Tag Archives: PHSH Tutorials

Scars (PHSH Effect #26)

2023-10-23 Ater Imber Leave a comment

Important: This is the 4th last article for 2023. I’ll be taking the last half of December and first half of January off from posting.

I’ll be back January 12th, 2024 with the first short story of the new year! (The first article will go up January 15th)

This month, I’ll be showing you guys how to add a scar to a picture. That’s right, I’m bringing you yet another ‘creepy’ tutorial to perfect just in time for Halloween!

As with most other tutorials, this one may seem complicated at first, but once we break it down, it’s actually not too hard to execute. And, like all the other tutorials: it’s fun!

Let’s get started.

Step 1

As always, Step 0 is to open a new PHSH document and to pick a base picture. Because this is a… let’s call it ‘dark’ tutorial, a picture that matches will make the effect look better. Look for something where a person is screaming, in some kind of pain or otherwise terrified.

I for example, found this one.

Feel free to use this same image, or one you find yourself. The steps should be the same, with maybe just a slight tweak of colours depending on the base picture. But don’t worry, we’ll get to that.

Once you find a picture you like, you’ll need to decide where you want the scar to be. On my picture, I’m going to put it on the left side of her forehead. After you decide on the placement, we’ll be drawing the scar.

To do this, first you’ll need to set the Foreground Colour to a faded red. #984A48 will work for the tutorial.

Step 2

Once the Foreground Colour is set, create a New Layer, then go over to your Brush Tool. With the Brush Tool selected, go up to the Brush Settings at the top and change Mode to Dissolve.

You’ll also want to change Flow to 50% and leave Opacity at 100%.

Once you’ve changed the Flow, you’ll want to also change the Size of your brush. The size of the brush will be the width of your scar, so make sure you choose one that isn’t too thick or too thin. 6 Pixels should work for today. But once you have the technique down, you can always experiment with different sized brushes to see how the different sized wounds look.

You can leave the Hardness of the brush at 100%. (Or, if it’s not currently set at 100, change it to that)

Now that we’ve got the brush set up, it’s time to make the cut!

Draw a line where you want the scar to appear on your model. Don’t forget that human faces (or bodies) aren’t completely flat, so your scar shape should reflect that.

For example, if you’re drawing the scar on the person’s cheek, the line should follow the curve of the cheek bone.

If you don’t like how your mark comes out, erase it and try again until you’re happy with it. This is why we’re drawing on the New Layer we made and not directly on the model picture.

You can also zoom in on your picture (using the CTRL and + buttons) if needed to help you get the shape you want. (To zoom back out, it’s CTRL – )

Step 3

Next, we’re going to draw over the mark again, but with an altered Brush. This time, change your Brush Mode back to Normal, double the brush Size (if you used 6px, make it 12px) make the Opacity 50% and change the Flow to 100%.

You also do not need to trace over the previous line perfectly! Having it a little skewed will help with the end effect. Scars are never perfect, right?

Step 4

In the Layer’s Menu, right-click on the scar layer and open Blending Options. Once opened, check-mark Bevel & Emboss to apply the style to the layer.

Once you apply the effect, click on it to open the options. We’ll be changing them to make the scar more life-like.

You’ll also want to apply the Contour and Texture boxes by check-marking the boxes next to them.

Now we’re going to start changing the Bevel & Emboss options. To start, change:

– Style to Inner Bevel

– Technique to Smooth

– Depth to about 285%

– Size to 5px

And Soften to 0px

After making these changes, your scar should look like a welt with a nasty line in the middle.

You can also change the Direction and Angle if needed, though 120 should work for a face. You’ll want to change these values depending on the lighting the picture you chose has.

Once you’re happy with how the scar looks, click “Ok” to apply the changes.

Step 5

Next we’re going to use the Smudge tool to get rid of any pixelated edges on our darker line.

Set the Strength to 50% and smudge the edges very lightly. We need just enough smudging to get rid of the pixelation. If you smudge it too much, the mark will end up looking more like a smear than a scar.

