Photoshop: X-Men Mystique - Transform Someone into a Shapeshifter
Have you ever wanted to shapeshift? The thought of changing forms into someone else brings excitement to the minds of many. Mystique has been a comic book icon after making her first appearance in 1978’s Ms. Marvel #16. She is a mutant that psionically shifts into the formation of others by taking heed of the ability to create the appearance of clothing and other materials out of her body. Not only can she regain her original form at any time, but she also retains her youthful appearance infinitely.
Proficient in stealing, finding, and understanding cutting edge weaponry makes her a significant threat to the fate of the world. Her powers may sometimes be compared to that of the United States President. Fluency in multitudes of languages makes her adept in any cultural circumstance. A naturally unreadable mind makes Mystique one of the most dangerous mutants alive. If you could shapeshift would you?
This video was made for instructional and educational purposes. In it I teach people how to use Adobe Photoshop to make interesting designs. No copyrighted materials were used in this video.
Image Attribution:
Angelina Jolie by The Coincidental Dandy
https://www.flickr.com/photos/6901713...
Storm Clouds Gathering, by Mike Green
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nitibob...
The Donald, by Commandant of the Marine Corps Photo Gallery
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
Hillary Clinton crop, by United States Department of States
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
Official Portrait of Barack Obama, by Pete Souza, The Obama-Biden Transition Project
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
Music attribution:
"Chee Zee Lab" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
**Transcript Extract**
In this Photoshop tutorial,
I will show you how to turn a photo of a woman into the X-Men character, Mystique.
Actresses aren't the only ones who may be shape-shifters. There are a few politicians who also could be.
If you like these pictures they are on a page in my website. There is a link in the description area.
Open up your image in Photoshop.
Use an image where the subject is looking straight ahead into the camera.
Preferably with their mouth closed.
Unlock the Background image.
Black and White images work best so if your image is in color,
press Shift-Control-U to desaturate it.
I used a picture of Angelina Jolie, The link is in the description area.
Your picture may differ but if you want to work with the Jolie image,
Use the rectangular marquee tool,
make the style Fixed Ratio
and the width 510
and the height 632.
Drag out a selection from the top down.
Then choose image - crop.
Choose Image - Image Size from the menu. Change the resolution to 300 pixels per inch. The image size should change to 3067 X 3800.
Press Control or Command Zero to fit the image to the screen
Save as a Photoshop psd file
Now we need to cut out the subject from the background so we can apply skin color and spots later.
I chose to use the pen tool to cut out the subject mainly because the
right shoulder and neck is a tricky selection as the background is very similar to it.
Use whatever selection is easiest for you for your image.
Choose the pen tool.
Make sure settings are set to path
Add a layer mask and make sure it is selected.
Start drawing the path.
select the entire subject, be careful to get smooth curves especially on the shoulders and neck.
here are the paths that I drew
Right click and choose make selection.
with no feather and anti-alias checked
Make sure your foreground color is black
Press Control-Shift-I to inverse the selection
press Alt-Backspace to fill the mask with black.
Press Control D to De-Select
name the layer "Cutout"
We are going to add a temporary background layer to help us differentiate the background from the subject.
hold down control while selecting the add new layer icon
double-click the foreground color to choose the color picker
Make #e5b350 your foreground color.
name it "bg"
Press Alt-Backspace to fill it in with the pale gold color.
Go back to the Cutout layer
At this time we need to inspect the Cutout Layer and touchup any problems.
Make the layer mask active.
Use a hard round black brush to remove areas of blur which are not part of the hair or body.
Also clean up any jagged lines as demonstrated.
When satisfied, right-click and choose apply layer mask.
Next we'll add a Levels Adjustment Layer to lighten up the shadows
Make the Cutout layer active.
Add a levels adjustment layer.
Choose "Lighten Shadows" from the presets dropdown.
Click the Clip-To icon
Name it "lighten" .....