The pleasure of martyrs - Photoshop Tutorial

The pleasure of martyrs, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Photoshop tutorial: The pleasure of martyrs – photomontage: how was it done?

The aim was to create an incongruent mix of themes of death and eroticism. Three basic images were used: The mausoleum, the girl and the angels. The mausoleum is the basic element, a slightly creepy building in a cemetery, but any psuedo gothic building would have a similar effect. The original was taken in colour. This file was opened and the Rectangular Marquee Tool was used to surround the whole image (using click and drag from the top left hand corner) which was then copied using Edit/Copy. Then I went to File/New and set it to transparent background and then created a new file. (This will appear with a checkboard pattern.) It will have the same size and resolution as the copied file. I then went to Edit and clicked on Paste and the image will now appear on your new file. To increase the austere theme of death, I wanted this image in black and white, but I wanted the doorway (symbolizing the doorway to the erotic virgins promised to martyrs) to be in colour, to help retain a warm, erotic feel. Using the rectangular marquee tool, a rectangle was drawn around the doorway to the mausoleum from the top left hand corner. Then using Edit/Cut, the doorway was removed revealing the checkboard pattern underneath. Then I clicked on Image/Mode/Greyscale to turn this colour image of the mausoleum to black and white. I then saved this image as a photoshop file under a new name. I closed this file and then opened it again, and clicked on Image/Mode/RGBColor. This returned the image to a colour image, though in appearance it remained black and white. Then I clicked on Edit/Paste and the coloured doorway of the mausoleum was pasted back into the black and white image of the mausoleum. If it did not paste into the right position, then I used the Move Tool to position it correctly. The original mausoleum image had two closed doors, so using the Rectangular Marquee Tool I drew a rectangle around the left hand door and went into Edit/Cut to remove it, again showing the transparent checkboard pattern. I saved this file as a photoshop file.

Next I got the image of the girl. I drew around the whole image using the Rectangular Marquee tool and went to Edit/Copy. I clicked on the Mausoleum image and went into Edit/Paste, to copy the girl onto this image. The size was not correct. I went into Edit/Undo to remove the image of the girl. I clicked on the original file of the girl again and went into Image/Size. I made sure that the constrain proportions box was ticked, and entered a new size in the width box. (The height changes automatically). I repeated the copy and paste procedure above to see if the size was correct. If not I went to Edit/Undo and repeated the sizing and pasting procedure until I was happy with the result.

I clicked on the Mausoleum image, surrounded it using the Rectangular/Marquee tool and clicked on Edit/Copy. Then I went to File/New and set to white background and then created a new file. It will have the same size and resolution as the copied file. I then clicked on the file of the girl, surrounded the image using the Rectangular Marquee tool, and clicked on Edit/Copy. I then clicked on the new blank file and clicked on Edit/Paste. The image of the girl now appeared in the centre of this file. Then I clicked on the Mausoleum file, (which should still have the rectangular marquee dotted line around it) and clicked on Edit/Copy. I then clicked on the New File of the girl and clicked on Edit/Paste. The Mausoleum image then sits on top of the girl on a new layer. I then went to the Layers box on the right hand side and clicked on the layer with the girl. I then used the Move Tool to position the girl in the transparent doorway. When I was happy with the image and its positioning, I saved the file as a photoshop file under a new name.

I then went to the image of the angel. I wanted to make this more erotic, so I got a picture of a topless woman who was posing in roughly the same position and angle as the shot of the angel. Using a similar procedure to that described above, I got the two images to match in size. I then went to the image of the topless woman, and using the erase tool, removed all the image but the breasts. I created a soft edge by altering the opacity of the erase tool in a series of brush strokes down to 5%. The shape of the breasts were retained but the image vignetted out to the neck and lower chest. The image was changed to black and white using the procedure described above. The image of the angel was clicked on and this too was turned to black and white. I surrounded this image by clicking and dragging a Rectangular box using the Rectangular Marquee Tool. I clicked on File/New and opened a new file with a transparent background. The image of the angel was pasted in using Edit/Paste. Using the Magic Wand, all background image from the angel was removed, leaving just the Angel on a transparent background.

I clicked on the image of the breasts and increased the contrast slightly using Image/Adjust/BrightnessContrast. I surrounded this image by clicking and dragging a Rectangular box using the Rectangular Marquee Tool. I clicked on File/New and opened a new file with a transparent background. I clicked on Edit/Copy and the breasts appeared on this new file. Using the Magic wand, the white background was removed leaving the breasts surrounded by a transparent background. I surrounded this image by clicking and dragging a Rectangular box using the Rectangular Marquee Tool. I clicked on Edit/Copy and then clicked on the New Angel image and clicked on Edit/Paste. The breasts appeared in a new layer on top of the angel. Using the Move Tool, I positioned the breasts into the correct place. Then in the Layers Box, with the breasts layer active, I reduced the opacity of the breasts layer to about 45%. Then I clicked on the Angel layer and pixel cloned the dress of the angel to the shape of the breasts. When I was happy with the image, I saved it as a photoshop file.

I clicked and dragged a rectangle around the new angel file using the Rectangular Marquee Tool. I clicked on Edit/Copy. Then I clicked on the new Mausoleum/girl file and clicked on Edit/Paste. The angel appears on top, or in the foreground of the Mausoleum. Any size differences were corrected as described earlier. Once the size of the angel image was correct, it was saved. The image was then pasted and positioned on one side of the mausoleum/girl image, then the angel was flipped horizontally in Image/RotateCanvas/Flip Horizontally, and copied and pasted again on the other side of the mausoleum/girl image.

When I was happy with the whole image and the position of all the elements, then the mausoleum/girl/angel file was saved as a JPEG file. (All layers are now lost by merging and individual elements can no longer be moved). Finally, this JPEG file was opened for fine detail retouching of edges and so on before being saved as a final file.