My wife (http://jubeescraftbox.blogspot.com/ and http://craftygsquared.blogspot.com/) suggested to me today that I might share some of my "spooky" images on my blog with a little instruction on how to do these. Well, the first challenge was finding spooky or scary images. I've had an over active imagination my entire life, and have become somewhat immune to things that are supposed to be scary. I'm frightened by things like global security and the ever nearer specter of nuclear warfare, not ghouls, ghosts, and goblins. But I have done some PhotoShop-ping that one could consider spooky. I'll put them up here and talk about them.
Adobe PhotoShop CS4 64-bit is my current weapon of choice, but I am in no way endorsing that product. There are many many alternatives, usually inexpensive or free, to PhotoShop. There are even web-based alternatives ( http://www.lifeclever.com/10-free-web-based-alternatives-to-photoshop/ ), as well as some powerful apps for iOS, Google Android, and Google Chrome. And there are limitations to PhotoShop. I'll still use an old, old program called Macromedia Flash MX for certain tasks, as well as good ol' Microsoft Paint.
Since I'm most well versed in PhotoShop, that's what my instructions will be tailored to. I'm not going to discuss Windows vs. Linux vs. Mac. If you don't know, I can't help you. You'll notice that I'm talking about keyboard keys that aren't stupid, so you know I'm not using Mac. Does PhotoShop exist in Linux? I don't know. (No, WINE doesn't count as Linux) I'm not talking about GiMP, so it's a safe bet that I'm using Windows.
When editing images like this to create digital visual art, PhotoShop, or Shopping becomes a verb when discussing the act of creating such work, and another noun, when describing the finished product. And, around the internet, people also use these words to describe works that haven't been created with PhotoShop. Shop got changed to shoop. Shoop got changed to sh00p. So until Webster's has a better term, I'll refer to these works as either shoops, or more annoyingly, sh00ps. (That's two zeros, not O's)
The key to a good sh00p is subtlety. I'll usually start with a base image, and make a duplicate layer to backup the original image. I'll make another layer, and add in the desired effect. usually, I only want a certain part of the image to have this effect, so I'll apply a layer mask.
After I've added in the layer mask, I'll select it and press [ shift↑ + F5] to bring up the "Fill" window. Select the color "black" (#000000) and now the layer you just edited will vanish. You'll make that layer show up only in the spots you want with the Brush tool. Select the Brush tool, and use settings that will allow you to remain subtle. Remember when I said that was important? My favorite settings for this are a hardness of 0, opacity of 50%, and a flow of 16%. These are not the best settings for everything, they're just where I start out, so give it a try and experiment. So now with your brush settings, set the color "white" (#ffffff), select the layer mask, and now color over the areas of the image you want to have your effect. You'll probably have to go over areas more than once, and you'll see the effect coming through.
This layer masking is the most common tool I use, but not the only one.
| Leaving Purgatory |
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Now we'll look at some examples. Leaving Purgatory is the picture you see to the right. It's really a very simple sh00p made up of a few basic effects, and lots of layering. The base image was duplicated, of course, and then I inverted the color mapping by pressing [ctrl+i]. I added a layer on top of that, and with the same brush settings I talked about before, gradually blacked out the eyes. Another layer on top of that, and I blacked out the areas around the figure in the image. Took all of ten minutes, and it's one of my favorite examples.
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| For Brandi |
For Brandi is another very basic sh00p. I took image of the skull, duplicated the layer, and used the Hue/Saturation (image -> Adjustments) tool to get the desired effect of the glowing eye sockets. Of course, this effect is applied to the entire image, so I had to use a layer mask and the paint brush to get it only where I wanted it. I made another duplicate of the base image, and used the Smudge tool to drag those fangs down and make them all vampirey. And then some other minor effects for the background, etc.
Spooky was a a celebrity's head-shot that I blurred and distorted with the Smudge tool, Liquify tool [ctrl + shift↑ + x] and the Gaussian Blur tool (Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur) And then some layers for shading and the red eyes, again made with the brush tool.
I see a TON of messed up stuff in my dreams. Leaving Purgatory was from a dream. These next few are just really weird and abstract things that I dreamed about.
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I didn't get around to finishing this, and as you can see, it's well past Halloween. I'm going to publish this anyway, but if you have any questions, or want to see more, leave me a comment here, or find me on Twitter, or G+, or something like that.
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