A few people showed interest in how I made some super portraits so I figured I'd stop being a whore about it and share some of my skills in this department. I'm going to design these tutorials based on it no one has ever made one before, even in the slightest way. Please excuse the steps that you my already know of. These tutorials are also being written is if you have Photoshop CS2 and Paint Shop Pro X2.
First off, "POTS"-style.
Keep in mind that I've only ever seen his stuff in motion. I've never analyzed first hand how he made them.
Step 1: Choosing a picture
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Yes. First and foremost you need to pick an appropriate picture to modify. I suggest trying to find find one with the largest resolution as possible. Sizing down is always better then having to resort to sizing up. Though there are tools/plugins you can get that are designed for image expansion without quality loss.
In this case, I'll be using this pic of Taokaka, because, let's face it, BlazBlue characters are coming to MUGEN at some point soon:
The original size of the picture is 992x1000
Step 2: Cleaning out the background
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This, in my opinion, is the most tedious part of any portrait creation, especially with large pictures such as the one I'm using now. I used Photoshop for the cleaning. Its also better to do this step in color in most cases as its easier to tell edges apart.
Most people forget to clean the edges properly and end up with outlines around what should be solid black. I always use the Pencil tool. I'd suggest the same but that's totally up to you.
Use a larger Pencil brush size to black out the larger portions of unused art and use a smaller brush for inner corners. Just take the extra time to go around the edges and solidify everything that you don't want in the portrait.
Step 3: Grayscale
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Time to grayscale the image:
You should also change the levels so that the brightest parts of the picture are brighter and the darker parts are, well, darker.
This is the outcome:
Lots of contrast.
Step 4: Applying Effects
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Copy/Paste into Paintshop Pro X2. I've found that in many cases, PSP is better at applying effects like blurring and gives more control over the final product. Navigate the menus shown below to get to the Radial Blur modifier:
You pretty much have free range here. You'll want to set it to "Zoom", set the cursor in the preview over your point of interest, adjust the strength of the blur and also modify the "Protect Center" adjuster, which will allow a portion of the blur to remain un-blurred.
Apply it and you'll have this:
Copy/Paste back into Photoshop over the existing grayscaled picture you had before, then adjust the opacity of the blurred version(80%-90%).
The reason for doing this is to allow the clear version to be seen. It gives it a neat effect.
Step 5: Applying Colors
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You'll need to make the picture able to be colored so first, make the file RGB,
then merge the layers(optional):
Some people might think this part is hard initially, but its rather simple once you get used to playing with it. Navigate the menus below until you get to "Gradient Map":
Again, just play with the colors as you see fit.
In this case I'm modifying both layers as opposed to merging them and editing a single layer.
Top Layer:
Bottom Layer:
Together(plus red eyes >
:3 ):
Step 6: Finalizing
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Once done, merge the layers(if you dealt with multiple layers), size down accordingly, index the colors, and you have yourself a pretty sexy looking super portrait.
