Porcelain Doll Effect

Quick reference

• 00:04 So we're gonna be taking this image right here, and
• 00:06 we're gonna be turning it into this.
• 00:08 And if you want an optional step, you can add a little bit of liquified goodness to
• 00:12 enlarge the eyes, shrink the mouth, shrink the nose, and so forth.
• 00:16 So let's go ahead and begin.
• 00:18 So this is the image I'm gonna be starting with, I grabbed over at Shutterstock.com,
• 00:22 but of course, if you don't have a ShutterStock account,
• 00:24 I'm sure you can take one of your images or an image you find on Google.
• 00:27 But for legal reasons, I'm not allowed to just grab an image from Google because who
• 00:31 knows who owns the rights to those.
• 00:33 So the first thing that we want to do is select the face.
• 00:36 We wanna isolate the skin of our model from the rest of the image so
• 00:39 we can apply some adjustment layers to it.
• 00:41 Now there are a few ways we can go about doing this.
• 00:43 One method that we could use that we're gonna try first, is to use color range
• 00:48 with the new skin detection option which was introduced in photo shop CS6.
• 00:53 So if I go up to select menu and
• 00:55 then down to color range I have all these different options I can use.
• 00:59 But if I go under the select drop down, I can select skin tones,
• 01:03 which is gonna do its best to select the skin tones of the image.
• 01:06 And it also have the detect faces check box, which Photoshop is gonna try and
• 01:11 figure out if there is a face in the image, and
• 01:13 isolate that from the rest of the image, like the background and so forth.
• 01:17 Now if I go ahead and
• 01:18 press okay, I'm given a pretty nice result, but it's not perfect.
• 01:23 I found that when you have variations in your skin tone,
• 01:25 like some blown out areas or some dark areas, Photoshop doesn't select all of it.
• 01:31 So we're gonna actually undo this and we're going to be
• 01:33 using the quick selection tool which is a little bit simpler in my opinion.
• 01:36 You can find the Quick Selection tool on the left in the Tools bar which is
• 01:40 with the Magic Wand tool.
• 01:42 And once you have that active, it works very similar to a brush.
• 01:45 So you can enlarge it with your right square bracket key,
• 01:47 make it smaller with the left square bracket key, and
• 01:50 all you have to do now is brush over top of the area that you want to select.
• 01:54 So in this case I wanna select the skin.
• 01:57 Now, when I create the initial selection, just like I'm doing now, the eyes and
• 02:00 the mouth will become selected as well.
• 02:02 But that's okay,
• 02:03 because we can go back and we can exclude that from the selection.
• 02:07 Now you may also come to a point where you don't want specific areas selected.
• 02:10 Like for example it just selected the background, I don't want that selected.
• 02:14 So with my Alt or Option key held down, Option in the Mac, Alt in Windows,
• 02:19 I can deselect specific areas just again by brushing over top of them.
• 02:23 And if I let go Alt or Option, it's going to add the selection, so
• 02:26 I can add in the ear right over here, and if I want to subtract the hair,
• 02:30 again hold down Alt or Option and brush over top of the hair just like this.
• 02:35 Cuz I don't want the hair included, in the porcelain adjustments.
• 02:38 So I'm gonna brush over the top of the hair in the left hand side over here, and
• 02:41 a little bit over here to the right.
• 02:44 Now I'm not gonna worry too much about the eyes and the mouth at this point,
• 02:47 I will come back, and I will remove those using a layer mask a little bit later on.
• 02:52 So now that we have the face and the skin selected of our model,
• 02:55 if we were to go ahead just right now and add some adjustment layers,
• 02:58 they would look pretty ugly because the selection is very sharp.
• 03:03 And just to show you what that would look like, I'm gonna go ahead and
• 03:05 add an adjustment layer.
• 03:06 I'm gonna add a Hue and saturation adjustment layer.
• 03:09 I'm gonna turn on Colorize, and increase it to let's say, blue.
• 03:13 That looks ridiculous, but you can really see how the outline of our
• 03:17 selection is very sharp and ugly, we don't want that.
• 03:20 We wanna much more refined selection which plays well with the hair.
• 03:25 So, I'm gonna undo this, and go back to when we made our selection, and
• 03:28 before we add any adjustment layers, we want to refine the edge.
• 03:32 Now, if you have a selection method still active,
• 03:34 you can click on Refine Edge right on the Options bar.
• 03:36 Otherwise under the Select menu, you can select Refine Edge.
• 03:40 And here's the Refine Edge window, I'm gonna move it right over here to the left,
• 03:44 and the main thing we want to do is turn on Smart Radius and
• 03:47 then increase the radius value.
