Project 1. Halloween Halloween is still one of my favorite holidays. Even though I no longer go door-to-door (only because my wife refuses to allow it), I love feeding the little monsters, er, children that show up at our door. Last year I went so far as to try to get the pup to wear a pair of devil ears. Unfortunately, that didn't work out too well. Maybe I can convince her this year, though.  In the meantime, if you have a photo of someone with a devilish personality, you can bring that out in your digital darkroom. The following project turns a photo of one of the charming young men who live next door into a little devil, and just in time for Halloween, too. This particular project uses only a single photo. You can, of course, use one of the many techniques you'll find throughout this book to provide a different background for the final image. If you have some plug-in filters, such as those from Alienskin, you could add a fiery background. You might also try something traditional, such as a photo of pumpkins. 1. | To get started with this project, open a photo of a youngor not so youngperson that you can modify. You can see the photo I'll be using in Figure 10.1. If you want to work with the same image (Young Man,tif), you can download it from the book's website.
Figure 10.1. A charming young man. 
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Removing the Background Even though this project doesn't combine two photos, as many of the other projects do, removing the background of the photo used in this project will open up several possibilities. I'll be using a simple black background, but with the original background removed, there are an endless number of possible ways to go with the final image. 2. | Remove the background using your favorite method. With the photo I'm using and its monochrome background, there are a couple of methods that should help me do a good job, including using Selections, Modify, Select Color Range; or Selections, Select Similar; or even the Magic Wand with the appropriate settings. If you're not sure how to get started with removing a background efficiently, take a look at Appendix B,"Paint Shop Pro X in a Nutshell," for some great techniques you can use with Paint Shop Pro X.
How close a shave? How important is it to make a really perfect selection? Of course, you always want the best selection, but there will be times when you'll be doing a fair bit of distortion on the photo. In cases like that, it's a little less significant than when you're really trying to fool the eye with a perfect fake. With this project, for example, a lot of work will be done to create a fantasy-like Halloween photo. In so doing, a lot of detail will be lost from the original photograph, so it might not be as important to create the perfect selection in this case.
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Many of the techniques I use to remove a background from a photograph leave me with two layers: the original photo on a layer called Background and a copy of that layer in a new layer that only contains the separated foreground (in this case the young man) on a layer called Raster 1. I'll proceed under the assumption that you have two similar layers at this point. Adding a New Background Although I sometimes slack off a little when it comes to layer naming, leaving the default layer names in most cases, this project is one exception. The reason is that a number of layers are involved (at least five or six, and maybe more), and it will be helpful if everyone knows what layer they're on and what the order of the layers is at any given time. To help us achieve that goal, I'll name the layers and refer to them by their names throughout this project. 3. | Leave the Background layer name as is, but rename the Raster 1 layer to Young Man, or whatever is appropriate to your image. I'll refer to Young Man as the layer that has had the background removed (not the background layer but the background in the photo).
| 4. | Make sure the Background layer is active; then create a new raster layer by clicking the New Raster Layer icon in the upper-left corner of the Layers palette. Name the layer Fill.
| 5. | Set the Foreground color to black and, using the Flood Fill tool, fill the new layer with black. Doing so effectively hides the Background layer, but we will only need this layer in the case of disaster. Your image should resemble the one shown in Figure 10.2.
Figure 10.2. Adding a black fill. 
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Adding a Tail It's time to start adding the Halloween-ish features to the young man's portrait. I'll start with a new, pointed tail and add horns and teeth. And for the pièce de résistance, I'll crack up the atmosphere. Tip With the foreground set to red and the background set to none (that is, transparent), the lines that are drawn with the Pen tool won't be treated as semifilled shapes. Instead, they will be drawn as lines that can be manipulated and even have arrowheads automatically added.
6. | Make sure the new black fill layer is active, and then add a new vector layer by clicking the arrow of the icon in the upper-left corner of the Layers palette and selecting New Vector Layer. Name the layer Tail.
| 7. | Select the Pen tool and set the Foreground color to a bright red. Set the background to Transparent in the Materials palette.
| 8. | Set the Width to 20. Depending on the photo you're working with and the effect you're after, you might need to adjust this value up or down to create a larger or smaller tail.
| 9. | Finally, from the Line Style pull-down menu, select Arrowhead End.
| 10. | Click and release near the middle of the young man's chest. Then click and drag from off to the left of the young man's head (see Figure 10.3).
Figure 10.3. Drawing a curved line for the tail. 
Clicking sets the end point of the line, which is where the arrowhead will be. As you drag, you will notice that your line curves. You can even drag off the image to get the curve you're looking for.
When you release the mouse button, the line appears in red with an arrowhead at its end (see Figure 10.4).
Figure 10.4. The line becomes a tail. 
