STEP 1: GET THE STOCK!

Download the image from my favorite free stock site: stock.xchng (http://www.sxc.hu). Here’s the link:

http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=868023

(Although the stocks are free, it’s good courtesy to credit the user that submitted the stock. So check the
username and send a shoutout wherever and whenever you post something using an image from the site,
and any other stock site. Thanks)

Open up the image in Photoshop and we can get started.

STEP 2: ENHANCEMENT
Images> Adjustments > Levels. (Or Ctrl+L)

Move the shadow pointer (dark arrow on the left) to the right, then move the highlight slider (the one on
the far right) to the left slightly and play around with the middle to bring out some of the colours and get rid
of the greyish look. When done, I got these values at the top. 24, 0.8, 255.
You could use your own or type this in.
Next go to Image > Mode > Lab. If it asks, agree to flatten.
Go to the Channels pallet (it’s the tab together with Layers. If you don’t have it go to Windows > Channels).
There are 3 channels: a, b and lightness. Select the Lightness channel.
Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask
This part is rather odd because you can barely see what’s going on, but once you get the hang of doing
this you begin to know what to expect. So for now you can just use what I used 98%, 8.9 pixels radius and 0
levels threshold.

Now go to Image > Mode > RGB to switch back to RGB mode. Now that’s brought out the detail and
lightened some areas!

That’s done. Now our final image isn’t gonna be so

bright and colourful!
Image > Adjustments > Hue & Saturation. Turn down the Saturation to -29.
STEP 3: Glowing Baby Food
Now the fun stuff starts. Create a new Solid Color Fill Layer (Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid Color…) Name it
“bottle color” and click OK and a new window pops up to select a color. I used #70e1eb

The new layer appears with a layer mask. Select the layer mask and press Ctrl+I. The thumbnail turns black
and the color hides.

If you don’t already know, a Layer Mask is like a map that determines what parts of a layer are visible and
what’s hidden. White areas are fully visible, black areas are completely hidden, any shades of black/white
in between will determine the visibility/opacity.
In this case, we’ll be revealing the parts we want. This is very handy because, unlike erasing, you can come
back later and change it and reveal/hide any areas you may have made a mistake. And the Solid Color fill
is so that we can change the color of the bottle any time. We’ll try it out later.

Now, using the polygon lasso make a selection of the bottle, be sure to go around the fingers. Try making it
as accurate as possible because the next step usually reveals mistakes and rough edges. You may have to
zoom really close to get a good result.

When done selecting, press D (to reset black and white as foreground/background), then press Ctrl+Del.
The bottle should be covered with our previous blue. Good.

Up in the Layers pallet is the Blending mode (left of Opacity), which is currently set to Normal. Click on the
Dropdown button and change this to Color Burn! This should now colorize the bottle blue. Now for small
touches, select the brush tool and right-click anywhere. Set the hardness to 40%. Now brush over the little
specs around the newborn’s mouth.

Now, all that’s left is to add a nice radio-active glow. Double-click in an empty space on the color layer
(the space to the left not occupied by the layer name). The Layer Styles window should pop up.

First, click and tick “Outer Glow” on the left side of the window and do the following:
Blending Mode: Normal
Opacity: 100%
Color #e8f3fb
Size 54 px

Now go to “Inner Glow”:

Blend mode: Screen
Opacity 70
Color #9fe3fa
Choke 14%
Size 120 px
Range 69%

Click OK and it should look something like this:

 Nice. Now, about changing color. You can double-
click on the blue thumbnail in the Layers pallet and you get the color picker again. Mess around with it.
You’ll notice that the blue color will change according to what you do, but the glow remains the same
and so does the mask!

STEP 4: EYES
This is where it gets even more interesting. For this bit, create a new layer. Select a random blue color or,
once again, you could create another Solid Color Fill Layer. I’ll use the ordinary brush this time around with
my color as #00d0ff. Now, using a relatively hard brush at about 90%, paint over the eyes. Get something
like this:

It’s rather sketchy but it’ll do the job. Now, double-click

on the layer to give it a Layer Style “Inner Shadow” as follows:
Blending Mode: Multiply
Opacity: 100
Distance: 0px
Size 18px

Now go back and use the brush to clean up any odd-looking edges.
 Ok, that’s done, take a little break and continue to
step 5.

