object to interact with. And now, it is your turn. Objects are not always needed. They're optional,
but can you think of something extra that
you might want to use
5. How to photograph yourself: There are two ways of photographing yourself
for this type of art. And the first one is you take a picture of
the empty scenery, then you take a picture of
the scenery with yourself, and if the camera has the
same manual settings, then you can use the
information from the empty scenery onto yours. However, in my experience, I've tried this method, and I think it's a lot
of unnecessary work. This method works well if you're really close
to the camera and you have to take out a big chunk of information from the photo. But usually how I
take these pictures, I go more behind. I'm more far away. So all you have to take is a
smaller part of the picture, and there's methods
that you can use the information around you to
correct for what's inside. And that I think it's easier. And the second
method to use is to just take a normal
picture and then edit it. And there's a few things
you need to be careful. If you are levitating, in this case, I would be jumping in the air and then
take the picture, I would make sure
in your phone or in the camera you set to
shutter speed priority, and then set yourself
a high shutter speed. A high shutter speed enables
you to take pictures of fast moving objects and being sharp instead
of being blurry. If you're using an object in your photo and you need
to combine one photo with the other you better make sure that these two
have the same settings. So when you match them
together, it becomes seamless. You don't have to
mess around with the brightness or anything else. So in this case, I would use the manual settings
on your phone. Or the manual settings from your camera so that
you make sure that both photos have the exact
same lighting conditions and the exact same settings. For now, I want you to familiarize yourself
with your own camera. Maybe you haven't explored the manual settings
from your phone, and also you should explore the way how to change
your shoulder speed. This will come in
really handy if you're taking photos of quick objects. Good luck.
6. Let's shoot + tips: Just let don't you
ready to meet me. I, and I'm riding
the first lead. Don't let me down. I'm on fire. It's only gonna get darker. And I won't be able to last this long
in the cold weather. Uh. Okay. So first things first, when you reach your location, you want to look around
not only with your eyes, but also with your
camera because what you see is completely different
to what the camera says. So take the camera around, point it at different angles, heights to compare it. The possibilities are endless. The high angle in this case, did not work well because the trees in the background
distracted a lot. But when I lowered the camera, I saw the potential photo that could be taken
from this angle. A little tip is for you to expose a little lower than
normal than too high. Because if you go too high, you cannot correct for that. If you're too dark, you can always increase
the brightness. If you have someone to help you, you can always ask them to
take the picture for you. If not, you can always set
your camera on a self timer, run to the spot, and
then take the picture. In my case, with a
more modern camera, I can connect my phone to the camera and use it
as a remote control. This process is exactly
the same as a self timer. The only difference is
you just need less tries. And what I would do is
set a two second timer, put my phone in the pocket, and then jump in the
right spot. Like this. In my case, I would like my
position to be like this. Because a scarecrow
is always like this. I could have been
other positions like the lamp post was
a little like this, almost falling because of
the weight of the head. You have to play around with these things and maybe
the objects you have. You'd repeat this as many
times as you'd like. Even if you find a nice photo, you keep trying to
really get more comfortable with the situation and you just get
the timing right. I think we're done.
It's cold. It's cold. It's cold. Oh, much better. Oh.
7. How to get Adobe Photoshop: Now that we shot our photos, all we have to do is transfer the photos from the
camera to the laptop, and now the magic begins. If you don't have
adobe photoshop, I've linked down
below a free link for you to download a trial
version of seven days. And seven days might
not seem like a lot, but I guarantee you you
only need maximum well, less than one day or two maximum if you're familiarizing yourself in the first day with the tools, You don't need more than that to create your piece of art. Trust me, at the end, it'll be all worth it after
you finish your own project. Good luck and see you
in the next lesson.