If needed, you can zoom in closer to help you complete this step.

Step 6

After you’re done smudging, make a duplicate of the model layer. The easiest way to do this is to hold down the ALT button on your keyboard while clicking and dragging the model layer in the Layer’s Panel.

If you were zoomed in on the scar to smudge, you can also go ahead and zoom back out now.

Once you’ve made the duplicate, you’re going to Merge the scar layer with it. To do this select both layers (hold down CTRL and then click on each layer) then right-click and select Merge Layers from the drop-down menu.

The option Merge Layers shouldn’t be greyed out if you have both selected. My option is greyed out because my computer is dumb sometimes and won’t show a click drop-down menu when I want it to. The picture above is my options while only having 1 layer selected.

Step 7

Now that the layers are merged, go to the Layers Panel and change the Opacity for the layer. You’ll want something fairly sheer so the scar looks faded. Something around 10% should work. For my picture, I made the Opacity 18%.

If you want the scar to look more pronounced, change the opacity to something higher.

Here’s how my scar looked when I changed the Opacity to 30%.

And this is what it looked like at 60%.

As you can see, the higher the Opacity is, the more pronounced the red is but that’s the reason it will start to look fake if it’s too bright.

If you think the dark line in the center of the scar still looks too pixelated, you can go ahead and use the Blur tool on it to smooth it out. Just like with the Smudge tool, you’ll want to do this carefully.

Though it is Halloween, so if you wanted to, you could throw subtly out the window and go in the complete opposite direction.

It all depends on the look you’re trying to achieve.

That’s it for this tutorial! Don’t forget to save your file both as a PHSH file so you can continue to practice and as a picture (JPEG, PNG, etc.) so you can share it with your friends and family.

Like this tutorial? Check out the rest of the series here!

Writing, Writing Tips

Puddles Way 2 (PHSH Effect #24)

2023-06-05 Ater Imber Leave a comment

As I said in the first puddle tutorial, I found different ways to make puddles using Photoshop. Today, I’ll be showing you the 2^nd way I discovered to make them.

Similar to snowflakes, not every puddle is created the same. This means that you’ll need to use different techniques to get different types of puddles. This technique will show you how to make puddles that work better in a post-rain image. (Apposed to the first way, which works great for active-raining puddles)

Luckily though, none of the techniques are hard to accomplish. As long as you follow the steps carefully, you’ll soon be a master puddle maker!

Step 1

For this technique, we’re going to need to start with a picture. You’ll want to use a picture that has a clear foreground object – whether it be a person, building, car, etc. – and you’ll also want to make sure it has a clear view of the ground.

I’ll be using this picture, but as always, feel free to use any royalty free image you have. (As long as it fits the parameters)

After you’ve chosen your picture, you’ll want to go ahead and pull it onto your new work document. Make sure the blank page as space underneath the picture. (We’ll be adding the puddles to this part)

Step 2

Now that you have the picture and document set up, you’re going to use your Polygon Lasso tool and select part of the image. This will be the part used as the puddle’s reflection. Since my image doesn’t have too much going on in it, I just decided to make my selection a rectangle.

And since the selected line is hard to see, I’ve outlined my selection for you using red.

Don’t forget to bring your line all the way back to the first point you created. This will ‘close’ off the selection for you. If needed, you can also use a Guide Line to help you.

If you have trouble using the Polygon Lasso tool, don’t have one in your version of Photoshop, or if your image is nice and simple (like mine), you can go ahead and just use the Rectangle Marquee Tool, instead.

Step 3

After making your selection, you’ll need to right-click then select Layer Via Copy from the drop-down menu.

Once you’ve made the selection it’s own separate layer, go to the Layer’s Panel (on the right-hand side) and right-click on the selection layer and select Convert to Smart Object.

Step 4

Next, using your Transform tool, you’ll want to right-click on the selection again, and this time, you’re going to select Flip Vertical. Do not press Okay after you’ve done this!

