HOW TO DIGITALLY PAINT LIP GLOSS WITH A TABLET

This tutorial demonstrates how to use digital painting with a drawing tablet to create the illusion of lip gloss on bare lips. I use this technique frequently for retouching, and it’s a great digital painting exercise too!

Final Image Preview

Assets

This photo is from nokomai on stock.xchng. If you’d like to work with the original file, it’s located here. For this tutorial, I’ll be zooming in on the lips to show you the process.

Plumping the Lips

The sheen of lip gloss often gives the impression of plumper lips. To support this illusion, we’ll start by using the Liquify tool (Filter » Liquify). I set my brush size to 195px and select the Bloat tool from the left-hand menu in the dialog window. Then I single-click appoximately five times along the horizontal center of her her lower lip:



The result:

Colorizing the Lips

Colorizing the lips will help them appear moist and as if she is wearing a tinted gloss. I turn on size jitter (refer to my post on digital painting pressure settings if you’re not sure how), select a 30px brush, and pick a light red color (#c83a3a). I create a new layer and roughly paint over the lips.



To blend the color in, I set the Blend Mode for that layer to Soft Light. I also set the layer opacity to 50%.



Finally, I clean up the rough edges with a 100px eraser on 0% hardness. Since the eraser is so large, the edges are very soft—great for subtle blending. I carefully use the soft edge to erase the hard edges of the color. Notice the difference on the far left, far right, and bottom areas of the lips.

Adding Shine

This is the trickiest part!
Before I do anything else, I look at the lips and judge where my light source is. In this case, it appears to be coming from the top left, so I will paint my shine accordingly. If you’re unsure, it’s useful to have reference images.
When light hits a thin coat of lip gloss, it will catch all the little lines in the lips. Our first step is to highlight the more obvious of these lines.
To do so, I set my brush to 5px, white, with size jitter on. I use a series of short, up-and-down strokes to achieve a ‘tapered’ effect. So, for the below stroke, I brush up and down a few times until the middle is the desired thickness, then ‘flick’ my stylus upward so that it will taper on top. I repeat this to taper it on the bottom, too.



With one stroke complete, I proceed to add more strokes. Look for obvious creases in the lips, then place a stroke on the side of it that’s opposite that of your light source.



Next, I begin adding blocks of shine. These will be largest where the light is hitting, then become less obvious as you move away from the light source. I use a consistent up-and-down motion with a light touch to paint these blocks.



As you move away from the light source, the lighting will be less defined. To create a more scattered effect, I just began ‘dotting’ the color instead of painting in strokes.



Here I add some additional sheen on the upper lip. Again, the detail comes from simply ‘dotting’ color and using small, up-and-down strokes.




I reduce the opacity of my shine layer to 80%.



To add an additional reflection from non-direct light, I increase my brush size to 9px and keep the size jitter on. I create a new layer and reduce the opacity to 40%.
In the above image, you can see the natural grooves of the lips as they meet the area where her lips part. These will guide the shape you form.
Using small, circular strokes, I create a shape that is much more general than our first shine. The circular strokes should be most obvious near the grooves in the lips, where small Vs are formed atop the grooves and in-between your circle-strokes. (See image below.) The shape should generally cover any area that you included light, and taper off as it approaches the left and right sides of the mouth.



I use the same technique to add sheen to the top lip.



I reduce the opacity of the layer to 20%.

Final Image

Here’s our final image:



I hope you find this tutorial helpful! If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Read More

Age Progression - Photoshop Tutorials

Here’s a little tutorial showing you how I basically go about aging a woman’s face in Photoshop.

Preface
I've been asked several times by different members to post a tutorial on how I age-progress a person. So, here it is!



Men and women age a little bit differently but since I've only aged female celebrities thus far, I'll just focus on women for this tutorial. I’ll be using the image of Katie Holmes that I did for a past W1K contest, as an example.
Step 1: Choosing an Appropriate Photo
When deciding to age-progress a celebrity’s face, I try to select a picture that is touched-up as little as possible.



I find that candid shots, or any shots that have not been taken in a studio, work best because the resulting harsh lighting reveals more of the skin’s details i.e. slight bags under the eyes and faint wrinkles. The appearance of such details makes it all that much easier to visualize how your subject will age. Visualizing what the end result will look like brings you one step closer to aging her face realistically.



In Katie’s case, we can see very faint horizontal lines on her forehead, fairly obvious lines under her eyes and lines bracketing her mouth.
Step 2: Collecting Reference Material
Reference material is key in my method of aging. Keeping Katie’s face in mind, I scoured the Web, looking for faces of old women who either resemble Katie and/or share the same facial expression. Here, Katie is smiling with her face positioned at a 3/4 angle so I tried to gather as many pictures of old women who are smiling in the same manner or close to that. I then opened up the picture of Katie in Photoshop and pasted the found images around her face on a separate layer, spread out to provide easy visual access.



