Blend Tutorial ft Amanda Brynes
Originally I made this blend to enter in a blend challenge at SwimChick.net. But I never got around to
finishing it by the deadline because I was busy. So I thought it a good idea if I wrote a tutorial on how
it was made. If you click on the above blend you can see the fullsized one.
01. Fist thing you're going to need is a base picture. The pictures I've used were provided by
swimchick.net but you can use any you wish or the same as me. Choose a picture with a solid coloured background (for
example, the picture of Amanda I used has a pastel blue to white gradiant background once I played around with the
colouring). The original is here.
Be sure to floodfill your background with a colour that matches the base images.
02. Traditional blends are great but I wanted something more with this one. Instead of just blending my three
images I chose to overlap PSD's over my base image. Take ,
this
and this picture of Amanda and create a PSD of
each (tutorial here if you don't know how).
Once you've cut your PSD's and postioned them, choose one of your PSD's
to become your attention grabber. I've chosen the one of Amanda tugging on her dress.
03. Duplicate that layer twice and drag both beneath the original. Your layers are going to look something like this:
(screenshot)
This blend will have a stack of layers so to prevent confusion I like to organizer them in folders. Along the
bottom panel of your layer pallete is a little folder icon. Click that.
(screenshot)
Drag your PSD's and the two duplicates into the folder called SET 1.
04. Chose the bottom duplicate and go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur... a box will popup.
ANGLE: 0
DISTANCE: 90 (may be different considering you're using different pictures to me)
By now you should have something like this
05. Select the other duplicate but this time go to Filter > Pixelate > Mosaic... Again a box will popup. Choose a Cell Size of about 5.
This step actually depends on your taste. If you want larger pixelation go for a higher number.
06. The pixelized layer of Amanda is hidden behind our original PSD so, using your drag tool, drag out from the left slightly and then drag up a little. (Screenshot)
07. Now, using this picture I made a cutout. I roughly cut around Amanda leaving an outline of the background. You can do this by using the Polygonal Lasso Tool.
Make sure the cutout is below your PSD layers. Drag the image around until you find a nice spot to hide part of it behind. I'm going for the side of Amanda. Resized it to
make it smaller (If your using PSP, you'll have to resize before dragging it onto your blend) and desaturated the image...
You can desaturate by....
PS: (ctrl+shift+U)
PSP: (shift+H and change Saturation to -100).
08. Set the cutouts mode to softlight and duplicate it, drag the duplicate to position it to your liking and then set that layer to lighten. You'll have something
like this and your layers will be like this.
09. Now, we need to repeat this step again for another image (this one) except this time we only cut one side and when you duplicate it, drag it behind the original and then go
to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur...
ANGLE: 0
DISTANCE: About 400 (you be the judge though. Go with what looks right. The higher the number the better because we want it to be only slightly visible)
Set the motion blur layer to multiply. Your blends going to be looking something like this.
10. Using a brush from my swirl pack (here) pick a colour (I'm using white) and use the brush over the section we've been working on. You can actually use any brush you like, it
doesn't have to be the swifl one. Set your brush layer to softlight, opacity about 20-25%.
The cutout section isn't blending very well with our background and stands out. Theres two ways you can fix this: Eraser or covering it up. I'm going for the latter.
11. Create a new layer below all your other layers. It should be above your background though. Using the marquee tool make a rectangle like so (Screenshot). Flood fill it with a
darker colour then the background. In this case I used the dropper tool to pick a colour from Amanada's clothing. I ended up with a dull nazy blue. We're going to be using
motion blur again so go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur...
ANGLE: 0
DISTANCE: 479.
12. Crate another layer above the motion blured retangle layer and using the Penicl Tool on 1px draw a line from the edge of your blend and end it behind Amanda. (Screenshot)
13. Paste ">this stock by swimchick.net onto your blend and position it over the box and line we just created. Set the mode to lighten.
Then paste this texture (also by swimchick.net) set the
mode to lighten, opacity: 45%. And paste this scratchy texture (AGAIN by swimchick.net) and set to lighten, 100% opacity. Phew! Textures out of the way now haha.
14. The last thing to do is add this brush by me above Amanda's head and thats it!
If you need further help or don't understand one of the steps mentioned please contact me here and I'll do my best to help you :)
