What Type Of Makeup Do I Use To Create Neon Rainbow Skull

Today, I will be walking you lot through how to create a neon rainbow portrait effect in Adobe Photoshop! Yous will learn a niggling-known trick for getting the perfect neon glow, equally well as how to bring an all-over vibrancy and brightness to a portrait.

We are aiming for a punk-rock popular art vibe for this portrait effect, then at that place'due south no holding dorsum on color! Permit's get started, shall we?

What You'll Demand

You lot'll demand the following resource to complete this project:

Girl Tomboy
40 illustrated skulls

Detect more resources on Envato Elements!

i. How to Create a Gradient Skull Groundwork

To start, we volition be creating the perfect punk rock base for our portrait event.

Step 1

Create an 850 10 1062 px New Document.

Step two

Place "Skull_35" from the twoscore illustrated skulls shape pack onto the upper middle portion of the canvas.

Step iii

Create a hot pink #ff73db, orangish#ffc652, and light blue #a6b0ff colored vertical gradient.

You could employ a Gradient Fill layer. However, I prefer to paint my gradients by hand using a large, soft, roundBrush.

Clip the gradient to the skull, grouping the layers into a group named "Background."

two. How to Prep and Light a Portrait Subject

Next, nosotros will be placing our subject onto their new background, along with swapping out the color of their shirt.

Footstep 1

Place and extract the field of study using your preferred method.

Don't know how to excerpt pilus? Acquire how to do it in my "How to Create a Honey Bee Themed Photo Manipulation" step 3. How to Excerpt and Paint Pilus.

Also annotation that I like to Right-click > Convert to Smart Object my primary subjects.

Step ii

Add an Inner Glow layer style to the subject, or pigment a glow yourself.

Inner Glow Settings

Following the glow, add together a strongFilter > Noise > Reduce Noise filter to the subject.

For this bailiwick, in detail, I want to smooth them out significantly. Depending on the quality and clarity of your photo, you can skip this step!

Reduce Noise Settings

Strength: 10
Preserve Particular: 10%
Reduce Color Noise: 0%
Sharpen Details: 0%

I too doubled the amount of smoothing on the hair by duplicating, clipping, masking the duplicate'southward torso out, and so reducing the dissonance even further.

Step three

Create aNew Layerand keep it set toNormal.

Prune information technology to the field of study layer.

With a medium, soft, round Brush, pigment white around the hair and ears.

Step iv

Duplicate the subject field, filling the duplicate with flat white.

Drag the duplicate beneath the original, and and so movement information technology upwards 25 to l px.

Mask out the lesser of the white duplicate and then that there's a halo of white pilus around the upper office of the subject's head.

Step 5

Create and clip a whiteColor Fill layer into the subject area layer.

HittingControl-Ito invert the layer mask, filling information technology with black.

Use a semi-difficult round Castor to mask back in the white where the shirt is. It'due south of import not to use likewise hard or too soft a brush, or the edge will wait off.

Information technology may help to add a0.5 to ane.5 px Featherto the mask to help alloy the edge.

Changing the shirt from black to white will help bring more focus to the subject's face. Skip this step if not necessary!

3. How to Create a Stylistic Glow Portrait Effect

Next up, we are going to be brightening and coloring our subject area to get them prepare for their neon pilus makeover.

Step i

Create aNew Layer,bringing information technology below the subject layer.

With a large, soft, circular brush, paint white behind the subject. Keep the light very soft and defused.

Step ii

Create andclipaNew Layerto the subject. Gear up the new layer toSoft Light.

Using the same big white brush as earlier, pigment white around the subject area's arms and body.

Using a smaller brush, paint white highlights on the bailiwick'southward jawline and ears, leading onto their face up.

Step three

Create and clip aEffulgence/Contrastaligning layer into the subject.

Mask out the pilus; we only want to brighten the face and body.

Effulgence/Contrast Settings

Brightness: 46
Contrast: -50

Step 4

Create and clip aSelective Coloradjustment layer into the subject, above all previous layers.

Selective Color Settings

Colors: Red
Yellowish: -79
Black: -27

Footstep v

Create and clip one moreBrightness/Contrastaligning layer into the subject.

Brightness/Contrast Settings

Brightness: 23
Contrast: -50

Stride 6

Cease up the subject area's skin past creating aNew Layer.Set the new layer toOverlay.

Then paint white highlights on the forehead, cheeks, and nose of the subject area. Focus on enhancing the existing highlights.

Set yourCastorto aMenstruumof around 15% to assist build up the light slowly.

4. How to Create Neon Hair

Now for what y'all have been waiting for: the neon hair! I want to note that everything upward to this point, other than extracting your model's hair, has been entirely optional!

As well annotation that due to the nature of this portrait issue, all hair will react differently, and some hair will exist more work than others. Simply with a footling scrap of finessing and experimenting, I assure y'all this can be done to whatsoever hair.

Pace 1

Create aHue/Saturationadjustment layer and prune it into the subject, above all other layers.

Hue/Saturation Settings

Hue: 212
Saturation: 79
Colorize: Checked

Mask out everything but the hair. We want blue hair for now!

Step 2 (Choice 1)

The neon tin can be done i of 2 ways. Option one, and the preferred method that I will be using throughout the balance of the tutorial, is by using a(Device Link) "ColorNegative" Color Lookup adjustment layer.

What'southward That?

It's a Color Lookup preset that was available in older versions of Photoshop, Photoshop CS6 near notably.

If y'all have the ColorNegative Colour Lookup setting, create and prune it into the discipline, bringing it in a higher place the Hue/Saturation layer.

Footstep 2 (Option 2)

Don't accept Photoshop CS6 or this unusual Color Lookup setting lying around somewhere in an onetime file (like me)? No trouble!

Select,Duplicate,and Merge the subject and all of its clipped layers to create a flattened duplicate of the model.

Clip the duplicate into the original discipline, bringing it above theHue/Saturation layer.

Hitting Command-I to capsize the indistinguishable.

Adjust the brightness, contrast, color, and saturation as needed.

Step 3

Set the inverted layer, or adjustment layer, toLighten.

Pace 4

Mask out everything on the inverted layer except for the hair.

Stride 5

Create and clip aNew Layerinto the subject field, below the Hue/Saturation and Inverted layers.

Using a small-scale, hard, round brush, pigment strands of pure white pilus onto the bluish area of the subject field. We want to connect the outer white hair with the discipline'south real hair, creating a seamless blending of the ii.

Meet "How to Create a Futuristic Manner Portrait" for more on this technique!

Step half dozen (Skip if Using Option two)

Create and prune aNew Layerinto the subject, again belowthe Hue/Saturation and Inverted layers.

Set the layer toSoft Light.

With a soft, round Brush, paint black in the areas y'all desire to lighten. Retrieve, as we are working with inverted colors, the dark colors will lighten, and the light colors volition shade!

I focused the black on the left and center part of the head and hair, where the roots are most orangish.

Footstep 7 (Skip if Using Option 2)

Create and clip aNew Layerinto the subject, again belowthe Hue/Saturation and Inverted layers.

Further suit the hair, painting black wherever you want more than orange.

I brought it more than towards the right side of the hair using a hard round brush, making sure everything is nice and tapered and blended.

Stride eight

Create aNew Layer above the subject layers. Set the new layer toLighten.

With a soft, round brush, paint hot pinkish#ff73db, orange#ffc652, and lite blue#a6b0ff colored light blooms coming off the subject'south hair.

Focus each color onto its corresponding area, so focus blue lite where the hair is the near blue.

I like to paint each color on a different layer then I can adjust the Opacity if necessary.