Today, I posted a short video for beginners that demonstrates in detail how to create personalized portraits in Adobe Photoshop. 

The video will teach you how to use layers, smart objects, and add text and backgrounds. You will also learn how to create large portraits with multiple elements. 

After creating this video, I realized that I hadn’t shown you how to mirror objects horizontally or mentioned some other important points.

I plan to record another video in the future to cover these topics.

Video Instruction

Good Luck!

The post How to Assemble a Personalized Portrait in Adobe Photoshop appeared first on Svetlana Kleine.

So the first 6-minute video is about how to collect illustrations in Adobe Photoshop and how to use smart objects. I promise you you will love smart objects when you try them.
I left little hints in the video to make it clearer to you, and I will also describe my actions in this article for those who like to read.

The work took place in Adobe Photoshop 2022. If you have a version of the program lower than CS2, then the function of smart objects may not be available to you, it appeared only in Adobe Photoshop CS2

How to assemble illustration

1.So the first step is to open the program of course

2.Then find the topmost menu and click “File” – > “New”.
You can immediately set the parameters of the document and its dimensions, or you can do as I do and adjust the size of the document using the “crop tool”.

3.If all your files are placed on the sheet as smart objects, you can skip this step, and if not, then you need to enable this feature in the settings.
Go to “Edit” – > “Preferences” -> “General”.
In the very first tab of the window that appears, there should be a check mark next to the item “Always Create Smart Objects when Placing”.

Ok now all placed files will be smart objects.

4.Now just drag the files to the workspace and in the right part where you have layers, change the order of the layers to assemble the illustration correctly. For example, clothes always go a layer higher than the body, etc.

5.After the illustration is fully assembled, you can easily change the colors of clothes or hair. (Attention! Since the hair can be of different sizes and shapes, they may not be positioned correctly when replaced, so you will have to adjust the position of the hairstyle manually)

To change, for example, the color of the jacket, you need to right-click on the layers panel on the layer with the jacket and select “replace contents” from the drop-down menu

Then you will have your file explorer open, find the folder with the set of illustrations that you are collecting and choose a jacket of a different color.

It’s simple if you get used to it a little.

Thus , you will need to collect the illustration only 1 time and save it as .PSD file. If you work with custom orders, this is very convenient. You just open .PSD file and replace the colors of the clothes at the request of the client to create a ready-made poster or postcard.

I hope this will make someone’s life easier

How to create stickers

I know many other easier ways to create stickers, however, this method may be useful to someone, so I’ll just leave it here

The point is that if the shape of the illustration does not change, then you can simply replace clothes and hair color and you will not have to make a vector path again.

1.First, we need to convert the composition into a smart object to be able to edit it in the future.
Therefore, right-click on the group with your illustration and select “convert to smart object”.

2.Right-click on smart object and choose duplicate. This will be our layer with a white base to create a vector path.

3.Right-click on the lower smart object and go to “blending options”. Check the box next to the “Stroke”, position: Outside. Choose a color and size. You can adjust the stroke size. The larger the size, the smoother and simpler the vector path will be in the future. I put a small stroke to show the problems that may arise and how to solve them.

4.When I was recording this video, I forgot to do it right away, but you can immediately turn on the “color overlay” item so as not to come back here again.

5.If the outline suits you. Right-click on your smart object and select “rasterize layer” and “rasterize layer style”. This way your outline will become a picture that can be edited.

6.OK now we have a raster layer for the future vector path. I specially took this set of illustrations to show you possible problems. The fact is that raster illustrations that are drawn manually may contain translucent pixels invisible to the eye, but when you turn on the stroke, she sees them. So you get weird white circles next to the girl’s feet. In places where the shadow outline also becomes uneven and ugly and now we will fix it.

7.In this example, I just erased the white circles with an eraser. But I still don’t like the contour of the shoes. So I’ll take the “pen tool” to draw a beautiful outline in those places where the outline does not look very good. Then hold down the ctrl button and left-click on the contour layer. Thus, you will highlight it. Then just press DEL on the keyboard and the extra part will be erased.

8. If you are satisfied with the contour, hold down the ctrl key and click on the layer of the future vector path. Now just take any selection tool on the toolbar and right-click on the selected area.
Select “Make Work Path”.

You have received a vector path that can be edited, uploaded to illustrator, corel and other vector editors.You can save this path as SVG or just use ctrl+c to copy and ctrl+v in illustrator to paste.
Different vector editors have different plugins to simplify the path and reduce the number of nodes.

