Hi there, this is Unmesh from PiXimperfect. And when it comes to Photoshop, we must understand
that there are no limitations. But it's important to use this freedom in
an artistic way which is respectful both, towards the subject and the audience as well. Today we're going to turn this portrait to
a beautiful abstract form with patterns of her dress as twisted circular backdrops. I know it doesn't sound good for YouTube SEO,
but still we got to do it. It's gonna be super easy to do, super hot
for you computer. So without any further ado, let's get started. Back in the magical world of Photoshop, and
you can go ahead and download this photo and follow along, check the links in the description. First of all, we need to make a copy of this,
actually make two copies. With the Background layer selected, press
Ctrl or Command + J twice, right. The first one is for the subject separated. Let's name this Subject and the second one
is for the textured background. Let's name it BG. That's fine. Now let's select the Subject layer. We need to separate the subject right now,
right? So for your reference, you can actually turn
these two off, that's fine. Now let's go ahead and mask the subject out. There are lots of ways to do it, you can use
the Pen tool, you can use the Quick Selection tool, Select and Mask, Select Subject, tons
of ways. I'm just going to use the Select and Mask
method. So let's select any selection tool right here. And at the top, just click on Select and Mask. You need to make sure that the subject, when
cut out, looks good on a black background, and that's why let's choose the view to On
Black. Right now, if the Opacity is at 100, everything
is black and only the selected area shows up. So, since nothing is selected, it's totally
black. If the Opacity is at zero, everything shows
up, irrespective of what is selected and what is not. So, let's keep the Opacity somewhere at about
70%, that's fine. And with the help of the Quick Selection tool
at the top, let's go ahead and paint over the subject. Just make a selection of it. You can also select the background and then
invert it. As you can see, it's becoming a little difficult
to select her dress. So let's do the opposite. Let's try selecting the background. So if we simply select the background, that
might be easier for us and then we can invert it later. Now, we need to erase this. Hold the Alt key, it turns into minus and
then just erase this area away. Do the same for this area. See how easier this is than trying to select
the subject? I can understand that there is a little bit
of difficulty on the sides. That's fine, we can clear it up later. Let's just get a basic selection for now. This works. Alright. Now, once you have done this, just invert
it. Scroll down and here you will find Invert
button. Just click on that and it inverts the selection
automatically. Now we can take away the things which was
not the subject, for example, right here, hold the Alt key or the Option key to turn
that to minus and you can just erase it the way. It didn't do it completely. We might have to manually do that. Alright, so we have a basic selection. It's time for us to clean it up. You can clean it up right here directly with
the help of the brush. So, this is the brush, you can take the brush
and if you want to add something to the selection, you just paint, if you want to subtract something
from the selection, hold the Alt key, it turns to minus, subtract, and then just erase. That's the way you do it. But before we try to refine it, let's just
take care of the hair. So with the help of the Refine Edge tool right
there, just paint on the edges of the hair. It'll take care of it automatically. As you can see, the hair looks nice right
now. Okay, now let's clean up the edges. I'm going to fast forward this process so
that you don't have to sit through all of it. Now that the selection looks okay, let's scroll
down, and then make sure Output to Layer Mask is selected. Just select that - Layer Mask and hit OK. Now we have the subject separated. Now to keep things solid from the very beginning,
let's create a Solid Color background. Select the Background layer and then click
on the Adjustment layer icon and then choose a solid color because we're going to create
above the background layer. So let's choose black as we had decided before. Hit OK. Now it's time for us to create that abstract
background. Before we do that, let's go ahead and stretch
the image a little bit. Let's crop it out, give it some space. Press C, C stands for crop. C and then just drag it from the right hand
side. If you hold the Alt key or the Option key,
it will just enlarge from both the sides. I'm going to make it this big and leave it
at that. Hit Enter or Return. It's going to fill that automatically because
this is an Adjustment layer, Solid Color Adjustment layer. Time for us to work on the background. Turn off the Subject and turn on the Background. Now all we got to do is to expand the texture
of her dress. So first of all, let's make it a little bigger,
press Ctrl or Command + T and let's make it bigger just like this. This looks fine, let's make it a little smaller,
I think it's kind of too big. Now we need to fill most of the areas with
texture so that when we apply that blur, the Spin Blur, the skin color and the background
wall don't get mixed. Now, simply select the Clone Stamp tool right
there. And then just simply zoom in and, you don't
have to be careful right here, just take a sample from anywhere you want in the dress,
and fill her skin areas just like this. Don't have to be careful. Take a sample, paint. We can stop here as it covers enough areas. Now with the Background selected, we just