• 03:49 And you're gonna notice that Photoshop is starting to play a lot nicer
• 03:52 with the hair.
• 03:53 It's really creating a nice, refined selection which is
• 03:56 gonna look great when we start adding adjustment layers.
• 03:59 And you also have your Refine Radius tool which is over here to the left.
• 04:03 Which allows you, let me increase my brush size just a little bit with my right
• 04:07 square bracket key, I can paint over top of the transition area just like this, and
• 04:12 Photoshop with further refine that selection.
• 04:14 So I'm gonna do it over here to the left as well, and
• 04:19 now I have a selection that includes specific strands of hair,
• 04:22 which is very difficult to do with your traditional selection methods.
• 04:26 So now to output it,
• 04:27 I'm gonna output it as a new layer with a layer mask and then press okay.
• 04:31 And you're gonna notice when it does that, the background is going to be hidden.
• 04:34 So I can just go in my Layers panel,
• 04:35 and unhide that layer so I can see the background again.
• 04:39 And this layer right on top is our layer that contains only the face, the eyes, and
• 04:43 the mouth which we will remove a little bit later on.
• 04:46 So now we can go ahead and add our adjustment layers.
• 04:49 The first one I'm going to add will be a Vibrance adjustment layer.
• 04:52 Now when I first add this, if I decrease the vibrance, you're going to
• 04:56 notice that everything else is being decreased including the hair.
• 04:59 Well we won't want that, so I'm gonna leave that somewhere around negative 70,
• 05:02 and what I want to do is I want to clip it to the previous layer.
• 05:06 You can do this in two ways, you can either click on this button right here,
• 05:10 which will clip it to the previous layer,
• 05:12 or you can put your mouse in between the two layers.
• 05:14 Hold down your alt or option key and you'll notice a downwards arrow appears,
• 05:19 and when you click it's gonna clip it directly to that layer right below it.
• 05:23 So the hair in the background, if you have a colorful,
• 05:25 vibrant background, won't be affected at all.
• 05:29 Now that's starting to look a little bit like a porcelain effect, but
• 05:31 we still have a few adjustment layers to go.
• 05:34 The next one I'm gonna be adding will be curves, and this is really to
• 05:37 create a little bit of contrast between the blacks and the whites of the image.
• 05:40 I'm gonna pull this down a little bit so I can see my whole adjustment layer, and
• 05:44 I'm gonna simply pull down the shadows just like over here and
• 05:47 then pull up the highlights just a little bit to give a nice contrast in the model.
• 05:52 Just like that, and just like before, we want to clip it.
• 05:55 So this time I'm gonna simply press the Clipping button right here, and
• 05:58 it's gonna clip it to the previous layer which contains only the skin,
• 06:01 the eyes and the mouth.
• 06:03 Now at this point, it's not looking white enough, it's not looking porcelain.
• 06:07 So the last adjustment we're gonna be adding will be a solid color.
• 06:11 And as you might imagine, the solid color for this case is going to be white.
• 06:15 So I'm gonna keep it at solid white, press OK, but once again I want to clip it but
• 06:19 because it's not a standard adjustment layer, I can simply move my mouse in
• 06:22 between the two layers, hold down alt or option, and click.
• 06:26 Now that's obviously looking a little bit ridiculous, so
• 06:28 to blend this in a little bit better with the skin we're gonna change the blend mode
• 06:32 of that solid color adjustment to soft light, which is down here.
• 06:37 And when you do that you now have a nice, soft porcelain look to the skin.
• 06:42 But like I mentioned you may not want to have the eyes and the mouth
• 06:45 included in the adjustments, which is a big advantage of using Layer Masks.
• 06:50 So I can go back to the layer right down here which contains the skin, the eyes and
• 06:54 the mouth and make sure to select the Layer Mask, which is the white and
• 06:57 black thumbnail right over here.
• 06:59 Now, with that done, as I've covered in the past, Layer Masks use white and
• 07:03 black to define visibility.
• 07:05 Anything that is white is going to remain visible,
• 07:07 while anything that is black is going to be hidden.
• 07:10 So press the B key on your keyboard to grab your brush, and if you have to,
• 07:13 you can right-click and select a nice soft brush right about here.
• 07:16 And like I mentioned before, the left square bracket key allows you to
• 07:19 decrease the brush size and now all you have to do is paint over the areas that
• 07:23 you want to hide from the adjustment layers.
• 07:26 So I'm gonna simply paint over the lips just like this which brings back
• 07:29 the nice vibrant lips, and again you can use the less square bracket key to
• 07:33 decrease the brush size if you need to, just like this.
• 07:37 And I can go back up to the eyes, over here.
• 07:39 I'm gonna paint right in there to hide the adjustments from the eyes.
