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Photoshop tutorial: Add realism to digital portraits

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Photoshop tutorial: Add realism to digital portraits

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Valarie

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Digital Painting Lesson: How to Create a Photo Realistic Portrait

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Digital Painting Lesson: How to Create a Photo Realistic Portrait

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Valarie

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Digital Painting Lesson: How to Create a Photo Realistic Portrait

Have you ever wanted to learn how to digitally paint?

I don't blame you, it's an awesome skill to have!

Digital painting can really let you show off your artistic side, and by being digital and therefore non-destructive can be a very forgiving progress when done right.

Whilst a lot of the techniques you'll need are similar to traditional drawing, the workflow can be quite different.

In this tutorial we are going to digitally paint a photo-realistic portrait of a model in photoshop. This tutorial explains the simple steps behind creating a complex digital art work.
Tutorial Requirements:
1. Wacom Bamboo or Intuos.

2. Basic knowledge in Photoshop.

3. Proficiency in Traditional drawing and painting skills.

Final Outcome:

As always, this is the final image that we'll be creating:

Resources Used In This Tutorial

Step 1

Open a new canvas in Photoshop and fill the canvas with colors #dedcdd and #4e4c4d gradient.

Step 2

Before going further with the tut go to Window>Arrange>2-Up Vertical. Now you can have the reference image and workspace side by side, so that it would be easy to review your progress with the reference image.

- Create a new layer and draw a rough outline sketch of the model as shown.

Step 3

In this step we will be painting rough structure of the model, which will be the base of whole process.

1) Using the color #b7b7b7 paint the skin area of the model as shown.

2) Now by using the Black color paint the hair of the model.

Step 4

Create a new layer under the base color layers and paint dark shades behind the shoulders as shown.

Step 5

Now paint the eyes and lips of the model as shown in different layers. Just remember, this is the initial concept stage so you can keep the shapes rough because we will work on every part in detail later.

Step 6

In this step we are going to work on the details of the hair.

1) Select a hair brush and paint the dark black hair over the previously painted hair shape. Make sure the sharp edges of the hair shape are not visible.

2) Now by using the same hair brush paint the shade part of the hair with white color as seen in the reference image.

3) Paint the details of the hair roots and scalp on the head as shown.

Step 7

Create a new layer above the skin tone layer and paint the light shade on the body of the model as shown using the color #dbdbdb.

Step 8

In this step we are going to paint the nose. Nose is one of the vital parts of the face, which could define the whole beauty of the image, so we need to concentrate and take time in painting it.

1) Using the soft round brush paint the nose as shown with the colors Black and #dbdbdb. This is where your traditional drawing and painting skills are put into serious action. People proficient with pencil shading could find this easy.

- Use of Wacom Bamboo is required to get this right. Wacom Intuos5 is recommended as it has 2048 pressure levels, which could help you get much better result.

2) Now paint a thin shadow on the left side of the nose as shown.

3) Using the Soft Round Brush paint dark shadow under the nose as shown in the reference image.

Step 9

Now paint the shade of the upper lip fold as shown. Every small facial detail is vital while trying for photo-realism.

Step 10

In this step we are going to paint the shadow under the lower lip.

1) Using the Soft Round Brush paint the shadow under the lower lip as shown.

2) Now darken the lower lip shadow to define the shape of the chin bone.

3) In a new layer paint the light shades as shown and reduce the Opacity of it's layer to 41%.

Step 11

In this step we will be working on painting the eyebrows.

1) Create a new layer and paint the basic shape of the eyebrows as shown. Make sure the shape of the eyebrows is accurate with the reference image.

2) Now darken the eye brows using the Black color with Soft Round Brush in a new layer.

3) Now duplicate the previously created dark eyebrow layer and go to Filters> Blur>Gaussian Blur and set the Radius to 2.9px.

4) Group all the eyebrow layers into a single folder and create an Exposure adjustment layer to it and set the Exposure level to -7.82 and Gamma Correction to 0.23.

Step 12

In this step we will be concentrating on refining the facial details.

1) By using the Soft Round Brush paint the shadow of the eyelids and the nose bone as shown.

2) Now darken the previously painted shadows to make them more visible and match the reference image.