8. Photoshop: Basics: Okay, great. Now, from now on, down below, I included all the files you'll
need for each class. That includes a simple example
for you to familiarize yourself with the
tools and train a little bit before you
go into the real deal. And for this one, it's
just the photoshop basics. You don't need to
download anything. You can follow along with me. Welcome to the Photoshop
tutorial part. In this lesson, I will
introduce you to the basics, how to move yourself
inside Photoshop, how to put a picture,
how to zoom in, out the layers, just the basics
to get yourself familiar. Let's start by creating
a new project. I will create an A four
size and I will create. Here we are. Maybe at first it might seem a
little overwhelming, but it's completely fine. If maybe you don't have the
windows here the same as me, I would go here to window, workspace, essentials,
which is the default. First things first, maybe you would like to put a picture, and how we would do that is to simply just drag a picture. Let's see here, a
picture, and like this. Then you can choose
where you want to go. I would like it here and
click on this check. Just like so. Now
we have a picture. To zoom in or out, we would like to use this
magnifying glass. And I just left click and move to the right or left click, move to the left. Just like so. If you have the
magnifying glass, right click and then fit
on screen immediately. It would fit on screen. This is a very useful tool to know. If you want to maybe move
around your picture, I suggest using Control T or command if you're
using on Mac. Then here you can resize your picture or
move your picture. On the right, we
can see the layers. We can see the eye, that's basically to see if
it's visible or not, so I can click this. The layer, it's now invisible. Now the layer is visible. You see this layer is on
top of the white layer, which is the background,
and we could change the background color
to be anything we would like. For example, just like paint, you can use the bucket tool here and you can choose a color. I'll choose a nice pink, and I'll click on the layer
that I want to work on, not on this one,
but on this one. And I'll change the
color, just like so. We can also go back using
Control Z or go forward. Control Shift Z. This
is important to know. Now, if we want to add a
layer, so for example, I want to add a layer in between my photo and the pink
background. I would click here. Create a new layer, you
can move layers around, I can move forwards or
backwards, it's all fine. And let's maybe use a brush. This is the brush tool. And
let me choose a black color. In this case, the layer
is on top of the pink, but below the photo. So if I draw like this, you see how I'm drawing beneath the photo but
on top of the pink. Now, if I were to move
this layer to the top, Basically, it's on the top layer and you see on top
of everything. In this case, let's
keep it in the middle. And while we're at
the brush tool, I think it's important to
know that you can change the brush size by clicking here, you can change the
size or the hardness. If it's a really soft brush,
you see the difference. If it's a real hard brush, it'll be completely
solid, just like so. I just want you to know that there's a lot of
shortcuts to this. For example, if I hold
Alt and right click, I can change the brush
size left and right, and up and now
changes the hardness. But this I will not teach
since we're at the basics. For now, you can click
where it's supposed to be and change the size through here and the hardness
through here. Now, maybe one more
important thing is here, the text tool, you
can add some text. So for example, I want
to add text here. And you can change the font
and the size of the text. So for example, let's say, a small text here,
or use a big one. And you can write
whatever you want. Hello people. And you see in this case, the text layer is
beneath the photo. So if I go like this, I have right now the text on the top layer and it's
visible by everything. Again, if you want
to move around, you can control T,
and then move around. Change size, just like so. If you want to delete a layer, you click on the selected
layer and you click backspace. Or you can click and drag to
this bin, and you'll delete. I would like you to play
around with putting a picture, changing the brush sizes, painting a little,
adding some text, and zooming in, out, being comfortable
with the program, and when you're comfortable, I'll see you in the
next chapter where we will select stuff. See you then.
9. Photoshop: Selection: In this section, I
will teach you all about selecting objects
and cutting them. There's several different ways. They're all simple, and
some ways are better for certain situations while others shine in other situations. And if you want to follow along, you can download the pictures
that are down below. Welcome to the selection part
of this photoshop tutorial. And here, I'm going to teach you the several
ways you can select things in the pictures for you to cut or maybe move around. This is a really important one. First things firs, I will
duplicate this layer, you can right click duplicate, just like so, so that you
have a clean plate always. The first method,
it's actually with this rectangular marquee tool. Click on it, and then
you can just create a rectangle, so
you'll come here. You just selected this area highlighted by the lines here. You can do a lot of things.
