TUTORIAL: Portrait

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Subject: TUTORIAL: Portrait Wed May 20 2009, 17:59

Hey all! Welcome to my first ever tutorial! Hopefully it will work out splendidly ^^ I use Paint.Net, so this will all be in that lingo. If you have trouble understanding something please let me know!

Today we will be making a banner in the following style:

Pretty easy to do, doesn't take too much time, and turns out so pretty, if I may say so myself XD

This will hopefully teach you to not be afraid of blank space! Blank is not always boring! It can create a really unique, powerful look with the right images.

All images I've used to make graphics in this style have been from a photo shoot I found on Foto Decadent: Paintings. You don't have to use the same ones I do; any will work for this tutorial! So, without further ado...

Step One: Pick your two images and paste them into your program. I will be using these two, but feel free to use whichever you like.

Image One|Image Two

Step Two: Arrange your pictures in a 450x200 plane. Experiment to find out which image should be in front and which behind, which larger and which smaller. The way that I do this is go to each individual image and zoom in and out to eyeball what would work. Then I pushed the PrintScreen key and pasted the image into my 450x200 in a new layer and moved it around until it was in a nice place. I made a new layer, set it to Lighten, and did the same with the next image. I unchecked the background layer so I was able to see what I was doing well. I used 66% for Image One and 50% for Image Two. Here's something similar to what you should see:

Step Three: Erase anything unwanted, like the background of the front image that covers up the back image's face. Then, use a lasso tool to outline the rough edges and blur them. I usually start out with a blur like 4 and then do it again - tracing further into the image this time - with a smaller one like 1. If that didn't make much sense - blur the edges! Next, use a color-picking tool to grab a dark color from your image. Flood the background layer with this and check it so it appears. Then you can use the lasso tool again and blur any edge of an image that doesn't blend in to the background color. You should now have something like this:

Step Four: Here is where we get some intensity! Duplicate each layer and set the duplicated layers to Overlay. Don't worry if the blending doesn't look too hot once it's like this; the next layer will cover it up. You should now have something like this:

Step Five: For this step you need a grungy paper texture. I'll be using this one: Texture. Make a new layer and paste the texture onto it. Set this layer to Color Burn. If you feel it's too dark you can change the opacity. Changing the hue or saturation of this layer can also create a neat effect. Use your lasso tool to outline and then blur the people. You should now have something like this:

Step Six: Clean up! If you see any raggedy edges or anything, blur them away in this step. Here you can also add text and a border. And then...YOU'RE DONE!

Please post what you make here so I can see :D If you have any questions, please PM me!

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