Photoshop Tutorial: Solarize a Ninja!
This tutorial will show you how to solarize an image.
The unofficial definition of Solarize: Solarizing is this crazy technique photographers use to make images look all crazy.
You can read about it more if you wish, I think wikipedia can give you a better understanding of the whole effect and how it works. But we don’t really care all that much about how it works! Not as much as we want to know how to do it. And what better image to solarize than a ninja?
Step 1 Find a Ninja
This is really hard to do considering ninjas by nature are elusive and deadly. It is also a known fact that Chuck Norris is the only one who can find ninjas. So in this case, you should just settle for an image already taken of a ninja. I found mine at stock exchange.
Side Note: We are not liable or responsible should anyone get injured actually trying to find a ninja in the wild.
Step 2 Black and White Filter
In Photoshop, click the create new adjustment layer button and select Black and White. Toggle thru the presets until you find a desirable look. My two favorite filters are the green filter and the maximum white filter. In this case I chose the green filter.
Step 3 Curves Layer
Select the create new adjustment layer button again, this time choose Curves. Select the pencil (draw points to modify curves) Draw a curve like the one shown. Start in the left bottom corner, hold shift to draw a straight line up to the middle, and click to the bottom right corner. You get a really interesting solarized effect.
Step 4 Give the Ninja some color!
The last thing you can do is add one more adjustment layer, this time its going to be Color Balance. I left the highlights and shadows alone and only adjusted the midtones. Go over the top with the color, find one you like. I hear ninjas like blues or reds, definitely not pink. Once you find a color you like, change the blend mode on the adjustment layer to something other than Normal (I chose overlay). That’s it. Here is my final result.
One cool thing about this technique is you can go back and change your adjustment layers/blend modes once you have finished the steps and see what the different results are. This technique allows way more control and allows you to create some really cool effects that no single Photoshop filter can give you.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, please feel free to comment to let me know if it was helpful or not.
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Comments
I use CS3. The new adjustments layer button looks like this at the bottom of your layers panel. From there you will see the Black & White filter.
Im using CS2, is there an alternate option to Black and White, because i just used the Hue/Saturation to adjust it to standard black white
Just informing you that I came across a chinese website yesterday at http://tutorial.jcwcn.com/ that seems to be copying and pasting without authorization tutorials from all over the place and claim them as their tutorials, they are also hotlinking images from those tutorials and are therefore also stealing your bandwith.
I have spotted some of your tutorials on the site. If you want to
prevent them to link directly to your images have a look at the script
at http://altlab.com/htaccess_tutorial.html
Good luck
Thanks for your info Hokken,
Much appreciated. I think Google will recognize this site as spammy and penalize it heavily by banning it from any search results. As for hotlinking, I will resolve this issue ninja style.
Which version of Photoshop did you used?
I can’t find the black and white filter
Greetings