You can right click, you can select the
inverse, like so. So it selects everything
except what you selected. So for example, I will
turn off this one, so we only have this layer, and I'll click
backspace, so delete. All of a sudden, we only have this and you can right
click and deselect, and there we have it. I'll control Z control Z. You can also select
only the thing here and delete and you delete
only the selected area. These two are
important. Control Z. As you can see, there
are two pictures, one on the left, and
one on the right. I put these two pictures
because there's two ways of selecting
two situations. The first situation is there's a lot of contrast between
the thing you want to cut. So for example, me
and the background. The background is really bright. There is a really
sharp contrast. This is a really good
and easy way to select. And on the right, we
have a harder situation. So, for example, we
have here the hair, and the background is
very dark as well. So the contrast is very little. It's really hard to select. So let's start with the
easy one on the left. Here I can select
this tool here, the quick selection tool. It's called quick
selection because it's the easiest one and
the quickest one. So here you have
here your brush. I will set a little higher, a little bigger, and
you see the plus. That means you want to select everything here, so the black. And all it does is you
select the pixels you want, and Photoshop will see, Oh, so you want
these dark pixels. So it will select the other
pixels as well that are dark. And at the edges here,
I'm going to zoom in, you can see that as
long as photoshop sees, Oh, this is not dark,
so it stop selecting. That's how it works. This is a quick way to select the
subject in this case, you can do anything you want. You can for example,
select the inverse, and then you delete
and you only got me or you don't select the inverse and you delete
myself from the Poto. You can copy also myself, for example, like this. You got myself in
a separate layer. This might be
useful, for example, if you want to add a new layer in between me and
the background, and then you create
here a new text. So text. And then here, maybe I'll change the
color to red so it's more visible and then control
T and I'll move the text. And you see. This is
useful for thumbnails of videos or you want to add
something that is behind, for example, my
head or any object. This is very useful
for this case. This is a little extra. So for example, you're using
this quick selection method. You've selected your subject. So I'll zoom in here and you see the hairs here.
They're still black. You want to include them, but it's really difficult
with the brush. So what you do is
you select and mask, and then you have the
edge detection here. All you do is use the
brush and click away, and photoshop will S which pixels are which for it
to include the hair or not. And this is a more
detailed selection method. For example, here, I'll
go a little to the right. You see here at the edges of the hairs, it's
really difficult. These edge selection is
very helpful for hairs. The other parts are okay. I'll click and you see here, photoshop selects
way in more detail. And then you can click
and then layer via copy and you have your
selection, more in detail. This is only good for hairs.
This is just an extra. You probably won't
need to use this. It's just for you
to know. Now let's go to the second option. The second option like I
did here in this stumbnil. I selected, but
it was very hard. You see that it's dark
and it's dark outside. We'll use this just
to test it out. You see, Photoshop
recognized that, Oh, you want me to select
the dark pixels, and it selects basically the whole thing because
it's also dark here. It's very hard for
photoshop to know. Let's deselect this. I usually use this tool here. This is a more manual tool. This is a polygonal lasso tool. There's more tools than this. You just hold left click
and then you have others. But in this case, you
usually use this one, which is the one I'm
going to teach you. So this is a more manual way. So if I zoom in really
closely, you see here, I'll use this polygonal
lasso tool and click, and then you see
with straight lines, you can select manually. Like this, so, continue over my hair
like this, like this. The more points you do,
the more detail it is. For now, I'm just going to stop. I could continue more. But for now, this
purpose is good. I will right click and layer via copy that will copy into
a new layer, like this. Let's add some new text. I'll create a new layer, text
tool like this. Text. T. You see, all of a sudden, it can create a
better selection, but it's not perfect. The technique I use very often
is using this eraser tool. I go here and the
size and a little soft and I select
this layer here, the head layer I just selected. I'll make it a little bigger, and then you soften
up the edges. So it looks more
natural. Just like so. Just a little too much. And a little to the
right, just like so. So if I right click
and fit to the screen, you see now that it's more zoomed out, it's looking better. This will be very
important skill to use because these
details matter when we're doing our
own piece of art. And these are the
actual two ways I select stuff all the time. These two will get
you everywhere. I just want you to
know that there's also other ways like the
pen tool, for example, here, It's better for curse, but this is a more complicated and more complex way
of selecting stuff. For now, this polygonal tool is a tool I use all the time, just like so in the
curves with points. And it has served me
very well for years, and I still use it to this
day. Now it's your turn. You can download this
picture and practice with the quick selection
method tool and with a more manual polygonal
selection tool. Practice, this will be very, very useful. Good luck.