Once it’s flipped upside down, you’re going to Skew the layer to make it align under the picture better. If you’re using an image like I am, where you’re not making the reflection in sections, you can just go ahead and Skew the reflection to one side of the document.

Skewing the reflection off to one side will make it appear like it’s spread across the invisible ground of the image, instead of like you Photoshop-ed it in.

Step 5

Now that the reflection has been flipped and skewed, you can go ahead and lower it to it’s position under the image.

If you need to reflect multiple parts of your image, you’ll want to do that now. Once you’ve done that, you can Merge all the reflection layers into one layer by selecting them all from the Layers panel (hold down CTRL while clicking on them) then right-click and select Merge Layers from the drop down menu that appears.

Once all your reflections are on one single layer, you’re going to right-click it from the Layers panel again, and select Convert to Smart Object.

Step 6

Now we’re going to start the process of making the puddle look realistic. To do this, we’re going to add an Inverted Layer Mask by clicking the button in the Layers Panel.

After you click the button, your reflection layer might disappear – this is okay! It’s not actually gone, as you’ll see in the Layers Panel, we just can no longer see it. But don’t worry, because the next step will show you how to get it back.

Step 7

Now we’re going to use the Brush tool. Make sure you’re using a large brush size, and it’s soft. To do this, go up to the top menu that shows you the Brush options, click on it, and then drag the Size arrow to the right-side of the screen, and the Hardness arrow closer to the left-side of the screen.

You’ll also want to change the Brush’s Opacity to 50. (You can also do this in the top Brush options menu)

Now that we’ve got our Brush set up, comes the fun part. Brush over the part of the image you want the reflection to appear over.

It was at this point that I realized the image I chose wasn’t the best option to use for the purposes of this tutorial.

However, instead of starting completely over with a brand new image, I decided to keep this mistake in the tutorial to show you guys that sometimes mistakes happen.

And when they do, you just say “oh, crap” have a little chuckle, make a mental note to not do it again, and then fix it.

In this case, ‘fixing’ my mistake just meant I had to do Steps 1-7 on a new, more appropriate image.

So that’s exactly what I did. And I think you’ll agree, this one came out a lot better.

For reference, this was the original picture.

Step 8

Now that we’ve gotten an appropriate picture, let’s continue, shall we?

By this stage, depending on the lighting in your image, the reflections should be looking more or less closer to a mirrored reflection than a puddle.

If you chose an already dark image like my bench picture, you can go ahead and skip this step.

If you didn’t, you’ll want to head to the Adjustments panel and use the Levels Adjuster to darken the reflection.

The actual level you’ll want to adjust will be the Middle Input Slider. To make it darker, you’ll want to go ahead and slide it to your right. You’ll also want to make sure you’re only darkening the one reflections layer and not the entire image.

Step 9

If your reflection still seems too opaque, you can go ahead and change it’s Opacity in the Layers Panel. Again, this will depend on the lighting of the image you’re using. Use your best judgment for how low to go. Stop at whatever value makes it look closest to a real reflection.

Step 10

The final step to make these reflections look real is to make them blurry. There’s actually three different ways to do this. Which way you’ll want to do will depend on the image you’re using, your comfort level with playing with the different settings, and whichever way you find easiest.

The first way, is to go up to the Filters menu and add a Gaussian Blur.

The second way is by going to the Properties Panel and adjusting the Feather setting.

And the last way, is to just use your Blur tool on the reflections layer.

I personally used all three to see which one gave me the effect I wanted, but ultimately I decided on using the Blur Tool technique.

Feel free to play around with all three to see the different effects they have on your image.

Once you find a method you’re happy with, and the reflection is blurred to your desire, go ahead and save that puppy, because you’re done!

If you made a mistake, or the reflection didn’t come out quite how you thought it would, don’t worry. Just keep practising and you’ll eventually get the hang of it.

Like this tutorial? Check out more here!

Writing, Writing Tips

Glitter (PHSH Effect #20)

2022-06-20 Ater Imber 1 Comment

This article was written 21.11.25, please excuse any reference/joke that’s no longer applicable.

