Photos To Photoshop Graphics Tutorial
The process of turning your photos into graphics in Photoshop is a very useful one for all kinds of graphic design, especially things like posters and flyers. In this tutorial I will show you a very easy way to turn an image into a Photoshop graphic, perfect to use in other applications. You need to firstly pick out four colours, as this will be a four layer graphic. For this tutorial I will use dark red, light red, dark grey and light grey colours. This method works best if to colours are chosen, each with two shades. However, they can be changed at the end so don’t worry.
Note: There is a version of this tutorial with pictures that may be easier to follow here.
1. Begin by opening your chosen image into Photoshop, then click the ‘Channels’ tab at the top of the layer palette. This will reveal the red, green and blue colour channels in the photo.
2. What we need to do is duplicate the red, blue and green channels. This can be done by right clicking on each channel in turn and selecting ‘Duplicate Channel’. Then click ok. For the moment this will give the picture a very saturated tone.
3. Next we need to give our duplicated channels a harsh curve. To do this, select each channel individually then go to Image > Adjustment > Curves. You then need to drag the bottom point right to the bottom, three squares in and the top one right to the top, five squares in. Repeat this process for the two remaining duplicated channels. This will give the channels more contrast.
4. When you have given harsh curves to ALL THREE duplicated channels, they need to be inverted. To do this, select each channel in turn and go to Image > Adjustments > Inver or press CTRL+I. Remember to repeat this process for all three channels. Once ALL THREE duplicated channels have been given harsh curves and inverted, our image is ready to become a graphic.
5. The first part is to create the background of the image. To do this, hold CTRL/Apple and click on the RGB channel at the top of the ‘Channels’ tab (which creates a selection), then click on the ‘Layers’ tab. Now go to Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid Colour and pick your first colour when prompted.
6. Now comes the clever bit. As you did before, return to the ‘Channels’ tab, hold CTRL/Apple and click on one of your duplicated layers to create a selection. This will create a selection of what the layer contains. Now invert this selection by going to Image > Adjustments > Invert or press CTRL+I.
7. Now you have your inverted selection, click on the ‘Layers’ tab at the top of the layer palette. Make sure the original image (background) is selected and go to Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid Colour. It will prompt you to pick your second colour when selected. Once complete, deselect by pressing CTRL+D or Select > Deselect and return to the ‘Channels’ tab. You will see this has created the first layer from the photo.
8. Repeat step six and seven with the other two channels. To sum this up, hold CTRL, click on the channel, invert the selection, go back to ‘Layers’, make sure the background is selected and add another solid colour fill layer. Unfortunately, this process is a bit fiddly, but produces some really great results.