Step 13

In this step we are going to paint the cheeks shadow to define the cheeks shape.

1) Create a new layer and paint the cheeks shadow as seen in the reference image. This shade is very crucial as this defines the shape of the whole look of the face.

2) Now create a new layer and paint darker shade on the cheeks as shown.

Step 14

In this step we are going to define the body shapes by painting the shadows on.

1) Create a new layer and paint the body shadow as shown. Be very careful while defining the shoulder, chest and neck bone shapes.

2) Now darken the body shadows in a new layer as shown.

Step 15

In this step we are going to work on detailing the armpits.

1) Using the Soft Round Brush darken the armpits as shown.

2) Now by using the same brush paint the dark curved shadow as shown to depict the shoulder joint.

Step 16

In this step we are going to work on the Neck.

1) Create a new layer and paint dark shadow on the sides of the neck as shown.

2) Now paint the shape of the throat in the center on the neck as shown.

Step 17

In this step we are going to work on detailing the body and neck.

1) Using the Soft Round brush enhance the shadows and light shades near shoulder bones, neck and chest.

2) Now duplicate the previously created shadow-enhancing layer to make the shadows look a bit darker.

3) Create a new layer and paint dark shadow on the sides of the neck as shown to make it look darker.

Step 18

Create a new layer and paint the dark shadow under the chin as shown. This defines the accurate shape of the chin.

Step 19

Now paint the hair shadow on the left side of the face as shown. This is one of the small details that add great value to the portrait.

Step 20

Select the eye layers and add a Gaussian Blur of Radius 2.4px, to make the eyes shape blend with the portrait rather than leaving it to look distinct with sharp edges.

Step 21

In this step we will be painting the details around the eyes.

1) Using the Soft Round brush paint the wrinkle under the eye as shown.

2) Now enhance the shadow over the left eyelid and eyebrow as shown.

3) Similarly paint the dark wrinkle under the right eye and enhance the shadows over the eyelid.

Step 22

In this step we are going to paint the eyeballs and eyelashes with every minor details involved.

1) Using the Hair brush paint the eyelashes as shown over the eyes, then by using the Soft Round Brush paint the eyeballs as it is in the reference image.

2) Now create a new layer under the previously created eyeballs layer and paint a slight gray color on the right eye as shown.

3) Merge all the eyelids and eyeball layers into a single layer and add a Gaussian Blur of Radius 1.0px.

Step 23

Select the Skin Texture Brush and paint the skin texture all over the body as shown to make the skin look natural rather than leaving it smooth.

Step 24

In this step we are going to work on the details of the lips.

1) Using the Soft round brush make the lips look darker with black color.

2) Paint the lip-gloss on the upper lip as seen in the reference image.

3) Now paint a thicker dark shade in-between the lips as shown.

4) Now create a new layer under the lip-gloss layer and paint the lips texture using the lips brush.

5) Similarly paint the lip texture on the upper lip as shown to make the lips look natural.

And We're Done!

You can view the final outcome below. I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial and would love to hear your feedback on the techniques and outcome.

Access the source files for this tutorial:

The source files for this tutorial are available to our FanExtra members community. If you want to access the source files for this tutorial (and all of our tutorials + thousands of other resources) then sign up here.

If you're already a FanExtra member then you can login here to access the source files.

About the Author:

I'm a freelance graphics designer and the Founder of Zillionarts and ZillionArts Workshop. Here we ought to provide the best training on Digital Painting and Visual Effects host by the experienced pros from the Hollywood and Gaming Industry. I work constantly to explore more possibilities and techniques to bring my imaginary worlds to live. You can follow me on Deviantart.

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I've always love browsing the amazing style of art known as Vexel illustration and recently I decided to finally give it a go myself. Follow this step by step tutorial for the making of my first vector art portrait of Tron Legacy's Quorra. Learn how the portrait is carefully traced and vectorized in Adobe Illustrator ...

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Preview

Resources

Portrait by Lillian Bertram (Creative Commons Share Alike - used here with permission)

Step 1: Set up your Illustrator document

Start with a print document of 8.5 x 11″. Make sure to change the color space to RGB.

