Airbrushing an Image in Photoshop or PaintShopPro
Easier than it looks. Honest!
By Cyn
Ok, you asked, you got it, but I have to warn you, this is my first tutorial, so it could very well suck. The purpose of this tutorial is to give you the basics of airbrushing a drawing from start to finish in Photoshop or PaintShopPro.
Getting Started
This tutorial will basically show you how to start with this :
(click for full size image)
and end up with something like this:
although, for purposes of this tutorial, I recreated the image in Photoshop LE to get useful screenshots, rather than try to pick the original .psd apart to show what I did, so the final image will be slightly different than this one. The tutorial is done in Photoshop only because that is the more commonly used program used here; the original was created in PaintshopPro v6, and can just as easily be done with it- most everything used works the same in both programs.
You need to know very few techniques for this tutorial-- airbrush, smudge, layer masking, and layer blend modes. Thats pretty much it. You already know how to do all that stuff, but I'm going to overexplain it all anyway, so let's get started.
Setting up your layers
Your first layer is blank. Its best to start with white for contrast; you'll change it later, and you could make it green, or blue, or whatever, but don't start with a dark colour, or you wont be able to see your line drawing clearly on top of it. The second layer is the line drawing. You'll set the blend mode to Multiply.
Duplicate this layer, and set it to Color Burn. Now go back to the first linedrawing layer, and add a new layer, Normal mode, so that it is sandwiched between the two line drawing layers, like so:
On one of the line drawing layers, select the contour of the line drawing, (Yes, you can do this very quickly by tapping an outer line with the (gag) magic wand. Shutup, there's no shame in it, it's a line drawing for pete's sake, it doesnt have to be subtle. Fine, just spend a half an hour going around it with your polygonal lasso, see if I care.) go to Select> Inverse, then switch to the colour layer. Add a mask to this layer. In PSP, you'd hit it with the wand, Select>Invert, switch to colour layer, then go to Masks>New>Show Selection.
Now copy this layer, five times. Name the copies "skin", " hair", "clothes" and "gun" if you are writing a tutorial for other people, otherwise, just leave them as "copy" because, heck, you can remember which layers got what on it without switching back and forth 500 times can't you? Yeah, me neither, but I do it anyway.
(in Photoshop)
(in PaintShopPro)
Ok, ready? Cause now we're to the fun part.
Skin layer
Click on the skin layer, and make sure you are editing the image, and not the mask. Pick a big brush, a light skin tone, and start colouring. The whole thing. You dont have to worry about getting good coverage in areas that will be covered by clothing or hair, but do try to overlap a little. When you've got a light tone pretty evenly down, switch to a smaller brush, and lower the opacity to around 10 percent. Pick a peachy tone, and hit the contours of all the shapes with it . Then switch to a darker tone, a darkish brown, and hit the darkest shadow ares with it, just outside where you want the shadow to go. Be sparing, and dont worry too much about shadows at this point. You should end up with something like this:
Now, you'll get out your smudge tool, and using a light touch, (and yes, thats important, don't get wacky with it) gently drag the shadow colour up along the contours of the shadowed areas, and the lightest colour along the highlight areas.
It should end up looking something like this:
Gaussian blur it, as much or as little as you need to to smooth it out.
Clothes and hair layers
Now you are ready for the clothes layer. Yes, you should put clothes on her. Otherwise, you can't post it at Worth for us all to enjoy. Since clothing is more likely to be all one colour than skin, you really only need two colours for this layer, a medium tone, and a dark. Work it the same way you did with the skin tone, keeping lighter shades to the inside, darker at the contours, smudging the darks into to dark areas, and subtly drawing out paths for your highlights to hit later. You'll end up with something like this:
which is really sloppy, so you'll want to mask out the overspray before you move on to hair.
You'll start the same way for the hair that you did for the skin, choosing three basic colours to work with; a light, medium, and a dark, defining the basic shape of the hair with light and shadow, like this:
You may need to edit the mask for this layer before you start- I masked out a bit too much of the hair area in mine, and had to put some of the visible space back.
At this point, turn down the opacity on the uppermost line drawing layer, so you can see the hair more clearly. Then, go back to the hair, and pick a tiny, rather strong, smudge brush. Start sketching the hair texture, pulling the dark into the light areas, and back again to follow the curves of the shapes in the line drawing, and the lights and darks you've already defined. If you have a tablet, this is an excellent use for it- it really does go much quicker, but it can be achieved with a mouse too. You'll just need more practice to get smooth, flowing lines. You should end up with something like this
With the uppermost line drawing layer off, it should look something like this
Now you can clean it back up by masking out your over spray, using your mask to draw in a few wispy ends here and there. Again, you'll love your tablet for this, and wish you had one if you don't.
Gun layer
For the gun layer, you'll lay out your lights and darks as you did in the clothing layer, but we want a strong contrast here, to make it appear to be shiny. Basically, you want to sweep your lighter colour down the middle, and your darker colour along the edges, at a lower opacity, making sure to add shadows near the back of the gun, where is it partially obscured by her hair and her... er... bodice. For the reflections, select out each plane of the gun seperately, and smudge a brighter highlight down the center of each light area, then invert your selection, and shadow beneath it, sorta like this:
Make sure to cast a bit of a reflection on the back side of the gun, as well, because a reflective object picks up ambiant light as well as from the light source direction. If that's a blatantly obvious thing to say, I apologize for insulting your intelligence; I'm not particularly good with weapons, straight lines and angles, so for me, this is mostly just trial and error; I just attempt to shade it like I think it would look, and once I get it sorta looking right, I save it, and move on. Yes, I know, that's ever so useful. Sorry. Another useful technique for getting smooth, straight reflections is to use motion blur, set to an angle that parallels the plane you are attempting to make look reflective. I skipped that step with this one (because I was rushing, and it shows), but I did use it in the original image.
