Easy Hair Shine ==================================== This tutorial will walk you through the basic steps needed to bring out the shine in your character's hair in screenshots. It assumes you have a working knowledge of your graphics program of choice. I wrote this tutorial using Paint Shop Pro 9, but it can be easily adapted to other programs; the tools I used are very basic. ==================================== 1. Select your image Crop out the excess background areas in your chosen image. I'll be using two shots for this tutorial, one with dark hair and one with light hair: ==================================== 2. Set up your layers I've already cut my character out of my screenshot so that it has a transparent background. I named this layer "Original.". I created a new layer named "Black," moved it below my "Original" layer, and filled it with black (#000000) using my Flood Fill Tool ("F"). I created another new layer on top of my "Original" layer named "Shine 1." (We can add more "Shine" layers later, if necessary.) ==================================== 3. Set up your Paint Brush Press "B" to bring up your Paint Brush tool. These are the settings I'll be using first: ==================================== 4. Paint the "Shine 1" layer With the "Shine 1" layer active and using the brush settings above, make a pass or two. I'm using pure white (Hex #ffffff, RGB 255/255/255), but you can experiment with different colors to achieve different effects. Notice that hair's natural shine follows the curve of the skull and can originate from more than one point. If there are already subtle highlights in your screenshot, use them as a guideline. You can paint anywhere you like, since we'll be doing some cleanup later on. ==================================== 5. Intensify the highlights Working within your existing highlights on the "Shine 1" layer, make several more passes to intensify certain areas. At this point, you can reduce your brush size to 10 or 5 to give your highlights finer detail: ==================================== 6. Double it up Once you feel as though your "Shine 1" layer contains enough shine, duplicate the layer (Shift + "D"), then merge the duplicate layer down into the "Shine 1" layer. ==================================== 7. Blend and blur! With the "Shine 1" layer active, change your blend mode to "Dodge" (for dark hair) or "Overlay" (for light hair) and apply a Gaussian Blur ("Adjust" > "Blur" > "Gaussian Blur"). The actual blur settings will depend on the image and your preferences, but I've found that ideal settings for this technique usually fall between 5 and 10. Feel free to experiment with different blend modes until you find one (or a combination) that suits your image. Don't forget that you can add more "Shine" layers and adjust transparencies if you need to! In these cases, I used one layer set to "Dodge" at 100% opacity for the dark hair, and two layers set to "Overlay" at 50% opacity for the light hair. ==================================== 8. A little cleanup As you can see, the Gaussian Blur has caused some of our highlights to overlap areas of our character's face or armor. Can't have that! Press "X" to bring up your Eraser tool. I'm using these settings: Erase the areas where your highlight has gone astray on your character -- the outer edges will be cleaned up next, so no need to bother with them in this step. Gaussian Blur scatters particles quite a distance away, so you may have a larger area to erase than you think! ==================================== 9. A little more cleanup With the "Original" layer active, use your Magic Wand selection tool to select the non-opaque areas outside your character. I'm using these settings: The resulting selections: Feather your selection by 2. I'm using the "Selections" > "Modify" > "Inside/Outside Feather" dialog: Selecting each of your "Shine" layers in turn, press the "Delete" key on your keyboard. ==================================== 10. All done! Here are my shiny new coiffures (before & after): You can also use this technique for more than just hair (granted, not a great example, but you get the picture): ==================================== Show & Tell! Post your creations here so I can see how you used my tutorial!
Awesome! Hair is the one thing that I struggle with to get just the right sheen on. I'd been dry brushing it and then smudging the dry brush, but it still gives a kind of harsh effect when I do that. Now to go play around with this technique!
I've been unexpectedly busy this weekend, but I'd thought I'd break for a minute to show you what I did with your turtorial. Hair has always been my weakest point when manipulating. I got the rest of the stuff down pat, but I struggle with making good-looking hair. I did have to make some slight adaptations to the methods for Fireworks (which uses different tools), but the end result was, in my opinion, just as beautiful. Thank you so much, Seagoat! EDIT: for new image link
Awesome!! /thumbsup Looks like you used my eye tutorial too, hehe. It's those little things that really make a difference!