10. Photoshop: Remove anything from photos: In this section, I will teach
you some photoshop magic, and that is if you want to remove anything
from the photo. It's super impressive,
what you can do with it and don't forget. You can follow along with me if you download the
picture down below. This section, it will get really interesting because
we're going to deal with how to remove a
certain object from a photo. First things first, let's copy this layer
and duplicate it. So we can have a
before and after, and I'll zoom into this berry. Our goal will be to remove
this berry from the photo. I'll use this selection
method like we had used before and just select around the array
we want to remove. Now, what we do is
shift back space, and then we have this menu. In the fill part, we have content aware, which
is the one we want. And if it's, for example, white, and we do it, it
just fills with white. We don't want that.
So shift back space. We will use content aware, mode normal opacity, 100%. So basically what Photoshop does here is he sees
the pixels around, gets to know what to use, and then it will fill inside. We click Okay. And it
uses the pixels around. It uses all the information around for it to
remove the sparry. So let's see before and
after. Isn't that amazing. We can use the same method
for other berries too, so I can select this area here. Shift backspace, content aware. Okay. And isn't that amazing? Just like that, so easy and
it removes the objects here. Now, this method works in some places and others might
be a little more difficult. So for example here, we selected this berry and we can use all of
this information. However, let me give
you a harder example. So if we want to maybe
remove this whole chair, this will be very hard because
the photo doesn't contain enough information for us or photoshop to know what
to substitute it with four. So let's quickly select
this chair here like this. And shift back space and then content aware and
see what photoshop does. It takes a little more
time to fill since it's a bigger area
now, more pixels, and v. See how much
photoshop tries, but doesn't really
succeed because there's not enough information around
for it to properly delete. This is best for situations where you know there
is enough information. So, this little blue thing, You see, in this case, it used a little too much information
from here, but that's okay. Instead of Shift Delete,
we can go to edit. Content Aware Fill, And then we see this is what
photoshop actually uses to fill. So in this case, we can
manually tell photoshop that we do not want this area
here, before it used. This is no good. This
should be enough. If I click. Now it does a
much better job at filling. Now, it's your turn.
Take any picture. You can use mine or you can use any other picture you
might have and just really try and remove stuff from
the picture that might be distracted so learn its
capabilities, its limitations. It's a good exercise to do, and it's very useful
for editing pictures, not only for this type of art, but other stuff as
well. Good luck. Okay.