Note If you're not happy with the tail, select Edit, Undo or press Ctrl+Z. Note that it will take two undos to start at the beginning because the line takes two steps: setting the beginning of the line and setting the end/curve. | 11. | If you are happy with the position of the line, its curve, and the size of the line and arrowhead, you can finalize the process by rasterizing the line. To do so, select Layers, Convert to Raster Layer. Doing this allows the application of filters and effects.
| 12. | To add a little dimension to the tail, select Effects, 3D Effects, Inner Bevel.
Set the values as follows: Bevel to the first setting, which is a simple straight line angle (see Figure 10.5); Width to 5; Smoothness to 100; Depth to 30; Ambience to 20; Shininess to 0; Color to White; Angle to 315; Intensity to 35; and Elevation to 10.
Figure 10.5. Adding dimension to the tail. 
Note The values I used are based on experimentation and a pretty good idea of what I wanted. The best idea is to try to match the lighting with the existing photograph. In the photo of the young man, the light was diffuse so I tried to keep that atmosphere. | 13. | As a final touch, the tail should be a little out of focus. To achieve that effect, select Adjust, Blur, Gaussian Blur and set the Radius to 6.00 (see Figure 10.6).
Figure 10.6. Adding a blur to the tail. 
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Adding the Horns No demon would be complete without horns, right? Almost the same technique that was used to create the tail can be used to create the horns. The lines will be much shorter and only the actual arrowhead will be used, though. Naturally, the blur effect won't be added to the horns as it was with the tail. 14. | Add a new vector layer and name it Horns.
| 15. | Select the Pen tool and set the Width to 30. Click somewhere between the left eye (that's the eye on the left, not the young man's left eye) and the hair. Click again just slightly above and to the left of where you clicked last. Doing so reveals just the top of the arrow (see Figure 10.7).
Figure 10.7. Drawing the first horn. 
| 16. | Select the Warp Brush and set the Size to a very high value. I used 546. When you click in the image to use the Warp Brush, Paint Shop Pro X displays a warning that the layer needs to be converted to a raster layer before you can proceed. Click OK to continue.
| 17. | Set the Warp mode to Push. Use the Warp Brush to push the horn into a curved shape (see Figure 10.8). When you're happy with the horn's shape, use the Pick tool to select the horn.
Figure 10.8. Adding a curve to the horn. 
| 18. | Select Edit, Copy and then Edit, Paste As New Selection. Select Image, Mirror to turn the new horn around. Use the Pick tool to move the new horn into place (see Figure 10.9).
Figure 10.9. Both horns are now in place. 
| 19. | You can use the same effect as used with the tail to add some dimension. The only things that need to be changed are the Bevel and the Ambience.
Select Effects, 3D, Inner Bevel, set the Ambience to 100, and set the bevel to the round edge (see Figure 10.10). Don't forget to add the effect to both horns; otherwise, your demon might not look very scary.
Figure 10.10. Adding some dimension to the horns. 
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Adding Some Demon Teeth This young man has nice teeth and I hate to change that, but for Halloween and the sake of the photo, the following technique will add a little more effect to the demon by enlarging his front teeth (all I want for Halloween is some really large front teeth). 20. | Use the Zoom tool to zoom in on the teeth. Make the Young Man layer active by clicking it in the Layers palette. Select the Freehand Selection tool, and set the Selection type to Point to Point. Click in the corners of the front teeth to select them (see Figure 10.11). Then select Edit, Copy and then Edit, Paste As New Layer. Rename the layer Teeth.
Figure 10.11. Selecting the front teeth with the Freehand Selection tool. 
| 21. | Select the Pick tool and use it to stretch the new teeth downward (see Figure 10.12). You might have to move the new teeth into place before you start stretching them.
Figure 10.12. Stretching the copy of the front teeth. 
| 22. | Use the Eraser to remove the dark space between the newly added demon teeth and any extra dark edges.
| 23. | If necessary, use the Clone Brush tool to help the new teeth blend in with the old (see Figure 10.13).
Figure 10.13. Blending the teeth in to the existing teeth. 
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Setting the Atmosphere Finally, a little atmosphere will help finish this project. The trick behind the next technique is the blending mode of the layers. Layers can be blended together with those below them in different ways. We'll use a mode that colorizes the image to a devilish red. 24. | The Teeth layer should be the topmost layer and should still be active. If it's not, click its entry in the Layers palette to make it so. Add a new raster layer by clicking the New Raster Layer icon in the upper-left corner of the Layers palette. Name the new layer Colorize.
| 25. | The foreground color should still be set to red from creating the tail and horns; if it's not, make it so. Use the Flood Fill tool to fill the new layer with red.
| 26. | Set the Blend mode in the Layers palette to Color. Doing this gives the image a red tint, allowing the photo and all the Halloween extras we've added to show through (see Figure 10.14).
Figure 10.14. Adding a reddish atmosphere to the image. 
Note You can use the techniques outlined in this project to create all kinds of images. Give it a try and see what you can come up with. |
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