#silhouette tutorial

1. Using a drawing program (in this case I used the open source Inkscape vector drawing program) open a new file.

2. Paste in the picture you want to trace into the first layer. Drag the image to the center and zoom in.

3. Create a new layer (Inkscape is tricky in that their cancel is on the left rather than the right, so make sure to hit the button that says “add”).

4. Select layer two and then the pencil tool.

5. Drag the pencil smooth bar to around 45. Trace the image. The default should be a black line about 1pt thick.

6. Hide the layer with the photograph. Save the outline as a png image with “save as”.

7.  Open the png in Silhouette Studio.

8. Go to the trace window and select “Trace Area”.

9. Ignore the white background from your image and select around the black outline. Slide the “scale” setting down to 4.

10. Select “trace” and separate the image from the outline.

12. Delete the old image if it’s in your way.

13. Size the red cut shape to the size you want.

14. Cut out according to instructions for your chosen medium. I cut a cardstock outline of my bunny.

Okay so first off, it's really helpful if you pick scenes that are:- a) dark scenes with a bit of lighting b) night scenes c) scenes where the subject's features aren't clearly visible or detailed (so they’re easier to manipulate)

Examples:

I’ll demonstrate with the first gif, using Photoshop CS5.

1. Make the gif. 

Sharpen and add a base coloring psd as you normally would. Result:

As you can see, the figures are already starting to look like silhouettes, (of course, this depends on the psd you use) but you can still make out some of the features.

2. Levels (+ Selective Color)

To make them look more shadowy, add a Levels layer underneath your base coloring layers. Adjust the levels by dragging the black tab to the right only. 

Now it looks like this:

Another thing you can do is add a selective color layer and increase the black colour like this:

That should add to the effect without making everything look too dark. (You don’t need to do this, though. It just depends on which scene you choose to gif and how dark that scene is.)

3. Solid Color Layer

Next, add a solid color layer (Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid Color), change the settings from ‘normal’ to ‘multiply’, pick a colour (I chose a light blue, #00aeff) and make this the top layer. Result:

4. Brightness & Curves

I could stop here, but I want the gif to look a little bit brighter, so I added a brightness layer above my base psd:

and then a curves layer below my base psd:

and this is what I ended up with:

(Again, this step might not be necessary if your gif has enough lighting.)

Done!

OTHER GIFS:

For gif #2 I did a similar thing, 

but used more levels to avoid the yellow light from illuminating his face, and changed the yellow colour to blue by using hue/saturation:

You can try this with brighter scenes, too. For example:

to this:

by increasing the black tab a little bit more on the Levels layer than you normally would.

The trick, really, is to find a good side-profile picture or screenshot of whichever character you want.  You can google and hope for the best, using the person’s name + side profile as your search keywords or go through the screencaps for your golden ticket.  For this tutorial, I will be using beautiful Cas, from this image I found off google:

You want as clear/sharp an image as possible, because it really helps with outline.  See how you can easily see every dip of Castiel’s angelic face (dude with the black hair for those who don’t know who the furk I’m talking about)?  That’s what you want.  You don’t want, for example, Dean’s face (the other guy who looks like he’s derping really hard).  He’s kind of slouched, his jacket distorts the crook of his neck, and his lips are flattened because of the face he’s making.  You could work with it, because sometimes it is really hard to find such a perfect pose as Cas’s in this, but you’ll have to do some tinkering.

The bigger the image, the better.  It means you can zoom in closer in the photoshop document and get as precise as you want (like I will with his hair and lips).

Alright, to make your outline, it helps to put in a curves layer just to make things much more defined, like so:

You can also use a brightness/contrast layer, you’ll get the same product.

Now it’s time to get to it~

First, right click on your image (in the layers panel) and convert it from background to a layer (“layer from background”) and then create a layer mask for it.

This will allow you to hide Dean, the wall, everything other than Castiel without erasing.  This way, if you make a whoopsies or what to change the shape, anything, you can just go to the layer mask and adjust what’s showing or completely delete it.

To do all this, you take your brush and make sure the color is black and on a hard line  (black = hide, white = show, so if you want to bring back something you hide/erased, just switch the brush color to white and ta dah).  Go as big as you want, with the size of the brush, to get rid of the background.  MAKE SURE that you have the layer mask selected (just click on the white square next to your image to change what’s selected) and then start “erasing” like so:

I like to keep some of the background surrounding Cas there, so you know where his outline ends.  Now, zoom in a little more if you want, you don’t have to if you have a good eye but I sure did at first because I’m paranoid, and go with a finer/smaller brush around 12px or lower depending on how zoomed in it is and how comfortable you are (still on black and still on the layer mask) and trace around Cas’s head and shoulders.  I cut it off around the curve of his shoulder pad because that’s all you need for this kind of graphic.

D’aw, look at him.

So, of course, for the hair, you might need to shrink the brush, but really hair is such a pain that you won’t really deal with it until the next step, which is to make the black silhouette.

To make the black silhouette, you create a new layer, fill it in as black.  You can either create a black fill layer like so:

or by clicking the new layer button in the layer window like so:

and paint it black with the paint bucket button

Now you’re entire photoshop frame is pitch black, right?  Making sure that the black layer is above your image in the layers column (you can delete the curves layer now that the tracing is done), right click on the black fill layer and select “create clipping mask”.

and this should be the new image

It’s lookin’ good, but it’s kind of sloppy and his hair isn’t lookin’ very great towards the back.  Easy fixes.  This is when you start tinkering.  I get rid of the background coat flap I forgot to erase earlier, smooth out the back of his head and give his neck a little dip so that you can tell where the coat begins, and fiddle around with his hair on the IMAGE’s (not the black layer) layer mask.  To make it even more defined, I take my brush and sharpen the chin a bit by erasing some of the black and then make a curvy design at the bottom so it isn’t just a straight cut-off line.  And this is what you get:

Slap on a simple black/white psd and place a white feather texture on lighten on top, some text, and merge visible

Now I just move it onto my main graphic, right click the image (on the actual photoshop document) and flip it horizontally. 

To blend it in better, I add a white linear gradient (at a 45-ish degree angle), set on “hard light” at 100%, on top of it.