• 07:43 And finish it up with this one right over here.
• 07:47 And now the adjustment layers that we added a few moments ago
• 07:49 are only effecting the skin of this model.
• 07:53 The layer masks is allowing the mouth and
• 07:54 the eyes from the original image to come through.
• 07:57 Now the last thing I wanna do, which is completely optional,
• 08:00 some like this effect, some don't, is add a liquefy filter to enlarge the eyes,
• 08:05 shrink the mouth and shrink the nose a little bit.
• 08:07 Now if you are running Photoshop CC or Photoshop CS 6.13.1 or
• 08:11 higher, you have the ability of adding a liquefy filter to a smart object.
• 08:17 Otherwise you can duplicate all these layers, merge them and
• 08:19 add a liquefy filter to that just so you don't lose the original images.
• 08:24 So because I am using Photoshop CC, I'm gonna select all the layers.
• 08:27 I'm gonna click on the first one, hold down my Shift key and
• 08:30 Click on the last one.
• 08:31 Right-click on any of them, and convert it to a smart object, just like that.
• 08:36 And it may take a second or two depending on how many adjustment layers you have,
• 08:39 and how large your image is.
• 08:40 But once it has been converted to a smart object,
• 08:43 you can head up to the Filter menu, and then down to Liquefy.
• 08:47 And the two tools that we're gonna be using can be found on the left-hand side
• 08:50 and this one here, which is the Pucker tool, which makes things smaller and
• 08:54 the one right below it Which is the Bloat Tool, which makes things bigger.
• 08:58 And all you really have to do is position your cursor over the top of the eyes or
• 09:01 anything else you want to make bigger, and click a few times.
• 09:04 You'll notice things get gradually bigger.
• 09:06 I don't like to hold down my mouse, cuz you'll notice it gets a little bit crazy.
• 09:11 So undoing that, I like to click very subtly just like that,
• 09:14 until things get a little bit bigger.
• 09:16 And you can reduce the brush size just like you can normally with your
• 09:19 left square bracket key and click again, just like that.
• 09:22 And over here to the right you can adjust the brush size, the brush density and
• 09:26 the brush rate as well.
• 09:27 So I can decrease the brush rate just so
• 09:29 I don't get that crazy effect if I hold down my mouse, and
• 09:32 if I do hold down my mouse it's a nice and subtle effect, nothing too intense.
• 09:36 So now that the eyes are a little bit bigger,
• 09:38 I can switch over to the Pucker tool to make things a little bit smaller.
• 09:41 So if I did wanna decrease the size of the eyes just a little bit,
• 09:44 I can do that with the Pucker tool, just like that.
• 09:47 I can also move to the mouth and decrease the size of the mouth, just like this.
• 09:51 Just by clicking a few times.
• 09:52 You don't wanna go too insane, and you can do the same thing for
• 09:55 the nose, just like this.
• 09:58 I'm gonna decrease the size of the bridge a tiny bit, and
• 10:00 you do have other tools within your Liquefy filter,
• 10:03 such as the forward work tool if you want to move parts of your image around.
• 10:07 So for example, if I want to bring in the nostrils just a little bit.
• 10:09 I can decrease the size of my brush and
• 10:11 then just simply move in the sides, just like that, just a tiny little bit.
• 10:15 And when you're finished, you can press okay.
• 10:18 And because I'm using a recent version of Photoshop,
• 10:20 the liquefy filter was being applied to a smart object.
• 10:24 So if I didn't like it, I can simply turn it off.
• 10:27 Or, if I want to edit it,
• 10:28 I can double-click on it, bring up the liquefy filter and re-edit it.
• 10:32 Now personally I'm not a huge fan of the liquefy look so
• 10:35 I'd probably keep this off and keep my personal effect just like
• 10:38 keeping the proportions of a face as they were in the original image.
• 10:42 But I am pretty happy with the result of the skin.
• 10:45 It's nice, white and smooth, which kinda looks like a porcelain doll, but
• 10:49 of course if you do wanna add the liquefy filter to increase the size of the eyes or
• 10:53 decrease the size of the mouth you're free to do so, but that will just about do it.
• 10:57 Using the quick selection tool,
• 10:59 we're able to select the skin which include the eyes and the mouth.
• 11:02 We were able to use refine edge to make sure the transition between the skin and
• 11:06 hair was nice and smooth.
• 11:08 We then added a few adjustments layers to remove some of the color,
• 11:11 increase the contrast, and then add a nice, white overlay on top of her skin.
• 11:15 And to finish it off, which again is completely optional, you can go ahead and
• 11:18 use the liquefy filter to enlarge or shrink parts of her face.

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