need to twist it. And to do that just apply Spin Blur. Go to Filter - Blur Gallery and then Spin
Blur. Now, we can bring down the circle. So this is the circle which applies the blur. You can bring it down right there and to expand
the circle, just hover over on the outside, click and drag to expand. We're going to keep it near the edges, that's
fine. Expand it from the top as well, click and
drag. You can hold the Shift key to expand it in
a straight line. So, this looks to be pretty nice. Now, as you can see, from these dots, have
a look at these dots, right, from these dots to the edge of the circle, the blur gradually
decreases. We don't want that we want this to be abrupt. So take the dots and drag it to the very edge. Now, you can control the amount of blur by
increasing or decreasing the Blur Angle right there. So let's go ahead and keep it a little higher
but, not so high that everything gets blurred. We need some texture here and there. Let's zoom out to have a better look if this
would be enough for us. Take the circle a little up. Let's see how it looks. Let's take it a little more up. Interesting. The value of 16 looks fine, hit OK. Now get ready to grill a sandwich on your
computer, especially if you're using a thin laptop. You know what I'm talking about. Alright, let's zoom in, and we need to clean
this up a little bit. So with the background texture selected, let's
name this BG Texture, select the Elliptical Marquee tool right there. And if you ever want to create a circle from
the center, if you just click and drag from the center, it won't happen, but if you hold
the Alt key, have a look, it just is being created from the center. Hold the Shift key to maintain proportions,
We're going to stay a little inside the boundaries. Once it's done, once we have the selection,
click on the Mask button. Now we can turn the Subject on. Have a look at this, isn't this interesting? Now we need to add some effects to it but
before that, let's center it. So with the Background Texture layer selected,
press Ctrl or Command + T, and then bring it to the center. Just like so. This looks wonderful. Hit enter once you're happy with the position. It's time for us to add some shadows and lighting
effects. First of all, let's add some shadows. To add the shadows, select the Subject layer
and double click on the right hand side of the layer. This opens up the Layer Style dialog box. Now, click on the first Drop Shadow. You might see just one Drop Shadow. It is because I had added a lot of multiple
drop shadows before, that's why you see a lot of them. You can actually click '+' to add multiple
Drop Shadows. But anyway, I'm just going to create one first,
just one. Let's turn it off. Select the drop shadow and you can actually
move the angles to kind of move it, Distance and the Size and everything, that's fine,
and the Opacity. But if you want to move shadows like a pro,
here's what you do - just click and drag. Isn't that fantastic? So I'm going to move it a little far just
like this and add some softness to it by increasing the size. Actually, a ton of softness. Now, decrease the Opacity because we're going
to add multiple shadows here. So Opacity of 56 or 55 is fine. Now let's add one more Drop Shadow. You can click on the '+' to add one more. I'm just going to check this. So this is the second drop shadow. If you have Use Global Light checked on both
of them, they will follow the same angle. So you don't have to worry about both the
shadows on different angles. That's fine. You can take it a little closer and then decrease
the size if you wish to. I'm going to keep the size at about this. Size looks okay. And the Opacity, we can adjust that. This Opacity looks good. Let's create one more. I'm just going to check this again. And let's set the angle. I think the angle is right. Yes, it was right. Now, in here, we're going to set the Size
to Low so that we can see where it is going. This is all right. Now, let's increase the size. Let's bring it a little closer. Control the Opacity. If you want you can create more shadows. But. this in my opinion is enough. Let's create one more and let's decrease the
size. Let's bring it very, very close, just like
this and increase the size. Decrease the Opacity, just the last one. All right. Now we have some very nice shadows and this
is looking absolutely beautiful. Hit OK once you're satisfied. Now let's add some lighting effects. And to do that, select the Background Texture. And on top of that, let's create a Curves
Adjustment layer. Click on the Adjustment layer icon and then
choose Curves and click a point in the middle and simply take it up just like this. Now select the mask, press Ctrl or Command
+ I to invert the mask. Now, take the brush white as the foreground
color, we're going to make the curves appear only towards the highlights. Now keep in mind, in the original image, the
light was falling from the left, the shadow was on the right. So, on the left hand side we're going to create
some highlights. Just dab with white as the foreground color
just right there and have a look at the highlight that we just created. Now, keep in mind the concept of mask. What is it? Black hides and white shows up. And that's why the area painted with white
shows the effect of Curves. Let's redo this again. I'm gonna take it a little at the top and
let's do it from here. It looks a little better. All right, now that we have the highlights
in place, let's create a couple more discs. So, with the Background Texture selected,
we're going to make one more copy of it by pressing Ctrl or Command + J. At the bottom