Now that it’s summer and we’re finally getting to go back outside in the nice weather, the timing couldn’t be more perfect to pivot away from the ‘depressing’ rain effect I showed you last time, and show you how to make something much ‘happier’: Glitter!

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Also, Pride is this month, so it seemed extra fitting, albeit a little cliché.

Let’s get started!

Step 1

First step for this effect, is you’ll need to find a Glitter Texture picture, and have a picture you want to add glitter to. For simplicity, I’m going to be doing this tutorial with a picture of an eye, and apply the glitter to look like eye shadow.

That said, you can definitely use this technique to add glitter in more fantasy-based pictures, if needed. (I’ll show you an example at the end of the tutorial)

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this yet or not, but if you haven’t found a good royalty-free website to get pictures from (unfortunately you can’t just use Google-d pictures for book covers), Pixabay and Pexels are great websites.

Once you have both pictures, open a new PHSH project, and place both the glitter, and base picture into it, and resize if necessary. Then, (if needed), drag the glitter layer so it’s on top of the base picture.

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You can also change the glitter layer’s Opacity so you can see the base picture through the layer.

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Step 2

Once you have your pictures set, we’re going to use the Eraser tool to erase parts of the glitter picture we don’t need. Using a pretty big sized brush, and a high percent of Hardness, start erasing the parts of the glitter picture you don’t need.

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In my case, this would be everything except for the part of the picture that’s covering the upper eyelid.

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Step 3

Once you’ve erased everything on the glitter layer you don’t need, you can go ahead and change it’s Opacity back to 100%.

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While still in the Layers panel, go over to the Blend Mode (which is the drop-down menu directly to the left of the Opacity), and change it from Normal to Overlay, or Screen. Use whichever one looks best with the picture you have. In my case, I used Overlay.

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Step 4

Once this is done, go ahead and clean up the edges of the glitter layer, if needed. You can also slightly lower the Opacity if you need to. Depending on your image, I wouldn’t make it too low, though, since you want the glitter to be seen over the picture.

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And there you have it! A simple way to add glitter to most pictures.

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Obviously, this is a pretty simple way to show you how to add glitter to something. However, the steps are almost exactly the same, even if you, for example, wanted to make a vampire/give a person glittery skin.

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For this image, I started with the exact same steps as above, but I ended up lowering the Opacity a little more, and, I also right-clicked on the glitter layer and used the Warp function to give it a slightly ‘bent’ appearance, so it would look more like it was attached to the girl’s skin.

Warping the glitter layer is an optional step. I’ve found it tends to only work with certain images, while on others, you can’t tell at all that it was used.

But go ahead and play around to see what works best for you.

You’ll want to get pretty good at applying glitter to images, because the next tutorial I’m gonna be showing you is an effect that just so happens to pair well with this one:

Like this tutorial? Check out the rest of them here!

Writing, Writing Tips

Puddles (PHSH Effect #19)

2022-04-11 Ater Imber 1 Comment

Happy spring!

As I said in the last PHSH Tutorial, I’ll be keeping with the rain effect theme for this one as well, and show you how to make a wet road reflection/puddle.

There are actually 3 different ways I’ve discovered to to do this, but this one is the one that works best with the Rain Effect I showed you last time.

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See how much more realistic the rain effect looks when you pair it with this wet road reflection?

Let’s show you how to do it!

Step 1

For this effect, you’ll want to start with a picture you’ve already applied the Rain Effect to, or are planning to add the rain effect to.

If you are using a picture you’ve already done the rain effect on, the first step is to hide the rain layer. To do this, go to the Layers Panel, and you should see a little box in front of the layer thumbnail that has an eye on it. Click it, and you should notice the layer will be ‘hidden’, as well as, the eye disappeared.

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Once you hide the rain layer, you’ll want to duplicate the image you’re using. To do this, hold down ALT and click and drag the Layer either up or down. Once you have 2 image Layers, you’ll want to work with the one on top.

