by Chad Neuman

Movie posters are often great examples of aesthetically pleasing design and eye catching visuals. Movie poster artists use color, proportion, and typography to create some stunning looks. I recently noticed a movie poster for a newly released movie, The American. As a regular user of Adobe Photoshop, I then asked myself how something similiar to this poster look could be done in Photoshop. I don’t want to create exactly this look but rather create something similiar to learn from. It’s the difference between finding inspiration in a work of art and ripping it off. Therefore, follow along with this example and you’ll learn how to create a similar look and learn a few Photoshop and graphic design techniques along the way.

Step 1
In Photoshop, open a photo of your or a friend running forward but to the left or right. You don’t have to use a stock photo, but I downloaded this one from iStockPhoto to use. I purchased the small version, 566 x 848 pixels, a thumbnail of which I’ve included here.

© Lisa Gagne

Step 2
Next, find and open a photo of a person’s face, preferably one looking mysterious or serious. I chose this stock photo.

© Joey Boylan

Step 3
First we’ll need to remove some pixels around the face to resemble the movie poster. Select the Marquee Selection tool and click-and-drag an area around the face. Then press Cmd-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to duplicate what’s selected onto its own layer. Press the Eye icon next to the original Background layer to remove its visibility.

Step 4
Next, with this new layer selected in the Layers palette, press Cmd-J (PC: Ctrl-J) twice. This will duplicate to create three layers on top of the original (now transparent) Background layer. We’ll work on the top two layers, and if one of the layers needs a different look we can duplicate the second-to-bottom layer again.

Step 5
With the top layer selected in the Layers palette, go to Filter>Texture>Patchwork. Slide the Relief slider to the left to 0, and slide the Square Size slider to the right to 10. Click OK.

Step 6
Next, with the second-to-top layer selected in the Layers palette, go to Filter>Texture>Patchwork. Slide the Relief slider to the left to 0, and slide the Square Size slider to 4. This will create smaller squares than the other layer. Click OK.

Step 7
Select the top layer again in the Layers palette. Change the Layer Blending Mode on the top of the Layers palette to Darken, and the result will look something like the patchwork pattern to.

Step 8
This next step is optional depending on whether you want to mimic the original more or make the background more colorful. If you want to make it closer to the original, go to select the top layer and then go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation and slide the Saturation slider to the left to -100. Do this also for the second-to-top layer, the other layer we have added

Step 9
Click the Create New Layer icon on the bottom of the Layers palette. Click on the Set foreground layer on the bottom of the Tools palette and select some kind of color that we’ll apply to the background face photo. I chose an orange color, # ffb400. Press Option-Delete (PC: Alt-Backspace) to fill this new layer with the color. Change the Layer Blending Mode of this new orange (or whatever color you selected) layer to create the effect of colorizing the layer below it. I chose Darker Color for the Layer Blending Mode and adjusted the Fill on the top of the Layers palette to 75%.

Step 10
Next, we need to cut out the person of the other photo and add some effects. First double-click the Background layer on the Layers palette and click OK to name it something new and this will make the layer more editable so we can make a transparent background. Then use a selection tool to select around the figure and then either mask out or delete the area around him.

Step 11
Go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation and change the settings to something like this in order to make the figure have a sepia-like tone.

Step 12
This photo needs to be a little bit more rough looking, so let’s add some noise. Go to Filter>Noise>Add Noise and set the settings here or until the photo has subtle noise.

Step 13
Next let’s get rid of the extra orange layer around the egdes of the original photo. Use the Marquee Selection tool and delete the color around the photo. Then click-and-drag the figure onto the original face photo. Add a white background layer by pressing the Create New Layer icon and then filling it with white and clicking-and-dragging it below the other layers. Now we have something similiar to our real world movie poster.