by Chad Neuman

Here are a few techniques to create an “electrifying” design. Using soft white brushes is a popular technique in creating a hip layout, but we’ll use a few other techniques as well to create this design, including threshold, hue/saturation adjustments, and layer blending modes.

Step 1
Download the support files and open telephone pole.jpg in Adobe Photoshop.

Step 2
Go to Image>Threshold and change the Threshold Level to 179.

Step 3
Go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation and change the levels to the numbers shown here.

Step 4
Open “telephone pole2.jpg” and go to Image>Adjustments>Threshold and change the Threshold Level to 64.

Step 5
Go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation and change the levels to those shown here.

Step 6
Click the Move tool (the tool at the top of the Toolbar) and click-and-drag “telephone pole2.jpg” onto “telephone pole.jpg.”

Step 7
Make sure Show Tranform Controls is selected on the Options palette, and click-and-drag a corner with the Move tool and enlargen the top layer so it covers the Background layer.

Step 8
Change the Layer Blending mode on the Layers palette to Color Burn.

Step 9
Open kelly.psd and click-and-drag the layer with the Move tool onto the other image. Click-and-drag a corner with the Move tool to resize the image a bit. Hold Shift to maintain proportion.

Step 10
Go to File>Place and place “scan5.jpg” and make sure Show Tranform Controls is selected on the Options palette. Rotate it using the Move tool and make it larger by clicking-and-dragging on a corner.

Step 11
Click-and-drag the scan5 layer below Layer 2. Change the Layer Blending mode of scan5 to Multiply.

Step 12
Select Layer 2, the layer with my friend Kelly on it. Go to Layer>Layer Style>Stroke. Change the stroke color to White and the Size to 6.

Step 13
Click the New Layer icon on the bottom of the Layers palette and choose to Brush tool. Change the brush to the soft brush, 27.

Step 14
Click on various areas of the art, changing the size of the brush by pressing the left and right brackets.

 Now we have a nice design which adds interest to the overall photo look.

by Chad Neuman

Using the Threshold command in Adobe Photoshop can create a neat one-color effect. A full-color photo can be turned into a black outline. This technique involves creating a different shade of color to four different layers, all increasing levels of threshold. The result is a “layered threshold” look.

Step 1
Open up a photo you’d like to use in Photoshop. If you would like to use this photo, just click on it, save it to your computer, and then open it up in Photoshop.

Step 2
With a simple background like the one in this image, use the Magic Wand tool to select just the background. In the Options Bar, turn on the Contiguous option and adjust the Tolerance level as needed. Shift-click to add additional areas to the selection. Once the background is selected, choose Select>Inverse to select the subject. Press Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to copy the selection to a new layer. Remove the visibility of the Background layer by clicking its Eye icon in the Layers panel.

Step 3
Press Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) four times to create four copies of the subject’s layer.

Step 4
In the Layers palette, click on the top layer. Go to Image>Adjustments>Threshold. In the Threshold dialog, drag the slider under the histogram to a Threshold Level of about 30, and click OK.

Step 5
Remove the visibility of the top layer by clicking its Eye icon in the Layers panel. Select the second-to-top layer, and go to Image>Adjustments>Threshold again. Move the slider to a higher amount than you used in the previous step (about 60 in this example).

Step 6
Repeat this process for the third layer from the top and move the slider to an even higher Threshold Level (90 in this example).

Step 7
Repeat this process one last time for the fourth layer from the top and move the slider even higher (195 in this example).

Step 8
Next, we’ll change the color of the black in each layer: The higher layers will have darker shades of the same color that we’re using. But first, we’ll need to remove the white from each layer. Make the top layer the only visible layer and make it active. Select the Magic Wand tool, change its Tolerance to 0, and turn off the Contiguous option. Click on a white area in the image to select all the white, then press Delete (PC: Backspace) to remove the white. Repeat this for each layer.

Step 9
Make the top layer visible and active. Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) on the top layer’s thumbnail in the Layers panel to select all the pixels in the layer. Change the Background color by clicking on its swatch in the Toolbox and selecting a dark orange in the Color Picker. Press Command-Delete (PC: Ctrl-Backspace) to fill the layer with the new Background color.

Step 10
Repeat the same process for the next layer, but with a slightly lighter orange color. Remove the visibility of the other layers except for the two layers already changed to see the effect so far.

Step 11
Use this technique for the last two layers so that the four layers are each a varying shade of orange. The darker the color, the higher up the layer in the Layer palette’s stacking order.

The effect should result in the darker colors showing the details and the background layers being lighter. This image looks like vector art but it’s still technically a raster image.

We can, of course, place it into Adobe Illustrator if we like and trace it. You can also merge all the colored layers and apply a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to change the colors.