Move the gun layer down now, beneath the skin layer. If you've been following this tutorial carefully, according to my instructions, you've left a huge mess on the skin layer, and now you'll have to go mask that out. Then you can clean up the mask on the gun layer, and with the top most line drawing layer turned off, it should look something like this:
Pretty rough, but we're getting there.
Highlights and shadows
Now go back to your forgotten colour layer, the one that is empty except for your mask. Dupe it twice, and name the new layers "shadow", and "highlight". Bring them both to the top of your sandwich, right under your topmost line drawing layer, shadow below highlight. Start with your shadow layer, select the area you want to shade, and spritz a dark brown shade in, at a low opacity, where ever it needs to be darker, or you need a sharp line.
Smudge your shadows into place, and add a gaussian blur of about 2 to soften them, and set the layer to multiply (about 60 percent opacity, ymmv).
On the highlight layer, pick a light shade with a bit of yellow, low opacity, and bring out her curves. Add a glow where ever the light would hit, and keep it brighter on the harder objects, such as boots, and gun, than it would be on say, her face or arms. Go nuts with it, really make her shine. People like shiny stuff. Gaussian blurr it to soften all your edges, then go back with your mask, and give your highlights definition where they should be sharper, such as on her nose, her boots, along the edges of limbsand on the gun. Set the layer to Screen, at about 50 percent. Now duplicate this layer, and set the new one to Dodge, at about 20 percent opacity (again, give or take).
This is what you've got so far:
Facial Details
Now we'll get into some little details, her eyes, lips and nose. Create a new layer, and select a shape that will define the white of her eyes. Fill it with a light grey shade, and hit the edges with a darker grey for shading.
On a new layer, create the iris. I usually paint them larger than they need to be, and then use free transform to squish them into her eye when Im done. Keep the darkest part of the iris toward the top, where it would be shadowed by the lid, a lighter area near the bottom edge where they would catch and reflect more light.
Add a black pupil, and a gleam or two to finish it.
Then use free transform to move it into her eye, and mask off the top edge where it comes over the lid a bit.
New layer, this one for lids and lashes. Black would be too harsh, so go with a dark grey or taupe colour to define the shape of the eyes. Soften at the top outer edge.
New layer, lips. Select the shape defined by the line drawing, and fill with your main lip colour, a medium tone. Hit the corners of her mouth with a darker version of this shade, then select just the lower lip, and highlight the upper edge with a lighter version.
Almost done...
Turn your burn layer, the topmost line drawing layer, up to about 45 percent. Gaussian blur it to 1.5, to soften the lines, so you can use them for shadows.
Now you're going to use a mask to vary the visibility of the lines. Some you'll want to keep fairly dark, others you'll want to hide completely, so set your brush to a low opacity, and start blending. It may take some time to get the balance right, just mess with it till you end up with something about like this :
OK! You're nearly done! Now you will want to save it, and walk away for a while, to let your eyes uncross. And yeah, this is important, because as we've been going through, we've left a lot of little snaggly edges and oversprays here and there, and they are most likely invisible to you by now. So leave it alone, and don't look at it for a while. Then, you've reached what I call the tweaking stage; when you come back to fix it up a little, you'll see much more clearly what you've missed, and its mostly just a matter of cleaning up the masks, but you'll see all kinds of little things to change. You'll want to go back into your shadow and highlight layers, and refine the shapes you've blocked in there, and add a few choice "pops" to the dodge layer, too. Add a background colour, just below the first line drawing layer, and a drop shadow on top of that. I duped the line drawing layer, filled it with black, gaussian blurred it to 2, and set it to multiply at 50 percent, but you could just hit drop shadow if you already know what you are planning to do with it. (I usually don't know til I've messed with it a bit.) This is not really a shadow, its just to make her pop a little.
You could, however, add a more realistic shadow, as I did in the original, by blurring a copy of this layer even more, lowering the opacity, and scrunching it with transform>distort. In PSP, if you hit shift while clicking on a corner anchor to drag, it acts the same way distort does in Photoshop, allowing you to stretch each side of the image independantly of the others, to manipulate the perspective.
Finishing touches
Ok, now you get to all the little unnecessary stuff I like to do just because I'm squirrelly that way. For instance, I duped the gun layer and set it to Burn at about 15 percent because I didnt like the way it turned out the first time (and still don't, but whatever), and then saved the original 18 layer .psd, without merging anything. I then copied the whole thing into a new image, as a merged image, to pick out all the details with a little smudge brush.
I then copied that layer, set it to overlay at 20 percent, fiddled with the contrast, and here's what I ended up with.
All done, honest. That's it. Ok, I'm lying, but it's good enough for the moment :). The best advice I can give you is to take your time, and try not to rush. I sort of rushed this image, and the difference in quality from the original contest image, WorthGirl, is very noticible, at least to me, and I'll likely have to go back in to mess with her a bit more before I'm happy with it. God is in the details-- don't hurry them, but then again... I don't always know when to leave well enough alone:).
Hopefully, this was at least somewhat useful, and took some of the mystery out of airbrushing art in Photoshop for you. As always, there are lots of ways to do anything that can be done, and this is just mine, until I find a better way to do it (and there is *always* a better way). Experiment, have fun, and post your results in the Critic's Corner so we can all ooh and ahh over it.