Step 2

Next, (making sure the top image Layer is selected), you’ll want to go over to your Lasso tool, and select Polygon Lasso Tool from the drop-down menu that appears.

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Now, you’ll want to use this tool to outline the road (or ground), being sure to not include the trees. To do this, you’ll want to start by clicking slightly outside your work document, and then you’ll notice you are dragging a line.

Drag this line along the road in your picture. If you have a not-straight line, you can click at any point to ‘fix’ part of the line to the picture. Do this until you have selected the whole road, and brought your line back to the beginning point of your selection.

I realize that might sound a little confusing, so I’ve shown you using a red line how I did this on my picture.

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Once you bring the line back to your starting point, the line you made should start flashing and be dotted, as if you used the Selection Tool to select it instead. (But you can’t use the Selection Tool, because that tool only allows you to select things in either a square/rectangle or circular shape)

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Step 3

Now, you’ll want to go down to the Layer Mask button, which is located at the bottom of the Layers Panel, to apply a Layer Mask to the layer.

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You’ll know the Layer Mask has been applied when a black and white thumbnail shows up next to the thumbnail of the image. Then, you’ll need to click on the Link picture that is between the two thumbnails. This will, (not surprisingly) un-link the Layer Mask.

Step 4

Once you’ve done that, make sure you click on the image thumbnail (the thumbnail that’s closest to the eye), and then you’ll want to Flip Vertically. To do this, you can click on one of the Transform squares that are around the image, then right-click and select Flip Vertically from the drop-down menu.

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After doing this, you should see the image is upside down, and is showing only in the road selection you made.

If not, or if the image is too high (as was in my case) you’ll want to just lower the image, until the edges of the road line up with that of the non-flipped image. Or, until you feel it’s low enough.

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Step 5

At this point, with the Layer Mask being aligned, the picture should look like a mirror perfect mirror image. Now, if you needed to add a mirror reflection to an image, you’d be done by this point.

However, we’re making a puddle, so we’ll need to use our Eraser tool. Go up to the top panel and change the Brush Size to about a Medium size, and set the Hardness pretty low. You’ll also want to change the Opacity to about 96%.

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Now that we have our Eraser set, it’s time to form the puddle shapes. To do this, you’ll want to just start erasing any part of the flipped picture you don’t want to keep.

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Do this for the entire flipped image, until you’re happy with the way your reflection is looking. You can erase as much, or as little of the image as you’d like – it all depends on what you want the final image to look like.

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Step 6

Once you’re happy with what you have left, go up to Filter – Blur – Motion Blur, and make the Angle 0, and the Distance something small, like 6. The Distance will entirely depend on your image, but try to keep it on the smaller side.

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You want to add just enough Motion Blur for the image to look slightly blurry, since we are creating this reflection for a lighter rainfall.

If, for example, you were adding this to a heavier thunderstorm picture, you could make the Distance greater, as that would make the reflection look more blurry.

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Step 7

Once you’re happy with the amount of blur your reflection has, you can go ahead and unhide your Rain layer, to see how the image looks with all the effects together.

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This looks pretty good, but see how un-hiding the Rain made the picture lighter? You could keep the image lighter if you wanted, but, to me, it doesn’t look as realistic, because it’s often cloudy/dark when raining.

To fix this, you can go up to the Adjustments Panel, which sits on top of the Layers Panel, and then click on the Brightness/Contrast icon, which is the icon that looks like a sun/moon.

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In the Panel that pops up, you can now lower the Brightness and/or Contrast of the image, until you’re happy with the final product.

And that’s it!

You now have a great, more-realistic rain picture!

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As always, don’t forget to Save both a PHSH file so you can come back in and Edit things later, as well as a JPEG/PNG file for showing off on social media.

You’ll have 2 months to practice this Wet Road technique, before we pivot to almost the exact opposite side of the effects spectrum: Glitter!

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Like this tutorial? Check out the rest of the series here!

Also, consider becoming a Patron! You can support me for as little as $1/month, and your contribution will help me keep the blog going!