<grins> Actually, I used Kaethen's color burn tutorial for shading, only I reversed it for luminosity. The effect really brought out the green in her eyes (which looked brown in all the screenshots except one). I also enhanced the shadows along her chin, nose, cheeks, and ear, and enhanced her lip color (adding a slight pinkish glow to them). I enhanced the glow of her crown as well using your hair shine tutorial. OH, and BTW. I'm hijacking your spell effects turtorial to duplicate the Verdict graphic for her husband. <winks>
Oooh, can't wait to see how it turns out! I hate how the eyes in the game look beautiful until you take a screenshot, hehe. However you enhanced them, they look great now!
Tee Hee! Everything about her had to be perfect. You should have heard this guy describe his wife. He's so in love with her. How do you even make a sig for the most beautiful woman in the world?
Just so you all know, I'm a MAJOR noob at this!! I'm sure you can tell. I don't even have Photoshop, I'm just using the trial. I've been using tutorials from the forums to figure things out and a little 'googleing' as well. I'm just learning, so with that said, here is my attempt at your tutorial for hair shine. As you can see, I did a little armor shine as well. This is a rough draft before I did my final cut outs and touch ups. I'm enjoying this stuff so much, I'm going to have to buy the photoshop someday!!! Thank you pros for all of your tutorials and help! I'm not used to this posting in forums either, so I hope my pics show up. This is my before and after.
Sapphirius wrote: Thank you very much. I'm having a blast with this stuff! It's so addicting!!! I'm dreading the day when my free trial on my Photoshop runs out . Well, I do have a birthday and Christmas coming up - tee hee. I'm enjoying all the tutorials and learning a lot! You guys are great!
Seagoat - I have a few questions about the Hair Tutorial if you could offer some clarification please (and if any other informed parties feel like chipping in too, that would be great)... ================= "In these cases, I used one layer set to "Dodge" at 100% opacity for the dark hair, and two layers set to "Overlay" at 50% opacity for the light hair." Firstly, I am using Photoshop Elements 5.0 and we don't have a Blend Mode called "Dodge". What properties of the Dodge blend mode in PSP9 made you chose that blend mode, and can you (or a Photoshop user) recommend an alternative blend mode to use on dark hair. Secondly, what made you use two Overlay layers at 50% for light hair rather than one Overlay layer at 100% opacity? Finally, can I recommend a small clarification to step 9. A little more cleanup. I think it would be beneficial to emphasise the fact that the Feathering needs to be done on the Outside of the selected dark area (so that it reduces the shine on the *character's* edges). Again, Photoshop Elements doesn't let you choose which side of a selection to feather, defaulting to Inside, so I had to inverse the selection to achieve the desired effect. It took me several attempts to realise this was what I needed to do and it would have helped to know what effect I was trying to achieve. ================= In closing, I'd like to say I really appreciate the effort you have made in putting these tutorials together. Here's the image that I was working on last night... original on the left, reworked on the right...
Dustpaw@Antonia Bayle wrote: I can't answer the rest of this, but I think I can answer this part. I have an older version of PSE (4.0) on my system that I use for cleaning my images. I like the cutting tools on it better (magnetic lasso FTW!). Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that your dodge and burn tools are on the bottom of the tool bar you'll see on your left side of the screen. If you look, the last two options are "Blur" and "Sponge." The Sponge option will bring up a tool bar on the top with three options: sponge, dodge, and burn. From there, you can dodge and burn directly onto your image, though I'd recommend dupilcating the layer first so you don't have to start all over again if you mess up. However, since I like working with seperate layers, I made a slight adaptation to Seagoat's tutorial for use in my favorite program: Fireworks. EDIT: This is what I did using the dodge and burn tools in PSE 4.0.
Thanks for the quick reply and it's nice to see Mister Helixson the dwarf get another makeover. I have had occasion to use the dodge and burn tools before, but I was particularly interested in finding a substitute for the PSP9 "Dodge Blend Mode" since I will have a layer of highlights to apply a the dark hair layer. I assume, from the name, that the Photoshop Lighten or possibly Colour Burn blend modes may be the closest. If no one knows for sure, I'll give it a go and see which looks best.
Sadly, my knowledge of PhotoShope and PhotoShop Elements is... lacking. I use PSE just for cutting my images and Fireworks and Flash for everything else.
<bashes head against wall> If my computer wasn't packed up in tiny boxes, I could try and help you out with different blending modes. Hopefully someone answers you by Friday! If not, I'll do my best to try and help.