STEP 5: ZAP!!
Go to the toolbar and select the Pen Tool (P). It’s the one above the Text tool. Now, click once in the
center of the eye to the left to place one point, then scroll up and place one outside the page. Something
like this:

That’s the path that the zap is going to follow. This is one of
the many features of the Pen Tool.

Now, create a new layer and select the Brush tool (B). Go to the “Paths” pallet, which is grouped with
Layers and Channels or go to Windows > Paths. Among the icons at the bottom is a hollow circle, the
“Stroke Path” button. Click it with the same blue color selected as foreground and a line should draw along
the path we just created.
IT LOOKS WEIRD!? Well, then undo (Ctrl+Shift+Z) but this time hold ALT when you click Stroke Path again. A
window will popup. Make sure “Brush” is selected and “Simulate Pressure” is OFF! It should be fine and this
option will stick.

The stroke might be very small/very large, so you’ll have to continuously undo and try out different brush
sizes. I used 50px for mine.

Now click on the empty space in the Paths pallet to temporarily hide the path. It should look like this:

Layer style again, starting with “Outer Glow”:

Blend Normal
Opacity 80%
Color White
Size 54px (this will vary, depending on how thick the line is)

“Inner Glow”
Blend Normal
Color White
Size 49px
Range 78%

That should look better. Now select the Move Tool (V) and, while holding ALT, move the line to the other
eye!
It might be a tad skew, so you can rotate it (Ctrl+T) to match the image if you like. Also add a layer
mask/erase the parts of the eyes that overlap so it looks cleaner.

So here’s what we have so far:

Nice.

Finally, we can start adding the final adjustments.

STEP 6: Final Touches

Now for some enhancements to the zaps.
I used custom brushes to add the fancy blue stuff (Roman Brushes) and the white (smoke brushes). You can
get both from this .zip file:

http://davdalx.webs.com/Brushes.rar (3.5MB)

Extract and double-click both files. Now when you right-click with the brush tool and browse through the
presets, you’ll find them at the bottom of the list! Choose the brushes and place them as you like with any
color and brush size you find appropriate. I used the original blue and white for the smoke brush.

STEP 7: Final Adjustments

Create a new solid fill layer and make it black. Now Ctrl+I the layer mask again and now select the brush
tool and set the brush size until it’s slightly bigger than the page’s height then set the hardness to O%. Now,
with white color selected, brush around the middle, leaving the corners dark. We have a vignette.

Add an Adjustment layer for Levels (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels) and play around to get some
dark look but without killing off the bright lights from the zaps. Notice that the contrast on the hands for the
glow is affected and any major mistakes will become notable, so try avoid too much of a change. I got 36,
0.58, 219.
Cool! Now to lower the colors a bit. The yellow of the sweater and the skin are calling some attention, we
want the viewers’ eyes to be on the zappy eyes!

Add a new Hue & Saturation adjustment layer. Set the saturation to -76. You’ll notice that everything loses
color, including the zaps. We’ll fix that. Set the saturation back to zero.

Go to Select > Color Range…

Move the window to the side a tad and click on a blue area of the zaps, then hold SHIFT and click on the
bottle. The little preview should look something like this:

You should also notice that the layer mask thumbnail for the Hue & Saturation adjustment will be the same.
That’s because if you have a layer mask selected and come to Color Range, anything you do here will
immediately be selected as the layer mask, also eliminating anything you may have had before.
Remember that white is for what’s visible and black is hidden, in this case it’d mean that the white areas will
be affected by our Hue & Sat changes, but not the black area… but we want to change everything but
the zap, so in the window tick “Invert”.
Now click OK!

Now double-click the icon on the Hue & Sat layer and set the saturation back down to -76. See, everything
BUT the zaps loses color. You can mess around with Lightness and Hue to see the effects of the layer mask.

We’re done!

Thanks everyone! Enjoy! It’s great to be on The Digital Bubble!