But perhaps this method will be useful to someone

Another video will be released soon, I’ll show you how to crop an illustration beautifully.

Have a good day!

The post Life Hacks for Adobe Photoshop appeared first on Svetlana Kleine.

Video:

The video was accelerated by 300%, in fact, the process of assembling the image took 10 minutes.

Tips:

To place a layer below, right-click on it and select “Move back”.

To place the layer above, right-click on it and select “Move forward”.

You can group layers and move them or zoom in at the same time. To do this, hold down the Shift key and left-click on the layers that you would like to combine into a group. When all the layers are selected, right-click on one of the selected layers and select “Group”.

What conclusions have I come to:

1. If you make 1 or 2 characters, then canva.com – a great tool for this. However, if there are more characters, it is quite difficult to correctly distribute the elements into layers, since the standard “grouping” is not always convenient, especially if your characters’ hands intersect.
2. If you need to change color of the skin or clothes, it is quite difficult to do when the composition is completely ready.
3. If you need to save an image on a transparent background, it is also impossible to do this if you do not have a paid subscription.

In general canva.com it can be suitable for small projects and family portraits.

Finally canva.com it is also not suitable to make templates there and sell them according to the terms of the license, however, you can use this tool for personal purposes.

The post “Canva” for collages appeared first on Svetlana Kleine.

This icon means that you need to mirror a girl or clothing to make it fit.

These are dresses from the “PASTEL BRIDESMAID DRESSES” & “BRIDESMAID DRESSES“collections

Dresses from “PALE BRIDESMAID DRESSES” collection

From “LEGGINGS AND TOPS” collection

Also from “LEGGINGS AND TOPS” collection

“PANT & BLOUSES” collection. Where the blouses don’t reach at all, I didn’t show them.

“JEANS AND T-SHIRTS” collection

“WINTER OUTFITS” collection

“BRIDESMAID DRESSES” collection

“SPARKLE DRESSES” Collection

“DRESSES WITH BOWS” collection

“ELEGANT LONG DRESSES” collection

“COCKTAIL DRESSES” collection

“TRUMPET DRESSES” collection

“BFF” collection

“MOM WITH A NEWBORN” collection

I hope this will help you figure out what kind of kit you need

The post Adult women poses & clothes appeared first on Svetlana Kleine.

I will use Adobe Photoshop CS5, as not everyone has the latest versions of Adobe Photoshop and some features from the new editors may not be available to owners of older versions. Therefore, I will use the basic tools that are available in all versions starting from CS5.

Step 1

Run the program and open the file. I usually start with the body. Now I will create bridesmaids from this set.

Step 2

Select the Crop Tool, left-click on the image and stretch the canvas borders in different directions so that your document becomes larger.

Here’s what we got

Step 3

Create a new layer and place it below the layer with the body. Then select the Paint Bucket Tool and fill the background with any neutral color. This is necessary to make it easier for you to work with the composition.

Step 4

Now I select the layer with the body again to make it active (just click on the layer name). And then I put the dressing Gown file on top of the girl.

Then I zoom in to see if the contours match. To zoom in, you can turn on window->Navigator or just hold alt on your keyboard and turn the mouse wheel.

Step 5

I do the same with all the other elements, such as hair, cocktail, shoes, and print.

When you place an object you can reduce it by simply pulling on the corners. To save the aspect ratio, just hold down the shift key, then your image will increase and decrease while maintaining the aspect ratio.

When I finish working on the girl, I create a group in the layers panel and drag all the layers into the group. This is necessary in order to make it easier to move the entire girl in the future and not get entangled in layers.

Step 6

Put the files in the document to create another girl. And so on until everything you need is in place.

Here’s what I got

Step 7

Now I want to add the girl on the left.

I created it just like the first girl and dragged all the layers related to this girl to the group. Don’t be lazy to give names to your groups, it makes the process much easier and in the future you won’t get confused between layers and groups

Now I left-click on the group to make it active and select “Edit” – > “Free Transform”

Now I right-click inside the selection and select Flip Horizontal.

Using the Move Tool, I move the girl to a place.

You can also select all groups at once. Just hold down ctrl and click on the group names to highlight them and then you can move all the girls at once using the Move Tool.

Step 8

Now just add the background to the lowest layer. For example, the 50 Backgrounds collection has beautiful wedding backgrounds.

That’s it!

I will be adding more lessons and useful tips, so don’t forget to check my blog.

Thank You!

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