Step 2: Import the reference photo

Import the photo you will be using as a reference (File > Place). In this tutorial, I used this portrait by Lillian Bertram.

Size it up or down as necessary-try to size it up to the artboard.

Don't sweat the resolution or pixelation of the image since the reference photo is only a guide. However, the better the quality of the image, the more detail you have to work from.

Since the artwork will be imported into the first layer, name it " Photo Reference " using the Layers panel.

Your work area should look like this:

Step 3: Set up your work area

You are going to want to go to the Layers panel and create two more layers. Name them " Outlines" and " Fill Lines ".

Go ahead and select the reference photo on your canvas.

With the photo selected, go to the Transparency panel (Window > Transparency) and lower the transparency of the photo between 50% and 70% -just enough for you to still see the features, but not enough to obstruct your tracing workflow.

Now go over to the Layers panel and lock the reference photo layer so that you don't accidentally move it.

It may also help to select a Workspace preset for Painting (Window > Workspace > Painting) to set up an initial workspace and panels placement that's suitable for what you will be doing.

Step 4: Setting up your brush

Before you get started, go to the Appearance panel (Window > Appearance) to show the Appearance panel.

Click on the settings (upper left) and in the drop down menu that comes up, be sure that New Art Has basic Appearance is deselected.

Then, you can close out the Appearance panel.

Now double-click on the Paintbrush Tool (B) in the toolbar to pull up the options dialog box for the brush.

Be sure to have Keep Selected and Edit Selected Paths unchecked as they can inhibit a natural drawing process. Adjust your Smoothness to a lower number if you have confidence in your drawing strokes, or a higher number if you feel you have a shaky hand or want straighter and smoother lines. I usually keep the Fidelity option around a 4 or 5 as well.

Go to the Brushes panel, select a 1pt stroke, and double-click the 2 pt. Oval default brush. (If you wish, you may rename the brush to make it your own.)

You can adjust the options so as to respond to the pressure and tilt of your tablet, as well as make it more of a flat-tipped, calligraphy style marker.

If you don't have a tablet-don't worry-you can still make adjustments to the head of the brush and add some randomness to the variability in the stroke. These adjustments will make for a more realistic marker look.

Be sure to doodle a bit on a blank area of your canvas on the "Outlines" layer until your brush looks as you wish.

Step 5: Initial tracing

With the Paintbrush Tool (B) selected, go to the color selection area of the toolbar. Make sure that there is no fill on the brush and choose black that has a little gray to it for the stroke-you don't want to use a 100% black if you want a more natural look.

Zoom in on the area of the canvas where you want to begin working. Personally, I like to work from the eyes outwards, but also find it just as helpful to work with a quick outline around the whole face and work inwards. What you want to do is use short brush spurts of lines in a similar direction. You want to define the darkest areas of the photo, or the areas with the most contrast. Use the pressure of the tablet for thicker areas of definition. You will want to shade with cross-hatched or diagonal lines to denote areas that are midtones.

This is your chance to experiment and play around stylistically. You can change how your brush displays by going back to the Brushes panel and modifying the settings you created earlier. You will have the ability to apply your changes to all your strokes, so long as you modify the same brush you used to make all of your previous marks.

Periodically hide the "Photo Reference" layer to see how your composition stands on its own.

At some point, you want to break away from using the reference entirely once you have enough key features and focus on stylizing the portrait with your own marks and aesthetic.

Step 6: Add contrast

With your base outlines close to order, you will now add fill lines to the piece for greater contrast and to pull the piece together visually.

Select the "Fill Lines" layer. Go to your Stroke panel and choose a stroke between 3pt and 4pt.

You will now go over the outer edges and any areas where you want to make a bold distinction of contrast. This will also give it a more urban/graffiti/marker look.

Step 7: Tweaking the piece

You can also make use of the Eraser Tool (Shift + E) to organically remove unwanted marks.

Remember that all of your strokes are just paths so you can always pull and adjust curves using the Pen Tool (P) and Convert Anchor Point Tool (Shift + C) to make adjustments.

Also, you can use the Group Selection Tool (white arrow with a "plus" symbol) to select and edit areas of lines by scaling, moving or rotating as you see fit.