11. Photoshop: Remove anything from photos (manually): Another way to
remove things from the photo is to use
the clone stem tool. This is a more
manual way to do it, and the best way to do
it practically is to mix this manual clone tool with the automatic one I showed
you in the last lesson. Now, for this section, we will also remove object, but now in a manual way. Before we use Photoshop
to do it automatically, and that's great for
most of the situations. Here we will use the clone
stamp tool, which is here. So for example, let's say we
want to remove this person. Let's see what happens when we try shift back space
and then content aware. Let's see how it
does to fill in. It actually doesn't
do a very bad job at all. This is great. This is a good starting point. Now, let's use the
Clone stem tool. The Cloe stem tool
works in this way. You hold Alt and then you select an area you want to
copy the pixels from. So let's say here, left click. And then you see the preview
here and we can copy. Left click, hold, and just
smoothly run over like this. See how it's copying
the left side. Just like so. Let's do it again. A here, select this area, come here, and then
start painting. It will use the
pixels and just copy. You see? Now we corrected this area here, and
it's much better. We can try again to select
this area and content aware. It worked better,
but not all the way. So here using the
clone stemp again, I'll copy this area here
from the stripe we see here, use here, I didn't
work out that well. And then I'll step this area here and paint the
road from here. You can continue working on this road so it
looks more seamless. But that's basically how
the clone stem tool works. For example, here, let's
zoom in into this tree. Let's say we want to maybe
add another tree to the left. I'll select this area to copy. The brush is a little
too big, like this. Then we see the preview
and let's copy again. See, it copies the
pixels from the left, and with a little more detail, you can add more trees or let's say we want to
add more flowers here. Hold Alt, and we want to add more flowers
around this area. And it copies the pixels. Just like so. Where
the cyclist was, now we will add more flowers, so it looks a little
prettier, like so. It is a very powerful tool. This combined with the content aware it's a very powerful tool. Now it is your turn. Try and find a picture
where you want to correct for something and
then use the clone stem tool. Try and practice it. Don't
forget to use Alt Key. With that said, see you
in the next chapter.
12. Photoshop: Shadows: Now, in this class, I will teach you everything
about shadows. If you have an
object close to you, you'll see that it will
create some shadows onto me. If you don't have this, it
will not look very realistic. So I will teach you about that. Again, if you want to
follow along with me, you can download the
necessary files down below. We will come across
the situation where we'll have to put an
object next to something. And if it doesn't have shadows, it will not look realistic
or it's not even there. So, let's say we want to
move this blue rectangle. I will duplicate it. And then I will also
duplicate this rectangle. So we have the individual
rectangles and Control T. I will move this rectangle
in front of the pink one. It does it just looks
two D. It needs to have some sort of shadow behind for it to look
a little better. So we will click on
the pink because we want to add shadows
there, not on the blue. We will use this tool
called Burn Tool. So you hold left click
and you go to Burn Tool. And then you select. Usually,
hardness is very low, 2% is good, and then you have
several different ranges. Depending on the colors, some ranges works better. You can just try and experiment. In this case, I'm sure that the colors are so bright
the highlights work best. I will use a lower exposure. 16. That means it's less intense and just paint
a little like this. And you paint again over, it creates a little darker. Control Z. That wasn't good. You paint again like this
with a very soft brush. All of a sudden, you clearly see this three dimensional form. Let's compare with the
original, like so. No shadows with shadows. No shadows with shadows.
You see the difference? This burn tool is very
good to create shadows. Again, depending on
the type of photo, the type of lighting,
the type of pixels. Maybe mid tones would work better or shadows
will look better. Sometimes highlights are
best for very bright colors, which in this case. You can try with other photos and see
which ones works best. I usually just try one randomly or get a
better feeling for it. But this is a very good
skill to have when you're putting an object next
to each other and you want it to look a
little more realistic. Have fun and good luck
practicing this technique.
13. Let's remove our limbs (simple parts): Now that you learn all
the necessary tools, let's use them together now. All in conjunction to
create what we like. I usually start by
copying this layer. Just to have a safety net in
case I do something wrong, I always have one copy. And first things first, let's maybe start with
the easiest part here. I would say this arm. We want to remove this arm, this arm, this head, and these parts with no shoes because I think the
shoes are a little ugly. I think it would make
sense to have no shoes. I'll start with the easiest one. Since it's only a
white background, and this can be easily trimmed. So I'll select the
right layer and use this and I'll use
this polygonal lasso. I'll just slowly. Maybe I should have zoomed in. So it'd be more detail. Just like so, select the
area of the hand here. This is enough. Just like so. And now I will shift
delete content aware. Now, you see that it created
a little bulge here, which is completely fine. It did a good job, otherwise. I will use in conjunction
this clone stem tool. I will select the area here. Because there's an
area selected here, it would only affect
what's inside. If I paint over this, it only affects what's inside. This
is a good tip to know. I'll use a selection
method to right click and D select and look at that. Looks better already. Let's repeat for the legs here. Okay. Now that we've
made our selection. By the way, the closer you are to the object,
the better it is. You could see all of these
are basically wasted pixels. But because we have
such a big photo, it has so much information,
it doesn't really matter. I will shift back space, use content aware fill. And look at that.
