Download a famous person's portrait. Front views are usually the best choice for this as they show a better range of values and the person face becomes more easily recognized; but as you can see above, I chose a 3/4s view which I believe works well, too!Note: Find a photo with good contrast (but nothing too dramatic) and with a light background.
Once inside Photoshop, crop it with the following dimensions: 4" x 6" @ 100 p/i. Save as "Type Face".- After your crop, you will want to open another document (5"x5") to prepare your 4 font types. Use the name of your celebrity: either last name or both first and last. After you make them, you will want to select each one individually with the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) and then go to Edit>Define Brush Preset. Again, do this four times.
- Go to your Photo Layer and go to the Menu Bar>Select>Color Range. You will first choose Shadows from the drop-down menu. After you hit "OK", you will see ants around your dark areas of your photo. Immediately do Ctrl + J to duplicate the selection. Name the new layer "shadows". Go to Color Range again. This time choose Midtones and hit "OK". Ctrl + J your selection and name your layer "midtones".
- Go to each layer and choose Edit>Fill (you will use 50% gray for your midtones layer and Black for your shadows layer.) Don't forget to check "preserve transparency".
- Once that's done, merge your layers and call the newly formed single layer, "Black/White".
Painting With Your Text
- Now go to your Brush tool, then your Brushes Palette (F5) and follow the settings below in the 3 screen shots. After that, add a layer above your "Black/White" layer...call it "Type Paint".
- Begin painting the "Type Paint" layer. Take visibility off of your Black/White layer so you can see how you're painting the words. After you have used all four of your brushes, it's time to put those words inside the face.
- First thing you'll do is go back to the Black/White layer, turn on its visibility and choose "Ctrl + A" to select all. Then, use Ctrl + C to copy the selection. Next, go back into your Type Paint layer and add a mask to it, turn off Black/White visibility again, then hold down the Option key and click on your Mask Thumbnail. Your Type Paint layer will disappear. At this time, use Ctrl + V to paste your photo into the Mask. Deselect the Ants (Ctrl + D). See screen shot below.
- Next, use the invert function (Ctrl + I). This will invert your photo to look like the effect below.
Then, click on your Type Paint thumbnail to reveal the type effect that should now be imbedded within the face.
Adding A Gradient Overlay
- Double-click your Type Paint layer to bring up the Layer Style dialogue box. Edit your gradient. I chose green and yellow. You can use whatever colors you desire. Play around with the settings until you get the best effect for your portrait. In other words, don't just settle for a default setting.
Adding Information- Add an additional layer with a Wikipedia facts. Copy a section from the facts and paste it into a text box. To achieve a text box, go to your Type Tool, click and drag out a text box the same size as your canvas. Copy the same mask from the Type Paint layer (hold option down and drag it upwards to your new layer) so you can get the same embedded text effect.Notice the different sized fonts. Highlight a few key words that define your person and increase the font size and change the font family.
- Double-click the layer to add another Gradient Overlay. Adjust the color to be a little different so contrast between the two layers exist. It's important to be able to read your additional layer's information.
Canvas Size
- Go to the background layer (bottom) and then up to Image>Canvas Size and be sure to check the Relative box. Then type in .25 inches for both width and height. Click OK.
You will see some "spill over" with your text, but the next step will eliminate that.
- Choose a light color to use for your background. Then, Control + Click your original photo layer. You will see ants around the photo, but we need to inverse the selection. Do Shift+Ctrl+I to get an inverse selection. Then add a new layer all the way to the top of your layers palette. Choose the same color or a related one and Option + Delete to fill.