Step 8: Before you begin coloring

Since you want to achieve a softer and layered look with the colors, you will be using layered Pencil Tool (N) fills with a lowered transparency. To begin, create a new layer to sit below your "Fill" and "Outline" layers. Name it " Color " and lock all other layers but this layer. Also, be sure to hide the "Photo Reference" layer.

Step 9: Set up the Pencil Tool

Double-click the Pencil tool Icon in the toolbar and adjust the settings as follows:

Check Fill new pencil strokes

Uncheck Keep Selected

Uncheck Edit Selected Paths

Go to the color selection area of the toolbar and swap the stroke color with the fill color so that there is no stroke color.

Double-click the fill color and choose a skin tone color that is on the lighter end of a yellow to red hue.

Next, go to Window > Transparency to select between a 15% to 20% opacity for your fills.

Test out your color and transparency by drawing some overlapping circles and see how the color fills build up. If the new fills aren't showing up as transparent-or with the correct color-check your settings and also be sure that your Appearance panel has the New Art Has Basic Appearance option deselected.

Step 10: Coloring in your portrait

Begin with the skin tones of the face. Draw overlapping shapes that contour and compliment your lines with the Pencil Tool (N).

Over the darker and shaded areas, be sure to build up the color. Also select darker shades within the same hue to add more contrast and shadow.

For the skin: I tend to work with yellows, oranges, and reds. Use a gradient for larger areas with a light to dark fade, and build on top of them. Be sure that your highlights are basically just areas with less color.

If you need to enhance highlights, draw transparent white shapes over these areas. Keep a light hand, and draw fast layered shapes with lower opacities-this helps keep the watercolor and layered feel to the illustration.

Also draw a bit outside of the lines-with this process, imperfection is our friend.

Since you will be drawing irregular shapes with the Pencil Tool (N), you may notice sharp edges and unclosed paths. To close paths, hold down the Option/Alt key right after you begin drawing your path and just before you finish it. This will complete any shape you are drawing. It's okay to have irregular shapes and sharp edges; you can always edit them at any point with the Eraser Tool or the point-editing tools.

Color in the rest of the portrait using colors that you find works best. It is a good idea to use the Eyedropper Tool (I) and choose a color palette from another photo you may find aesthetically-pleasing for user experience.

I also encourage the use of contrasting colors to add a bit of interest, like circle shapes of bluish hue shadows on yellow and orange areas of skin or small drops of deeper reds on blue or green tones. They add a bit of complexity and depth.

Step 11: Finalizing the portrait

At this point, you should be close to finished with the portrait. Improvise, add flourishes, text, and deviate towards using your own technique and style to enhance your illustration.

You may also bring your illustration into Adobe Photoshop for added effects, color management, and texture.

Conclusion

This tutorial shared with you some techniques for using Adobe Illustrator's powerful set of painting and illustration tools. We also covered ways to set up your workspace to achieve the watercolor and marker style illustration. I hope you enjoyed my tutorial and have taken away something useful for web design by reading it. Here is the final piece. Show us your work in the Flickr group pool.

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Date Added: 9th December 2009

Jealous Bodyguard is one of ten pieces for a self promotion project that I am currently compiling called "Companions." Each image within the book refers to people and animals from an imaginary place focusing on the relationships between the human inhabitants and the local wildlife. "Jealous bodyguard" was created with the idea of an animal used for protection as well as companionship for a young, regal, woman. Naturally the thought pattern centred around a creature that was graceful yet fierce led to the idea of a large domesticated cat not unlike a Bengal tiger, fierce but just as capable of affection. Originally the idea was to have the woman portrayed as a sweet, adoring, princess with her loving pet, but when the image didn't spark enough interest amongst my peers I decided to focus on the 'Guard' aspect of the animal. My aim then became to make the animal appear extremely protective without affecting the demeanour of its owner, almost as if its aggressive posture and behaviour were expected. Consequently this led me to shift the woman's appearance just as much. Instead of a serene princess she became a stern beauty just as fierce as her pet. The process I used to make this image is a-typical in how I work, including how I setup the image as well as how I use my Photoshop tools. Anyway without wasting any more time I'll endeavour to explain the breakdown of how this image was created.

