How to Create Silhouette in Photoshop

hi there this is animation pics imperfect and today we gonna learn how to create silhouettes in Photoshop now I'm gonna teach you two ways to do it one is very simple the other one is very simple it's just that it's a little time-consuming now the technique that we use depends upon the image that we have if we have a difficult image with a difficult background it might take a little bit of time to make the selection but it's gonna be fun so without any further ado let's get started [Music] so here we are first up in any of the photos that you want to download to follow along check the links in the description to download them alright so here we have our first image and we can create a silhouette of this subject and put it on this background alright and how can we do that well first of all we need to make a clear silhouette as you can see in this case the background is bright so we can use that information to make the basic selection to make the starting selection alright so first of all let's make a copy of the background layer press ctrl or command J alright let's turn off the background layer we don't need it hands off now now let's create a solid color adjustment layer click on the adjustment layer icon and choose solid color and we can choose let's say white and hit OK now put it in the background just below layer 1 now in layer 1 double click on the right hand side of the layer it opens up the layer Styles dialog box now keep in mind you wanna hide at the bright areas of layer 1 from layer 1 or in other words we can say that we want to hide the bright areas of this layer the current layer from the current level right so let's take the slider of this layer from right to left just like this now as we do this have a look the bright areas are hiding and it's looking pretty good but have a look these areas are pretty harsh but we don't have to worry about these areas because I'm gonna remove all of this I'm just gonna keep the land just focus on the subject as of now how does the subject look she has to be soft and elegant alright just focus on the subject as you can see there's a couple of areas which are not selected here don't worry about that we can erase it just focus on the lining around the subject we need to have that soft hold the alt or option click on the slider to break it apart and then just to make it better so that the edges are good as you can see the edges are fine everything looks great now we need to work on this a little bit yes we do but that's okay for the most part that's okay it okay but shears the thing I want to create a selection of this for example if you create a solid color adjustment layer and let's say you choose black alright and if you want to apply it just over this hold the alt or option click on the line between these two it just covers it all but in this I did remove the background right I did remove the background if I turn if you turn it off as you can see it's transparent but if I apply black it's applying over the transparent areas as well fine because if you gain transparency through blend if it's not locked and to lock it and now this is the most important element of the tutorial and that's why I created this tutorial I wanted to get across the concept of locking the transparency gained through blend if when you work on this layer this layer slider and get some transparency on and if you want to lock that transparency or get a selection out of that in this case if I hold the ctrl or command click on the thumbnail it makes a selection all around it not the subject and the transparent areas it doesn't take that into consideration press ctrl or command D to deselect that how do we get that transparency film can work that into a smart object the hats the way to do it it's only need to do we need to go to filter convert for Smart Filters now have a look it ok now it has got that transparency now if you hold the ctrl or command click on the thumbnail just lets click on it as you can see the selection is amazing it's around the subject it looks pretty good ctrl or command D to deselect that I just wanted to show you that now when you turn on the black see it's working right so we need to refine the mask it's just not looking great so what I would suggest you to do is delete the black for now I just wanted to show you this so that's why I created it let's make a selection of this hold the ctrl or command click on the thumbnail all right now click on the adjustment layer icon create solid color adjustment layer and let's choose black alright it's at the point my point was to create a mask you would have created it in that but I wanted to show you the shortcut have an active selection create a solid color adjustment layer and the mask is automatically created now you don't need it as of now let's zoom in and let's work on it it's not perfect we have to work on it select the mask now what I would suggest you to do we can also turn on the white background to make it even more legible and you can see the things that you have to remove take the brush make sure the blend mode is now this is important overlay okay you can decrease the flow to whatever number you like I'm gonna choose 23 ish that's fine let's zoom in and let's work on this thing let's paint here with black weak because we want to hide these areas press X to switch between the foreground and the background make sure the mask is selected make sure the brush is bigger and software start painting on these areas just like that now the thing with overlay is see even if you paint it just won't spill out it won't paint on the super dark areas okay that's the magic of overlay and if you choose the opposite color it just won't spill out from the subject so it's an amazing blend mode to work with especially when you're working with masks and stuff okay now we have cleared it out and we can clear it out in one sweep just decrease the flow for the areas near by the subject like this area just near the edge of the subject and don't worry about the other areas we can take care of that later right all right we have done that now what we can do we can increase the flow all the