Photoshop already quite the job. That
looks really good. Say there's a few shadows
here that I will clean up a. I'll use a size
brush with the clotm tool. I'll use maybe here a little. Maybe not so soft, I'll use a little harder. Al, select these
pixels and here. Paint, paint just a little
slightly, and then here, I'll use to tap, tap, tap. And with the Zoom
tool fit on screen, it already is looking amazing. Look at that. Isn't that cool? Now, this is the importance
of tying down your hair. Imagine if I had longer hair and the hair would come
in the forward parts. That would just make
everything a little harder. So good thing I don't
have that much long hair, but already this hair here
just takes more work. So again, just like always, let's select the areas. Now, I've made the selection, shift back space content aware, and it did a pretty good job. In this case, I will
use the content aware fill and tell photoshop which areas I
would like him to use. So he uses this areas which
I do not want to use. I just want to substitute with
the sky now I click Okay. And look at that a better. When we use this content aware, It creates a new layer,
here, here, not. Basically, we want to merge this layer with the layer below. What I do is right click this
layer and then merge down. Not merge visible
because it will merge all the layers
that are visible. I'll only merge down, so it merges with this one. Now we have all
the layers merged. We can use the Cl stamp tool to select an area and
clean up a little. I hold Alt, select this area, and clean up a little here. It's a little dark.
Now looks better. I'll use a select tool, right click D select, well, look at that.
Isn't that cool? Let's see before and after. As you remove the head, like so. You see the color, it
continues. It should continue. What we can do because
it's so far away, you cannot see is
to just add it. Let's zoom in again.
I will first select this color because I want to create a layer
specifically for this one. I'll just use the
quick selection tool. Actually, it's selected
a little too much, so I'll use the minus to remove. Just like so. This is good. I will just copy the layer, and now we will paint over on this layer because we don't
want to touch this layer. I will select now the area that the color should be going,
something like this. This is good. And we will
basically just paint. Which color we will use, we can use the
information we have. Just like in paint, we can
use the eye drop tool here. Just select a color over
here, just a dark color. This is good and then select the brush tool to
just paint over it, just like so, and let's paint. Since we selected the that area, we only paint on that area. It's not perfect yet. But if we zoom in a little and then use a tinier brush now, basically just a tiny details. You see how this layer selected
a little extra pixels. We will have to paint over it. So for this case, I will just merge the layer and paint over. Tap, maybe half the
size of the brush. We're just painting the pixels, the necessary pixels
that we need. And just like so. It's still a little bright,
remember the shadows. Let's use the burn tool. Maybe the mid tones, and paint over a little to
create a little shadows. Shadow probably works
better, like so. Let's oom out that's
looking nice.
14. Let's remove our limbs (more intricate details): Now, the same technique we
will apply for this arm. I left it for last
because see here, we see the color here, and this is where it's
supposed to be the hole. This will be a little
more complicated but nothing to out
of this world. So like always, we will
zoom in and select the arm. Just like so, I want to
preserve these pixels over here and over here because
that's useful information. Photoshop used the
wrong information, so we'll go to edit
content aware fill and basically remove the parts that we don't want him to use. Like so. Maybe it should work. That works better.
