How to make a blend (part 1)
In this small series, I will explain how to make a blend. A blend generally is sized 800x600 pixels, but techniques I use and will explain can be used the same for site headers and other such graphics. I will go through all the steps I take when I make a blend (or something similar), from choosing pictures that fit together to the end result. In this first part, I explain what to pay attention to when choosing images, how to blend images together with the hard blending and soft blending techniques and how to blend strands of hair. In part two, I will be explaining focus, adding background images (stock) and textures. In part three, I will be explaining text and colouring.
Choosing your images
Apart from choosing high quality pictures, you want to pay attention to having images that will work together well.
When using images of the same person, you should use images from the same photoshoot because such images go best together. Even if images are of the same person but different photoshoots, the difference between the images used will make the graphic just look weird.
It usually looks best if you’re using images of people that are NOT all facing the same way. If one is facing front, use another picture where the person is looking a little to the side, for example. Using two pictures facing front can really make a graphic look off. There’s always exceptions, but I find it really only works if you have a clear idea in mind. Using images of the same person, it barely ever looks good to have them facing in similar directions. Using images of different people facing the same direction can create a nice effect, though.
Another thing to note is that it usually looks best if the size of the face isn’t the same in all the pictures you use. Of course, even if it’s the same in the original pictures, you just need to play around with resizing the pictures (i.e. keep one fairly big, make one smaller).
These are just general guidelines, and a lot of exception can be made on them. It’s really all a matter of experimenting with your graphics to learn which picture combinations work and which don’t.
Some examples:
These are bad combinations.
But these combinations would work well.
Blending Images
Once you have chosen your images, you can blend them together in one of two ways: hard blending or soft blending. Using either, I recommend using layer masks because it makes correcting mistakes much easier. With layer masks, you can switch between black and white brush to remove or re-add parts of the image. Doing so you can fix mistakes much easier, without having to go several steps back in the history, which you might have to do with using the eraser, which would also cause losing everything you might’ve done after that particular step in the history. The tools I’ve described below are how they are named and how they look in Photoshop. Other graphic programs such as Paint Shop Pro and GIMP should have similar tools, but might be named or look a little different. If you don’t know where to find certain tools in your program, I’d recommend googling for a guide on the tools and settings of your program.
Soft Blending
For soft blending, I use layer masks and a large, soft brush.
In Photoshop, to add a layer mask to a layer, simply select the layer you want to add the layer mask to, and click the layer mask button on the bottom of the layers window.
In the layers window, you will see the layer mask added to the layer.
Make sure your foreground colour is black. Select a large soft brush and simply go over the areas you want to remove and blend into the background. You can play around with the opacity (of both the brush and the image itself) to make it blend into the background a bit more softly, but I’d recommend doing so only after you’ve added a background. Which is where the layer masks come in, because you can easily change the blending once you’re almost done, not having to go back in the history and lose a lot of the work you’ve done.
This is an example of soft blending.
Hard Blending
You can do hard blending similar to soft blending, just using a hard brush and zooming in a lot more to remove the entire background. I personally prefer using the pen tool. With it, I create a path around the person by clicking along the edges. When you’re done going around the person, close the path by clicking the first point again. You can see my path’s not perfect, but it really doesn’t need to be. You shouldn’t cut out all strands of hair, but you don’t need to worry about every single strand too much either.
Then, you convert the path to a selection. In Photoshop, still having selected the pen tool, right-click anywhere in your image and “Make Selection…” > Feather Radius: 0 and Anti-aliased checked. Then you click the add layer mask button (up until here there’s not supposed to be a layer mask on the image) and the person is cut out.
Again, this is just my preferred way of hard cutting, others prefer using a hard brush on a layer mask or the eraser tool, so try them all and work with whatever you feel most comfortable with.
Strands of hair
In a soft cut, the strands should still be there, probably blended into the background a bit. With hard cutting, strands of hair usually need some work. As said before, you shouldn’t cut out all strands of hair, but you needn’t worry about every single strand either.
If you’ve done a hard cut, simply zoom in further and use a brush to work on the strands of hair, or, if you want to keep it simple, use a similar background color to the original image.
Another way that works well is, when your blend is nearly done and you have a complete background, to duplicate the person layer, set the layer underneath to Multiply, then have the layer on top set at Normal blend mode, and, using a soft brush, remove the strands of hair from that layer. These two layers should now look like one, with the strands of hair blended into the background perfectly, and the skin color still looking normal.
Will be continued
This was part one of my tutorial series on how to make a blend. In part two, I will be explaining focus, adding background images (stock) and textures. In part three, I will be explaining text and colouring.
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