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Open
the picture you want to use. If you use the same photo as I
did, crop/resize the picture with the Crop Tool (red arrow) as
you can see on the left. I set the Width to 453, and the
Height to 576 (1). Click the Crop button. |
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Open
a New Image, Canvas: White and image size: Active image. (That
makes your new image the same size as the photo.)
Choose the Fill Tool (red arrow)/Elliptical Gradient Fill
Tool/Two-Color, and set the first color to white (255/255/255)
and a second color of your choosing. I used 0/76/128
(1).
Start in the middle of the canvas and drag your circle/ellipse
like you can see on the screenshot to the left. Slip the
mouse as you come to point 2.
Open a New Image, with the same size and color. Use the same
Elliptical Gradient Fill Tool/Two Color, but this time we make the
1.color black and the 2. white. (This time I didn't drag my
circle/ellipse as far outside as I did the first time.)
For the b/w gradient ... go to Effect/Blur/ Gaussian Blur and set
the Radius to 20.
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In
this screenshot, you can see my two Gradient pictures.
Activate the blue Gradient picture (we'll call it the colored
one), copy (Ctrl+C) and paste
(Ctrl+V) the copy on top of the girls portrait. Right click/Properties/Merge: Overlay.
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Do
the same with the b/w Gradient picture ... copy and paste on
top of the girl's photo. Right click/ Properties/Merge (red
arrow): Inverse of Multiply (white arrow).
You can also use Addition ... it's a good basis for our further
process too!
Merge All. |
As you can see, the portrait looks better already (soft and
kind of mystical), but I thought I would show you some of the
special photos I made by using Xero filters. For this I reduced the picture we just made to 50% of
its original size. To see the effect even better, try it on
the original size. On the next screenshot you can see the
result of the picture with the various filters. On the
screenshot below this one again, you can see how the filter
would have looked on the original photo, without the blue and
b/w gradient we used. (I used the same filters, with the same
settings.)
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1.
Photo with the two gradients on the top.
2. Xero/Art Grain: 109/33/30
3.
Xero/Duochrome: 0/0/127/203
Highlights: 193/235/255 and Shadows: white (255/255/255)
4.
Xero/Greyscaler: 255/76/-7
5. Xero/Illustrator: 100/67
6. Xero/Lineart: 21 + On background colour
+ 6 + Monochrome
7. Xero/Serious Fog: 43/58
8.
Xero/Tweaker: 91/88/-42 |
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1.
Original photo without the two gradients on the top.
For the rest of the pictures I
used the same filters and the same settings as the ones used
upon.
Isn't that quite a difference? |
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| That's it! Try different
settings ... even try all the other filters from Xero too. I
didn't have a place for all of them, so you might find another
one which gives you the perfect look for a portrait. HAVE FUN!!!
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If you need any help with
this tutorial - or want to make suggestions to improve it -
please email
me!
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