copy, select the bottom copy, press Ctrl or Command + T, if we make it larger, have a
look, it's not maintaining the proportion. It's very difficult to do that. So to maintain the proportions, we need to
make sure that we are making it larger from the center. So to find the center, first of all, let's
turn off the subject momentarily, so we know that this is the center, this particular area. So all we need to do is to just zoom in first,
press Ctrl or Command + T and bring the anchor point, have a look at the anchor point right
there, bring the anchor point to the center. Another way of doing that is by holding the
Alt key or the Option key, click on the center to just bring the anchor point right there
automatically, you can actually hold the Alt key, click anywhere to bring anchor point
right there. So I'm going to bring it right here. And then in Photoshop CC, 2018, and below,
hold Shift and Alt together. In Photoshop CC 2019, just hold the Alt key
or the Option key on Mac, and drag it to make it larger from the center. So I'm going to keep it at about this. We can create as many as we like. So, this is the second one. So, this one is the first one. Let's just name it 1, 2, 3, 4 so that it is
easy for us to see. And for the second one, let's decrease the
Opacity a little bit. Interesting. Let's create one more, make a copy of this
one as well. And this is actually the third one. Let's name this 3. 2. Ctrl or Command + T, again, hold the Alt key
or the Option key, click on the center, and then let's make it bigger. I think this looks okay. Now we can control the Opacity if we wish
to, to even a lower number. Let's go for 40%. Let's create one more, make another copy of
this one, bring it at the bottom, this one is number 4, and then Control or Command +
T. Bring it to the center. Let's zoom in. This is the center and make it even bigger. Interesting, isn't it? Now, let's set the Opacity of this one to
a little lower number. Let's set it to 35. Now, let's Fit to Canvas and then done on
the Subject. Have a look at it. Isn't that wonderful? You can also create shadows for different
discs to make it even more interesting. So, I'm just getting ideas again and again. So with the first one, we can double click
on the right hand side of the layer and turn on the drop shadow for the first one, and
then we can actually control the Size and the Distance. So let's decrease the size and increase the
distance just a little bit. Yes, I like that. I really like that. Now once we have that in place, let's decrease
the Distance a little bit. Hit OK once you're satisfied with it, and
you can actually copy the effects again and again. So you don't have to apply it again. Just hold the Alt key or the Option key, click
and drag the effect of the second one. Second one has it. Hold the Alt key or the Option key, click
and drag to the third one. And hence, the fourth one is not required
because it has a black background at the back. So there we are, interesting, isn't it? How about adding one more circle? So let's copy the fourth and this time Ctrl
or Command + T, and first of all, let's turn the Subject off so that we can see what's
happening. Turn it off, select the fourth copy. Let's name it 5. Ctrl or Command + T, create a point in the
middle. Let's make it bigger, like this. And this time, it's going to be 30. And now let's turn on the Subject. You can create as much as you want, you can
actually fill the canvas with all of it. Now to make it even more interesting, you
can do Color Grading on top of it, and you don't have to do anything complex. All you gotta do is create a Color Lookup
table. Click on the Adjustment layer icon and then
choose Color Lookup. And I have a specific one in my mind for this
one. Let's choose LateSunset for that funk effect. Have a look. Interesting, isn't it? Just decrease the Opacity, slowly and gradually
increase it. You can keep it at that, you can try something
else as well. So let's go here. Try different ones, see what you like, and
you can stop it that. That's totally upon you. That's personal choice, personal preference. This is interesting as well. So play with it, see what you like and stick
with it. This is the final result that I ended up with. Your choice, with Color Grading, without Color
Grading, whatever suits your taste. So that's where we stop for the sake of the
length of this tutorial. To be honest, I don't know where to take this
image from there. That's the most ideas that I have with this
image right now. If you have an idea to take this even further,
I would love to see your work. Just tag me on Instagram @PiXimperfect or
@Unmeshdinda. So that's how to do this abstract composition
in Photoshop. Just a quick little recap - make two copies
of the background layer. The first one would be Subject where you would
extract the subject using whatever method you like. The second one will be the Background where
you will expand the patterns of her dress and then apply a Spin Blur to it, right. And then mask the Spin Blur out, keep on adding
more and more discs. And there you go. That's it. You can add some shadow effects if you want
to, you can add some lights, that's totally upon you and in the end, you can do some Color
Grading if you wish. So that's pretty much it for this video. I hope this video helped you and if it did,
make sure to give us a like and I can also don't forget to subscribe and not just subscribe,
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free for everybody forever. Thanks so much for all your support. Thank you for watching. I'll see you guys in my next one. Till then stay tuned and make sure that you
keep creating.