Step 1

Now it may sound weird at first but I only used the one type of brush, the hard edge not for any particular reason nor do I not use other brushes I just fell that this gives me the most control. The only adjustments I make to these settings are to the opacity and flow and in my own case I change the, flow, opacity and size jitters respectively to 'pen pressure' (Fig.01) only because I'm using a Wacom tablet.

If you are using a mouse making the last three changes will have no affect what so ever. I usually sketch out the image I intend to paint by hand, scanning it in as a guide and adjusting the levels to make the lines stand out a bit more (Fig.02).

In this case however I used both my original sketch and added to it in Photoshop. I employ the talents of my associate Samantha (Sam) to act as model for the young woman and base the facial expression and skin tones on hers. (Fig.03). Before I block in any colour I make four separate layers, the bottom being skin, the next being the garments beneath her long dress and finally one for the dress itself.

Step 2

With Sam's face sketched into the image, and enough separate layers to easily be able to adjust things down the track, I begin the blocking in phase. I settle on an Orange and blue/violet colour (Fig.03) scheme in order to avoid the clichÃ© elegant queen or princess dressed in white flowing garb. I've also established that her cat companion will be a white creature not unlike a white tiger or lion so I've based its skin as beige, this will also help contrast between the two subjects. Concerning her skin tone, the original photo shoot with Sam was in a poorly lit room so some adjustment will be necessary to accommodate the fact that the image is light with sunlight in mind. For now though I simply select the darkest tone of her skin in the photo I selected, in this case the point of deepest shadow was beneath her chin. This allows me to more easily build on her skin tone with white and pink highlights.

Step 3

Using the hard edge at about 50% opacity I lay down some highlights and darken the shadowed areas of her face. I also make her lips redder to suggest cosmetics of some sort. As I continue this process I am constantly sampling the shades that appear in-between the darker and lighter tones due to how mush pressure I am putting on the stylus. I also block in hair and eyebrows to better adjust the shadows around the eyes and see if the skin colour is heading in the right direction. Once I feel I've created an accurate enough bridge between the light and dark elements of her face I give the whole thing a once over with the smooth tool at 15% opacity to soften her features. Next I add her eyes and darken the edge of the lids to suggest more cosmetics and put a slight highlight to her hair and give the hanging strands some direction with the smudge tool at 20% (Fig.04).

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Date Added: 9th December 2009

Introduction

This image was created as a request by my Grandmother; she wanted something for her dining room wall. I had plenty of things to choose from, but I thought it would be nice to paint something that she could identify with. Instead of aiming to create a photo-realistic or a cartoon-like image, I made something in between, which I believe is a better style to have on a wall.

Concept

The first thing I did was to have a look for some fine-art references, to gain inspiration for this kind of painting. I did a few tests, specifically thinking about the face (Fig.01 - 04) and how I wanted it to be the focal point of the picture (Fig.05 - 06). After trying several times, I decided to give it a bit more of a uniform look, so that the picture was still powerful from a distance, as well as close-up. This was the most difficult decision for me. I'm so used to thinking about how a picture would look from a closer view, such a screen or small prints, whereas this artwork has been originally created for a DIN A3 print.

Colour

The very first idea was to create a completely monochromatic picture. My first attempt was black and white, but then I thought that an older-looking picture (Fig.07) would be nice. My Grandmother loves colour, so I converted to practice with colours to try and make it more interesting. This image had monochromatic lighting, which was a little flat, so that I didn't overload the picture. I still kept in the heavy shadows, but this was a personal choice for this particular piece of work. I wanted white clothes so that they contrasted well with the rest of the image. I chose a warm palette to work with because it simply looks more relaxing, and the references that I had used as inspiration didn't display any cooler colours at all in the clothing details. It is a very basic palette, and I didn't use any colour variation for the semi-darkness or the shadows.

Brushes

For this particular work I have basically used a standard soft brush (Fig.08), which is very good to work with to cover large areas and to blend colours to make them look soft, and also to keep the gradients very fluid. Another brush that I used a lot was the hard-edged brush (Fig.09). The hard-edged brush gives a lot of texture, and a natural look and feel to the painting. (Fig.08 and Fig.09 show the exact settings that I used for pretty much everything.)

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