How to create marvelous skin effects using vectors in Photoshop

Today we will create some really cool skin effects using stock vectors and a bit of imagination.

Difficulty: Intermediate
Completion time: 1-2 hours
Tools: Adobe Photoshop CS3

Resources:

– Dancer from Albert-Smirnov
– Designious floral pack 45

What you will be creating

STEP 1

Create a new document of 1680×1050 px at 72 dpi in RGB color mode.

STEP 2

Grab the Paint Bucket Tool (G), press D to set Foreground to black (#000000) and fill the “background” layer with it.

STEP 3

Open the “woman” picture. Grab the Crop Tool (C) and crop the image to eliminate the white frame.

STEP 4

Double-click the layer lock in the Layers palette and click OK to make the layer editable.

STEP 5

Go to Layer > Duplicate Layer (CTRL+J), then go to Filter > Other > High Pass. Set it to 1.2 px and hit OK.

In the Layers palette (Window > Layers or F7) set Blending mode to Overlay.

STEP 6

Go to the Channels window (Window > Channels), select the “Blue” channel and click-drag it on the “New Channel” button.

STEP 7

With the “Blue copy” channel selected, go to Image > Adjustments > Invert (CTRL+I).

STEP 8

Go to Image > Adjustments > Levels and use similar settings to mine.
Note: There are three triangles on the graph: black, gray and white. They control the shadows, midtones and highlights. The idea behind what we are doing is to reduce the midtones to a minimum, to have a high contrast between shadows and highlights.

STEP 9

Our goal is mainly the hair, since it has complex edges. Go to Image > Adjustments > Curves and set it like mine or similar. Repeat this step until the hair is darkened.

STEP 10

Grab the Brush Tool (B), press D to set Foreground color to pure black and paint the interior of the girl.

STEP 11

With the brush tool still selected, press X to switch pure white color to Foreground and paint over the pants areas.

STEP 12

Grab the Burn Tool (O), set it to Shadows and 100% Exposure and darken the loose hair strands. Switch to Dodge Tool, set it on Highlights with 45% Exposure and lighten the background. Try to obtain something similar to my result.

STEP 13

In the Channels palette (Window > Channels), CTRL+click the “Blue copy” channel to make a selection. Turn on visibility of “RGB” channel and off for the “Blue copy” one and switch to Layers palette (Window > Layers or F7). Hit Delete, then go to Select > Deselect (CTRL+D).

STEP 14

Go to Window > Arrange > Cascade and click-drag the layer into our created document. Feel free to clean up the ruined hair strands with the Eraser Tool (E).

STEP 15

Grab the Pen Tool (P), set it on Paths and trace the girl’s face. Make sure you make a closed contour. Hold SHIFT key and start a new path to trace the neck, chest and left shoulder. Do the same for the other skin areas.

STEP 16

Right-click and select Make selection… . Now you should see a “marching ants” selection. Grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M), right-click and select Layer Via Cut. Double-click the newly created layer’s name and rename it to “skin”.

STEP 17

Go to Layer > Duplicate Layer (CTRL+D) and turn off the visibility of the “skin” layer.

STEP 18

Go to the Layers palette (F7) and create a new layer group. Name it “flowers”.

STEP 19

Open the “designious floral pack” either in Illustrator if you have, or in Photoshop, the file is compatible. Copy it, paste it in our drawing and place it like below. Place this layer in the “flowers” layer group.

STEP 20

CTRL+click the flower’s layer thumbnail in the Layers palette (F7) to load a selection. Select the “skin copy” layer, grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M), right-click and select “Layer Via Copy”. Then click-drag this layer above the layer with the flower.

STEP 21

Select the layer with the flowers and use the settings below.

STEP 22

Add more flowers like in steps below. You’ll get a nice overlapping effect.

STEP 23

Select the “flowers” layer group and go to Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All. Select the layer mask, press D to set pure black as Foreground color and paint over the extra flowers that bypass the skin contour.

STEP 24

Select the “skin copy” layer and go to Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All. Select the mask and paint over the entire skin, except for the face. As a small detail, use a small brush to mask the skin using a flower as guide.

STEP 25

Create a new layer group above the “background” layer. Name it “background flowers”. Go to the “designious flowers” file, copy and paste more flowers into our document. Place them like below.
I’ve loaded a selection, so you can see them better.

STEP 26

Click-drag this layer group onto the “New Layer” button to copy it. Then press CTRL+T to enter Free Transform mode and make it smaller. Hit Enter.

STEP 27

Create a new layer group and name it “text”. Grab the Horizontal Type Tool (L), create a large type box and write a text of your choice. I wrote “designious”. Use a midtone gray (#a4a4a4) and Ubuntu font.

STEP 28

Go back to the “designious flowers” document, copy a flower and paste it in the layer group. Resize it (CTRL+T) and place it like below.

STEP 29

Repeat STEP 28 and place a flower like below.

STEP 30

Select both layers and go to Layers > Merge Layers (CTRL+E). Then go to Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal all. Paint over the extra areas of the flowers.

STEP 31

Select the top-most layer group and go to Layer > New Fill Layer. Set the color to a light purple (#efb3fa). Set Blending mode to Soft Light, Opacity to 75% and Fill to 50%.

STEP 32

Select the Fill layer and go to Layer > New Fill Layer. This time, use a midtone blue color
(#445e98). Set Blending mode to soft light, Opacity to 20% and Fill to 70%.

STEP 33

Select the second Fill layer and go to Layer > Photo Filter and select the “color” option, with an orange color.

Done!

The source file for this tutorial is available for download in the link below. Enjoy!

[download id=”157″]