Tutorial 13 Applying KISS Makeup to a Photo 

Requirements: Adobe Photoshop 6.0
The Project: Applying KISS makeup to a celebrity photo

Celebrities in KISS Makeup is the most visited feature on KISS Freaks.com. Fans are always telling me how much they enjoy the feature. I get requests to explain this technique all the time. So I finally broke down and I am ready to give away the secret. This is an advanced tutorial so you will have to have a pretty good understanding of Photoshop 6 and its tools. Lets get to it.

Image 1

First we need a celebrity picture to apply the greasepaint to. I picked this image (Image 1) because it should be an easier image to use due to Sarah Michelle Gellar looking straight into the camera. If the face is at an angle in the picture its really a lot more difficult.

We need to start off by creating a mask around Sarah's face. Try to keep the hair out of the mask. Not a big deal, but the more you keep out the less stuff you have to remove later. After you have the mask created around her face click CTRL C to copy the pixels inside the mask. Now click File>New. Photoshop will be ready to create an image to the dimensions of the copied material of the mask. Click OK. Click CTRL V. This should have pasted the masked material into your new image. We now need to convert this new image into Grayscale. Click Image>Mode>Grayscale. You will probably be asked to "Discard Color Information", just choose yes. We need to create the color of the face in the new image now. So use Image>Adjust>Brightness Contrast. Different settings are needed for different pictures, so there is no true way to do it the same everytime. Just use the sliders to get the face as white as possible without losing the definition of the face. Similar to Image 2 below.

Image 2

Go back to your original big image and click CTRL D, this removes the mask. Make sure there are no masks on either image. Now drag the grayscale smaller image to the bigger image and try to match it up with the face on the bigger image. Once you have moved the smaller image over to the bigger image, you no longer need the small image that is its own image. Just close it. Always remember to save the working image often. Doing this process takes a lot of memory and I have had crashes before and lost my work. That sucks. Your image should look similar to Image 3 now.

Image 3

We now get ready to do the fun stuff. What we have done is created a layer for the white face part of the image. Now we need to clean it up some. Click E, you will now be using the Eraser tool. Really zoom in close to the face so you can do the detail work. Brush settings are really up to you. But on an average picture I use the Eraser in Paintbrush mode using the default soft round 21 pixel brush. Use this only on the edges of the face to remove anything that doesn't look right. What I mean by that is, in the image above you see I masked some hair in there too. Really that won't like right if she has white hair, so I just remove it so the colored hair behind shines through. After cleaning it up it should look similar to Image 4 below.

Image 4

Stay in close to the face. Now we are going to remove a few things from the white overlay layer. Using a soft round brush of any size that is comfortable to you, remove the eye area and lips. Sometimes I do the nose holes too, just up to you. It takes some practice, but you will learn how to line things up better the more you do it. Plus anytime you don't like what you did, use Edit>Undo. I use it a lot even now. Your image should now look similar to Image 5 below.

Image 5

Create a new layer for the makeup. Since I am doing Gene's makeup on the pic it'is a little tough to get right. Really there is no shortcut here, you just have to try and make the outline of the makeup on the face. Once I draw it and fill it in with black, I then use the Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur tool at 0.7 on the layer. This makes it so the makeup isn't so sharp. Check Image 6 for example.

Image 6

In order to remove the makeup from the eyes, click on the makeup layer and use the Layer Pallette to change the Opacity to 50%. This is so you can see the eyes. Now using the Eraser tool and a soft round brush remove the eyes area so the color can be seen. . Once you have removed the eye area, change the Opacity back to 100%. Create a new layer and use the paint brush again to paint black over top of her lips. Remember not to paint the teeth. Your image should look close to Image 7 below.

Image 7

Create a new layer. This layer must be in front of all other layers. This is the highlight layer. The highlight layer is the one that gives realism to the whole image. Change your foreground color to white. Using a soft round brush about 5 to 9 pixels add white lines to the face where you think the highlights should be. When complete is should look similar to Image 8 below. Now we need to blur it to make highlights. Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and blur to about 5.7. Really up to you, whatever looks good to use. The results should be similar to Image 9.

Now the rest you will have to experiment with such as changing backgrounds, adding tattoos, etc. My final version in Image 10. I added a few extras changed the background color, added Gene to the background, a little blood to the lip and redid the title. If you use this technique to create your own Celebrities in Makeup email me at sstierwalt@digitaltropic.com and let me know. I would love to see them.

Stop by KISS Freaks to see more Celebrities in KISS Makeup!