Another kind of reference I like to use but is usually hard to find, is pictures of the subject’s parents. I managed to find a couple of reference pictures of Katie’s mother online and they really helped me to decide whether or not to give Katie a double chin. Since her mom has quite a bit of mass under her chin, I decided I would apply that to Katie too.
Step 3: Thinning Brows
Now the fun begins! The first thing I like to do is to thin out the subject’s eyebrows and eyelashes. The older people get, the thinner their hair gets - either because hair falls out and/or because it dries out as it greys.



So to achieve this, I like to use the Clone Stamp tool at 100% with a relatively small brush size depending on the size and resolution of the image. I sampled the surrounding skin to thin and reduce the number of hairs.
Step 4: Mold the Face
Next, I like to add the basic sags to the skin. I do this in the Liquify mode. I tried to create sagging effects to the cheeks, jowls and the cliff just above the eyes by using the Push tool. For the eyes, I tried to be subtle; otherwise she may end up looking somewhat ghoulish.



From what I’ve learned about the aging process, I know that while bones cease to grow, and in fact shrink, cartilage does continue to grow. As a result, the end of a nose may appear larger as a person grows older. So while I was still in the Liquify mode, I used the Push tool to extend the length of the nose slightly. Then I used the Bloat tool to also enlarge it slightly, being careful not lose the essential quality or character of the nose. Go too far and it may not look like Katie anymore.

Step 5: The Aforementioned Double Chin



Based on her mother’s pictures, I then added a fairly massive double chin. I initially used the Airbrush tool with some fairly broad strokes, sampling the colors that were already in the area of her neck. I then worked in the details with a finer brush size. Also, keep in mind that I was also using the other reference photos of older women to guide me.
Step 6: Wrinkle Up the Eyes
For me, the most important parts to get right are the eyes. They can make or break the project. Done wrong and the picture may no longer be identifiable as one of Katie Holmes anymore. I sought out the fine lines around the eyes and I tried to imagine how they would progress into wrinkles. I then extended them in length and width accordingly. Referencing the pictures of old women helped a lot with this step.



I used a combination of the Stamp tool and Brush tool. I wish I could explain my technique at this point in a more clinical manner but mostly I relied on my artistic instincts. I emphasized the wrinkles around the eyes by widening and deepening the lines slightly and increasing the contrast by darkening the recesses and lightening the edges. Also, I extended wrinkles to the cheekbone areas. I then applied the same technique to the wrinkles around the mouth and to the forehead.
Step 6: Reducing the Lips
In this step, I work on the lips. As people grow older, the outline of the lips tends to recede. Using the Stamp tool, I sampled the skin surrounding the lips and thinned them out.



While I was at it, I also added a few vertical wrinkles above the lips to give her a bit of a "prune" effect. We just want a hint of that, so don’t carve out deep lines; deep lines would only be necessary if she was puckering her lips.
Step 7: Planning Out More Wrinkles



Here, on a separate layer, I faintly outlined or sketched, with a relatively thin brush size, areas that I may or may not add more lines and wrinkles to. It’s easy to get carried away with the addition of wrinkles. So, I stopped, took a step back and assessed where to take to image. For me, it's essential and a great test to see what best works.
Step 8: Touching Up the Wrinkles
Based on the previous step, I added wrinkles where I thought they were needed most.



Overall, I found that the wrinkles and lines seemed a little flat in comparison to the rest of Katie’s features. They needed more definition so that they could pop out more. So, I highlighted the raised edges of the individual lines with the Brush tool and with a lighter skin tone.
Step 9: Hairy Lips
Facial hair becomes an issue with most women as they age. For some strange reason they lose it in the brow area and grow it back around the mouth area. I didn’t want Katie to be the exception so with a very fine brush size and the Brush tool, I added hairs to her upper lip.



I tried to make it as subtle as possible. Hairs too thick or dark would draw the viewer’s attention straight to her mustache and I didn’t want that. I also added more wrinkles to the area below the corners of her mouth.
Step 10: Refining the Neck



I decided that the neck was too smooth for a woman of 75 years of age. So I added finer wrinkles to that area. Also, I added more mass and weight to her jowls with the airbrush by increasing the value of the tones in those areas thus creating more contrast between surface planes.
Step 11: Adding Age Spots
A key component to effective aging of a face is the addition of age spots.



So at this point, I sampled one of the darker skin tones on her face, and on a separate layer that was set to Multiply and 30% opacity, I brushed them in and tried to create irregular shapes (there IS no perfect age spot). You can add as many as you like; the amount varies from person to person. I decided to be conservative with Katie.
Step 12: More Refinements
I took a little break from it and came back to it later to possibly get a better perspective on it. When I looked at it, at this point, I decided that certain areas needed refining and added detail. This is the beauty of working with a high-resolution file; I can zoom in real close and deal with a wrinkle up-close and personal.



