Enrim Design Blog

In this tutorial I will introduce you to some tips and tricks on how to achieve the broken silhouette effect used in “Precious” movie poster.

This is the final result:

In this tutorial I will be using a picture of a silhouette, isolated on white background. You can download it here. We will also be using an image of old paper, you can download it here, an image of a hand, here,  and a font called “Birth of a hero”, you can download it here.

Step 1

Open photoshop and create a new document: 970px X 1300px. Copy and paste the image of the old paper in a new layer.

Step 2

Double click the old paper layer to go into Layer Styles. Check “Color Overlay” and set the blending mode to “Multiply” and change the color to #d14b02, it should look like this:

The result:

Step 3

Copy and paste the image of the silhouette above the old paper layer (resize it so that it takes roughly 2/3 of the document)

Step 4

Now we need to remove the white background from around the silhouette. Normally I would use the pen tool, but this time I am just going to change the blending mode of the silhouette layer to “Darken” to remove all the white from the layer.

The result

Step 7

Open up the picture with the hand and using the pen tool trace the hand. It doesn’t have to be perfect, we just need an outline of the hand.

Step 8

convert the path into selection (3rd icon from left on the bottom of the paths window – load path as selection)

Step 9

copy and paste it above the silhouette layer, resize it so that it is slightly larger than the man’s head, place it in the groin area (I turned the hand white, so you could see it, but you don’t have to do it).

Step 10

Select the silhouette layer and add a Layer Mask:  Layer –> Layer Mask –> Reveal All

Step 11

CTRL-Click the thumbnail of the hand layer to get the selection around it.

Step 12

With the selection still going, turn off the hand layer. Select the layer mask of the silhouette layer (make sure your foreground color is black) and using paint bucket fill the selection of the hand with black. Deselect.

Result

Step 13

Draw a continuation of the arm on the layer mask using a black paint brush.

Step 14

Select the silhouette layer and using the pen tool outline right leg as shown below (make sure the outline goes through the pinkie finger of the transparent hand to create the effect that the hand is breaking the body)

Step 15

Convert the path into selection, then slightly rotate and move the leg away from the body to create a “broken glass” effect

Step 16

Repeat Step 15 for the rest of the fingers so that it looks like cracks are coming from the fingers.

Step 17

Add some horizontal cracks to break up the cracks you already made.

Step 18

Select the text tool and using “Birth of a hero” font write a quote on the bottom of the canvas (use color white #ffffff).

You are done! Hope this tutorial was helpful

Tags: movie poster, photoshop, tutorial

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 6:47 pm and is filed under tutorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.