That's better. First of all, we have this
layer that we will merge. Down, so we have everything
together before or after. First of all, I know that
this area here on the right, we do not want to touch. This has to stay put. So what I'll do is select
roughly this area, like so and duplicate
it layer via copy. This is enough information for me to use the clone stem tool. You see, it will copy, but it will continue
at the same direction, which is not good because
basically we want the sleeve To go like so. This will be the shape. If you use the clone
stem tool and copy, it will copy in the same
direction, which is not good. What we want to do is click
on this little folder here. We open clone source. What we want to do here
is change the angle. See how it's changing the angle. I want to change so
it's a little more vertical just like so. You see? All of a sudden, I'm copying
with a changed angle. Let's tap, tap, tap, tap. That's good. See?
This is amazing. Now I want to just
copy straight down. I don't want any
change of angles. I'll put zero. Hold. Click
on the selected area. Maybe that's a little
too much up here. Shift a little down and paint. Now we have more information. Again, hold alt,
click on this area. Use the information we have. Just like so. Isn't
this amazing? Just like so. Hold Alt
and repeat the process. See how much we can use
with the clone step tool, just a tiny bit of this
information and rotating it, so we can continue this process
and finish up the sleeve. Isn't that amazing? Now here, I want to rotate a little because it's
not going to align. See if I continue,
it doesn't align. That's not good. We will
rotate it a little like this. If I want to rotate it, you can change the angle
manually or you can click here. Hold left click and shift to the left or right to shift
the vals up and down. In this case, I think minus
nine degrees is good, and I'll continue so
that's really good. Now, I don't want to shift, I don't want to
change any angle. Let's go back to zero.
I'll hold alt again. Use this information here that this is so dark,
this is really good. Instead of using the brush, I'll use the information
I already have and paint over just like so. Hold Alt. Continue painting, hold Alt, continue painting. This is really good.
And if we want to make it even more realistic, we'll use the shadow method, the burn tool, and
add a little shadow. It just gives that extra mph
That looks good, doesn't it? Now, right click fit
that looks amazing. That really looks good. Okay. Just from that
tiny information, we rotated, continue downwards, and rotate it again to
continue the sleeve. And maybe just to finalize. You can see a little
hole here through my chest. That isn't good. What I will do
quickly is to select the areas you do not
want to be touched. I will select in verse, it selects everything
that's on the outside. I will copy that.
That's what we have. Using this layer
here in the middle. Let me use a darker
pixels here. Like that. Let me use the brush
tool and paint. Now, maybe a little. Let me add some shadows. Like this, a three
dimensionality. From afar, it looks good. From up close, you can
see the difference. What I would do, maybe add a little more noise or
something like that. But this is looking really good. Let's see the before and after. I'll merge down like
so before, after. Before. After. This is
looking really good. And you know, already in itself, this looks pretty good. I would say that it would need a stick to go through my body, so it would look more
like a scarecrow. That's the good
look I'm going for.
15. Let's merge objects: So now that we've done a very
good job on our body here, I would like to add an object, which would be the shovel that
would go through my body, and I would really
look like a scarecrow. So let's get the
shovel picture inside. Just like so. Make sure
it's in the same position. Okay. And as you see, I forgot to set the
camera in manual mode. The brightness will be
slightly different. But in this case, it's ever
so slightly different. It doesn't make a big
difference. I can use it. The first thing I'll do is because it has this
icon over here. I need to right click
and sorize layer. Otherwise, I cannot
make any selections. Now since the shovel is all in straight lines,
and you see here, the pixels of the brown matches really well with the
brown pixels of the dirt is use this polygonal lasso tool and select the whole shovel. Right click and duplicate this. So layer via copy. I basically have this,
and I don't need the other background of
the shovel only like so. Now we have the
shovel. The shovel, I want it to be beneath me. So I will have to
move it, control T. I will move it a t to the right, just like so. That's good. And you see the shovel is in front of my body,
which I do not want. I would like to go
behind my body. So what I will do, I will
make this shovel invisible. I will now select my body to
copy it into another layer. I will use in this case, the quick selection tool. Because the edges are