Unless their teeth were subjected to regular whitening, most people’s teeth yellow with age. Gums also recede, showing less gum and more bone. And so with that in mind, I sampled a yellowish-brown color and on a new layer that was set to Multiply and 30% opacity and painted that color to the teeth with the Brush tool. Her gums didn’t show to begin with, so receding the gums here wasn’t necessary.
Step 13: Preparing the Hair



The finishing touch here is greying the hair. I began by creating a mask defining the area of the hair. I used the brush for this and tried my best to define as many loose strands of hair that I could.



With this mask as a selection, I then created a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and reduced the saturation to –63.



I then created a new adjustment layer based on the same mask and adjusted the Brightness/Contrast to brightness +9 and contrast –36. As a result, I found that the darker areas were too pale and caused a loss of depth and so to adjust that, I then selected the mask and scratched out the darker areas with a 5px brush size at 50% opacity so that they could show through from the original image.
Step 14: Hair Raising
The next step was to raise the hairline and thin out the hair. Hair loss is common with both sexes.



I sampled the area at the top of the forehead and extended the skin area above the original hairline.
Step 15: Greying the Hair
A lot of details of the hair were lost in the previous step so with a thin brush size at 80 percent opacity I drew in fine grey hairs, sparsely laid out.



Patiently, slowly, stroke by stroke I added more and more hairs until I was happy with the amount of grey I had added.
Step 16: Finishing Touches
Finally, I took a step back, refined a few wrinkles here and there ET VOILA!



I hope this tutorial was insightful. It may not be the most technically detailed tutorial but it gives you a good idea of the process I go through to get the job done. Hopefully, it will help you create your own trophy-winning images for future Fountain of Age contests!

Read More

Cool Transparent Effect on Clothes

In this Photoshop tutorial I’m going to show you how to make an interesting creative effect of creating transparent clothes on woman body.


In the beginning I would like to find some picture for background where we will create our cool transparent dress effect in futuristic style. I think this one picture will be good. Open up the picture. On this canvas I’m going to demonstrate you the transparent magic effect. Now we need to find some appropriate picture of woman in bikini to work with. You can find the picture you need on the Google Images or feel free to use mine picture.



Select the Polygonal Lasso Tool to divide woman silhouette from the white background.



Holding the Alt button cut away inner parts of background between hands and body also
.


Ok, now press Ctrl+C to copy selected area, then go back to the main picture with interior background and press ctrl+V to paste copied part of image. Then reduce it a little bit and move it down as shown on my picture below.



Since the girl was cut with a white background, her contour shines white a little. How can we fix this? Very easy! Just apply Inner Glow layer style for current layer.



The result should be next:



Looks better now, but still not so realistic. Apply the Burn Tool (Brush: 40 px, Range: Midtones, Exposure: 30%) to burn a little bit bright parts of the body such as hands and legs.



Ok, time to create magic transparent dress. It will be nice if we create it from flowers. In this case we should find some picture of chamomile. Use Google Images to find appropriate picture or also you can use mine. Open up the picture and copy it to our main canvas
.


Now, use the Magic Wand Tool to select the black background which is out of chamomile. Press Delete to clear selected area.



Remove selection with Ctrl+D. Then apply Edit > Free Transform to reduce flower size.



Duplicate this layer a few times to create the upper and lower contour dresses and add one flower as hair decoration.



Duplicate the last one layer with flower again and press Ctrl+T to reduce it a little bit. We need smaller flowers to create dress straps. Also add more flowers in the dress bottom.



Now, duplicate the less size flower one more time and press Ctrl+T to reduce the flower size more. Copy this smallest size flower a few times more to pave strings area from the left and right sides.



After that we can bring a few different size flower to the dress area as ornament.



Ok, move to the next step. Go to the woman silhouette layer and create the same selection with Polygonal Lasso Tool as on my picture below.



After that press Ctrl+Shift+J to cut selected part of image on the new layer. Then set up fill opacity to 0% and apply Inner Glow and Color Overlaylayer styles for this layer:




The result should be next:



Now we have one small hole on the dress bottom. To remove this defect use the Polygonal Lasso Tool and create selection as shown on the picture below. Fill this selected area with any color.



Remove selection with Ctrl+D. Merge all the layers together except interior background and woman silhouette. Duplicate received layer and apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur for the copied layer.



Change layer mode to Soft Light for this layer and you will get the next result:



Now, merge current layer with previous and apply Filter > Other > High Pass with similar settings to these:



The result should look as mine on the picture below.



That is it for now! We got a cool transparent dress in futuristic style. I’m pretty much finished for this tutorial, thanks for taking the time to read it!



If you want to receive updates from PhotoshopStar, please consider subscribing our RSS feed. You can also follow us on Twitter.

Read More