way to 100 make sure you have selected the soft round brush and then make it bigger and hide it off and change the blend mode back to normal otherwise it won't rub it the dark here yes that's the magic of overlay let's erase these areas we don't need them make the brush a little smaller and erase that area out all right works now for these areas we'll make the brush a little harder and then simply erase these areas out I won't land in these areas and we can get it I'm gonna tell you how this is a very nice trick that I usually do let's go back all right she raised us pretty good now let's get the blacks perfect as you can see there's a little seed through here so similarly we can choose the opposite color let's make the brush a little smaller let's make it softer all right and then choose white because we want to show black in these areas make the brush smaller change the blend mode to overlay again just for the edges okay let's choose overlay and just for the edges for you would paint here a little bit here and there a little bit just around the edge look at all the other places the shoe we need to paint in much smaller and paint in these areas here right just the edges and then we can take care of it by the normal blend mode just look at the edges of the grass it's okay these are fine we can fill them it's super easy to do just right don't worry about the right-hand side now change the blend mode back to normal to fill those areas up let's choose normal back again and then you can fill up these areas very easily it's not necessary that you have a hard edge a little bit of left color is okay for the highlight to just get in a little bit now for that area you might need a little bit of hardness just paint in like that okay it looks alright let's do it for the other shoe all right let's make it soft back again let's zoom out and let's paint here a little bit it's left out now it's too soft let's make it smaller and let's make it big again looks okay now we need to paint in these areas as you're left out for these areas make the brush a little harder so that you don't spill out around the edge whoops now what about these areas now this is the most fun thing to do now bear in mind that I'm not drunk but I will suggest you this hues the lasso - I'm not kidding use the lasso tool to make the texture and let your body shake select the lasso to zoom in a little bit and let your body vibrate shake and make the texture of the land just like that let it shake and if you're using a mouse better because it shakes more with some pounds alright make a selection just like that and you don't have to be perfect you know that let's make a full selection of it and fill it up with white make sure the foreground color is white make sure the mask is selected press alt backspace or option delete just like that and have a look at it ctrl or command D there's a little bit area left here I'll select the brush and just just now if you want to take your time you can also paint grass in you can take the brush and make the brush smaller and and just start painting grass just like that now it sounds it looks bad I know it looks bad but you would have to make certain settings like for example you would have to select a brush like I would select a brush like soft round pressure opacity and flow size to around 2 pixels and then start making the grass but it can take a lot of time you can make a grass brush and do it fast but I'm not gonna do it I'm gonna keep it the way it is let's put it on the new background and then let's talk about it all you have to do just drag this and drop it over this just zoom out and have a look isn't this amazing now I'm gonna keep it that way just like so and there you go we have it ready now what other thing that you can do here is you can make a copy of this and paste it there those things let's let's bring it down a little bit I'm gonna make it a little let's bring it down so that you can see the see all right let's bring it down with the arrow keys just a little bit alright looks great okay now there you go we have it ready wasn't that easy now in some cases it won't be easy let's open up this image have a look at this image sorry about the background noise there's always trucks going by here and there in this case it's gonna be a little difficult how to do it in our second example let's work on it make a copy of the background layer first ctrl or command J turn off the background there that's always a safety thing to do alright next select any selection tool that you like go to select and mask and let's try to make a selection of it by using the quick selection tool you can also do it directly if you're using an earlier version of Photoshop and then make it a bigger and then try to select it listen to horn in the background pretty cool isn't it you I'll have a look at the selection I think it's pretty good it's not very bad let's change the view to on black to see it and let's increase the opacity yeah it's it's kinda ok ish I'm gonna make it a little bigger and with the quick selection tool let's make the brush a little smaller and let's make a selection of this area alright it's not great but it's ok it's it's a good starting point now you can take your time to take as much time as you want now this is an area you wanna subtract so hold the Alt key or the option key make the brush a little bigger and then paint on this area it just simply subtract that subtracts that you need to do the same here so hold the Alt key or the option key I think the pressure that is smaller and just paint in here and we're good now let's zoom in let's make the brush a little more smaller hold the Alt key or the option key paint here a little more be a little careful and there you go it looks great so there are a couple of areas that need a little bit of adjusting of course we need to subtract in here so we would hold the alt or option paint on there now we need to work on that it's ok we can take our time to work on that thing now we would take this too called the refine edge tool and paint around the edges off the grass let's see what it does it makes it more bad we don't want it let's go back to whatever shape