more clear and visible, especially here in the sky. It selects very easily. Now you see between my legs. I select too much. So what I will do is clicked on minus and deselect the layers, deselect the parts
that I do not want. This will be good
enough. The shovel will not interfere here or here, so that doesn't really matter. In our case, right
click and I'll copy it and see the
shovels in front. Now I'll put below
the body layer, like so, and now it's at the
back. That looks better. Now, because I use the
quick selection tool, you see these edges of my leg, these white pixels over here. That's a little too
much, that's from the sky. We do not want that. So we will select my body, since that's what's
affecting it. We will use eraser tool. Make sure it's not too
hard, very soft eraser. Zoom in really close, and this is a little too big, like so, and just delete tap, tap, tap, left click, left click, left click. Just softly these edges. Tap tap, tap. You can also swipe a little. Just so don't use the center because you'll
delete too much control Z. But use softly the edges. See the difference it makes, and also here, there's
a little mistake. Tap, tap. That looks bad. Now, you see the shovel doesn't go all the way up
like I wanted to. So in order to do that, I will put my shovel back again on the top
layer so I can see it. I want this information here. I'll use the C stem tool. Hold Alt on the part, I want to copy. I want to copy this part. You see the stick slightly
curves to the left, so I'll continue the movement
somewhere around here. Maybe I need to rotate
it a little more. So I'll rotate it like so and click and copy the
information, like so. I'll put now the
body as a top layer, so it's in front of the
shovel. That looks better. Now, as the final
thing we have to do is to add some shadows here because it's
close to the leg, what I'll do is to
duplicate this layer. Another way to duplicate
is to left click and drag it here to the plus so that I can see that
before and after. Now, with the burn tool to create our shadows
on the mid tones range because it's not
too bright for highlights and with an exposure of 12%,
so it's not too strong. What I want to do is softly
use the edge of the brush of the burn tool and
just create a shadow. Not too much, so it's too obvious but also
not too little, let's click on this eye to
see the before and after. That's much better. Doesn't that look much more realistic. I'll also add a
little shadow here. Just slightly before
and after. That's good. Don't overdo it because then it will look
very unrealistic. Maybe as a last step, I see that the shovel
goes behind both legs, but I would like
it to go in front of this leg and behind this leg. What I will do is select
the shovel. Not that much. I'll select this area here. Maybe select a little more here. That's good. And I will copy. And put this in
front of my body, which is my leg, just like so. Again, we have this edge
problem and it needs shadow. I will use the eraser tool
and just like before, zoom in for more detail and use the eraser tool to erase
these rough edges. Usually, the edges is what
gives away in photoshop. So we have to make sure that
the edges are nice and soft. But also don't
overdo it too much. The edges now are
slightly softer, and all it needs in the
leg is the shadows. So let's select the body
layer where I have the leg. Use the burn tool, and I want to now add a little shadow throughout
this leg just slightly. You see? With the edges
and the little shadow. It looks like it's really there. It's the fine
details that make it look realistic. That's it. We're basically
done. I would say maybe final touches
would be the crop tool. We can align to the horizon and maybe crop it so that
we are in the middle. I would say, this
looks good to me. Let's see the before and after. After. Before? After. Now, I hope you got to learn a lot of things how deleting the edges with a soft eraser and adding the shadows
with the burn tool really make the
difference of being realistic or just obvious. Also, the techniques with the clone stem tool to
make these edges here, with the sleeves, and overall, with these five tools being able to create such a cool
piece of art like this. Now, it is your turn. I wish you the best of
luck for your own project, and I cannot wait to see it. With that said, I'll see
you in the final chapter.
16. Thank you for watching!: Thank you so much
for following along. I hope you got to complete
your own project. Feel free to review this
course if you want to, and I'd be more
than happy to see your results in the
class projects. There are so many possibilities. I'm sure I'm stuck
with my own ideas, so I would like to see
other people's ideas. It'd be amazing. I have other classes
in Skillshare, if you want to check them out, and I post weekly on YouTube, not about teaching since
this is reserved here, but more cinematic style videos. Thank you again
for tagging along, and I hope to see you in another Skillshare class
or my YouTube channel.
Edi Liang, Physicist + YouTuber
