Mosaics
(not the boring kind)
Portrait Mosaics in Photoshop
Before
After
Lets begin! Start out with a GREAT portrait! I don’t mean take a picture up against the backgrounds, take
a great photo and make sure your model is doing something interesting, but nothing that takes away from
your work.You ‘can’ do a close up portrait. But it’ll be alot crazier(meaning mo fun) if there is more than
just a face in the shot.
1.
Create a document that is paper size. (A4)
Move your image into the new document, rotate as needed. etc...
Make any alterantions to your photo now, touch ups, color balance, levels, etc. Make a copy of the
finished layer and turn the eye off. (we’re keeping an extra one just in case).
2.
3. Here is the color
Creating the mosaic hexagon. Open a
new document, same size as before.
Use the polygon shape tool.
2. Here’s where you change the sides
In the option bar change it to 6 sides.
Draw your Hexagon, duplicate it (hold
down alt) Select a slightly darker
color and move it up so it’s base
matches the top of the first one.
3.
Next, withe direct selection tool,
delete 2 anchor points. And move the
last one so it creates the tip of the top.
See below.
1. Here’s the shape, select it.
Do your layers look like mine?
4.
Repeat the process for the third side, make
it a darker grey. The different shades of grey
help to make it look 3D. Merge all 3 layers.
5.
*If for some reason you made a super huge cube, now’s the time to resize it and make it smaller.
Duplicate the cube layer multiple times, make sure they fit together well. Fill the WHOLE page.
Merge all layers together.
6.
Now, make a selection with the rectangular
marquee tool of a selection of the cubes that
will look seamless when they are duplicated.
Look to the right for help figuring out where
the seam is. Once you have your selection go
to Edit > Define Pattern. Name it whatever
you want. Now save it or close it, we are going
back to your portrait.
7.
Create a new layer, on top of your picture
layer, go to Edit > Fill > Fill w/Pattern.
Turn the opacity down a bit so you can see
what you doing next. Duplicate the copy of the
portrait layer, Ctrl T >(R click) Skew, give it
enough of a skew so it matches the angle of the
cubes. Yeah
Then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian. Use a
8px for blur radius.
This came up when I Googled “mosaics”
8.
Yikes. Next we need to just select the left sides of
the cubes. To do this select the magic wand
(tolerance should be low), select one and go to
Select > Similar. With the marquee selection still
active, click on the distorted girl layer and go to
Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal Selection.
Do the same for the right side. You will have to
duplicate your picture again.
9.
Raise the full untouched photo between the two altered
ones.
You should have some crazy effects.
Select all layers except the pattern layer and duplicate
them. Merge the duplicates.
With your newly merged layer selected go to Filter > Blur
> Guassian Blur. Use a radius of 15px. Change this
layers blending mode to Screen and adjust opacity as
needed, (80ish).
After that go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer >
Gradient Map. Use the default Black and White. Change
blending mode to Soft Light.
Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue &
Saturation. Reduce Saturation to -30.
10.
Real Talk. Experiment. I’m so serious. Like, Major grade serious.
BUT save a copy of it as is as a jpg. and turn it in. You will be turning in two pics
in the end.