it was it's okay and we can refine it later however here's what I will do I will select the quick selection tool and subtract the inside of it hold the alt or option and paint on the inside and it did a bad job but we can work on it later just drag it down and make sure output two layer mask is selected hit OK so here we have it now we need to work on it a little bit and to work on it best what I would suggest you to do is to create a solid color adjustment layer and we can choose the background as black hit OK and put it behind it so that we can see which areas are badly selected as you can see these areas so now we would come back to the open up the mask properties here if you cannot see the properties you would go to windows and then click on properties while the mask is selected and click here and then let's decrease the density of the mask to see which areas are remaining to be selected so I would decrease the density to 56 just to see it and then with the mask selected it actually fades the mask a little bit we'll take the brush make sure the brush is a little bigger and we would select the soft round brush right flow opacity hundred and just paint in the rest of the areas with white which are remaining so we would paint in these areas slowly and gradually take our time and do it if you want you can make the brush a little harder and paint out these areas press X to toggle between the foreground and the background and again what's the concept of mask black Heights and white shows up and simply paint on these areas it is time taking it is you can also use the pen tool to make the selection but keep in mind as I said it is going to be a little time taken so I've done just this little area for you you can take your time to do the whole area as you can see I'll do a little more for you so that you can see how it goes painting with white right now again even if a little bit of edge shows up it's okay because we're gonna be turning it completely black so and if you want to draw your own edges a little bit here and there it's okay as well let me the brush a little bigger and let's make it a little harder just like that and that way you'll do it it's okay the edges shows up no problem at all now let me give you one more tip before I move on to showing other to other stuff so here's tip if you want to paint a straight line and I've given this tip before all you gotta do you gotta paint here once at Point a hold the shift key and paint on just click tap on the other side on point B it draws a straight line isn't that cool really cool so similarly you would just click here hold the shift key click on the point B and you have made a straight line o once you have done all of that now we have not done it it really needs a little bit of Correction here and there of course it needs a correction here and it needs a correction there you can take your time to do it and I'm gonna show you the after but for now after you do all of that selection and all of that stuff I know it is too much alright alright click here hold the shift key point B and there we go after you've done all of that stuff what you can do is you can turn the opacity you can do you can go back to the properties increase the density back to hundred and then all we needed was the mask do the same thing ctrl or command hold it click on the mask to make a selection of it click on the adjustment layer icon choose solid color and you can choose black ok now you can turn all of this off and you can just drag it and drop it into the new background just drag it and let's drop it on this thing right and then let's zoom out a little bit and place it here just like that isn't that interesting or maybe you can show the water don't show the water it's completely upon you what I will do I will select the background I'll just unlock it ctrl or command T to unlock it I just clicked on the lock let's make it a little bigger to show the Sun over there just rising from that area just like that and there you go isn't that amazing of course now you can come back to the mask and just select the brush with white you can just paint in these areas just like that and work on these edges no big deal you can work on them but that's the process that's how you would create silhouettes in Photoshop let's have a look interesting just a quick little recap and this is very very simple all you have to do use any method any method that you like your favorite method to make a selection you can use the pen tool selected masks quick selection tool directly do whatever you want just make a selection now once you have a perfect selection a nice selection then with the selection active you would create a solid color adjustment shell now the solid that our adjustment layer the mask will already come with it if the selection was active you can choose the color black and then simply drag that solid color adjustment layer over a background and transform it resize it adjust it pretty much good to go so number one make a selection number two with the selection active create a solid color adjustment like and choose the color black and number three drag that over a new background and adjust that's pretty much it I hope this video helped you and if it did make sure to give us a like and also don't forget to subscribe and noches I ring the bell so that you my friend don't miss any other future tip trick or tutorial let me wipe it off alright so I would like to thank all these amazingly ignites people for supporting this channel on patreon and helping keep fix imperfect free for everybody forever thank you so much for all this or thank you so much again for watching I'll see you guys my next one till then stay tuned and make sure that you keep creating [Music]

Channel: PiXimperfect

Views: 182,829

Rating: 4.9284258 out of 5

Keywords: silhouette photoshop manipulation, create silhouette in photoshop, change background in photoshop, sunset effect in photoshop, sunrise effect in photoshop, backlight photoshop, photo manipulation, composite, photoshop tutorial, piximperfect, unmesh dinda

Id: lBSqj5qNeTo

Length: 20min 56sec (1256 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 21 2018