Bloggy

Sneak Peeks of Posts for 2022

2022-01-17 Ater Imber Leave a comment

Happy New Year everyone!

I hope you all had a relaxing break and are ready to get back to it.

This year, I wanted to do something a little different. Instead of jumping right into a brand new article on the first day, I thought instead, I could do a post that would show you what’s to come.

I figured this would be good for two reasons:

It gives you guys adequate time to get excited for what’s to come, and
It gives me an extra week to get some posts scheduled.

I’m (mostly) kidding on that second point. But, I have been doing lots of research in my time off from posting and, apparently, people like to feel like insiders, and like to see teasers of what’s coming up, so they can build the anticipation for the thing, have time to prepare, etc.

And while my blog doesn’t put out heart-stopping excitement, I still thought it might be cool to try out.

So, below, you’ll see some previews of posts to come.

Enjoy! (And get ready)

AterImber.com - Writing - Throw Away Fics - Make It Count - SPN Fanfiction, Supernatural, Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Crowley, Bobby Singer, Crobby, fluff, indie author, reading, reading material, Patreon, short stories Make It Count (Unlearning Series Fic #9, Coming May 9th)

Lens Flares (PHSH Effect #21, Coming July 25th)

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Curses (Coming Oct. 14th)

Who Gives a Crap Review (Coming Mar. 28th)

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Like seeing teasers of what’s to come? Sign up for my Patreon and never miss another exclusive!

Writing, Writing Tips

Outer Glow (PHSH Effect #14)

2021-03-01 Ater Imber Leave a comment

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a relaxing holiday.

I thought I’d start off this years’ round of photoshop tutorials with a simple one, and work our way up to the harder stuff later on.

The Outer Glow effect can be used to create a wide range of different looks for text, in a not-so-complicated way. (Seriously, there’s only 4 steps)

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For this tutorial, I’ll be showing you how to do the first Outer Glow example, but feel free to play around with it yourself.

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Step 1:

To start, I’m just going to add a Black background, and some text. It usually doesn’t matter what colour the text is, depending on the effect you’re trying to create. For simplicity sake, I’m gonna use grey so you can see it. (In Example 1, I made the colour of the text black)

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Step 2.

After this, you’ll want to head over to the Layers Panel, and right click on the text layer, then select Blending Options. Go down your list until you find Outer Glow listed, and check-mark the box.

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Once you do that, you can play around with the Size and Spread levels, to adjust how the Outer Glow will look. Do this until you get your desired effect.

You can also change the colour of the glow by double clicking the coloured square at the top of the dialogue box, and then using the Colour Picker to pick your desired colour.

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If, for some reason, the Outer Glow is not showing up against your coloured (non-white) background, change the Blend Mode at the top of the dialogue box from Screen to Normal.

Step 3.

Once you’re happy with how it looks, click Okay to apply the effect to your text.

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If you need to change it, don’t worry, you can always re-right click on the text layer and go back to the Blending Mode options to play with things until you’re happy with it.

Step 4.

I’m pretty sure I covered this in the Intro, but just in case I didn’t: to save, you’ll usually want to save a PHSH file (with all the layers intact, so you can edit it at a later time without starting over, if needed) and a picture file (the one you’re going to post places).

To save as a PHSH file, go up to File – Save As, and then name the file something that you’ll remember, I usually save it as ‘Whatever Project I’m Working On UNFlattened’ so it’s easy to pick out of a list of files.

To save the picture version, go up to Layers (in the same menu as File), and scroll down to Flatten Image. Doing this will compress the layers into one (1) single layer, and will make the file you’re saving smaller. (Which is very handy if say, you’re uploading the picture anywhere that has a ‘file size cannot exceed x amount’ message)

Once compressing the layers into 1, you can go ahead and save it as a JPEG or PNG file. (Select these from the File Type drop-down menu that comes up under the File Name you want to save as)

And that’s it! Just 4 easy steps to upgrade your text. (I told you most of these were easier than they seemed!)

Next month, I’ll be re-visting an old tutorial and will show you how you can change/add colour to almost anything.

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