Elf up Orly

As long as I’m around, Poor Orlando will never be free of that blonde wig and pointy ears… Legolas forever! ;p

Would you like to see how I do it? Many of the steps will have pictures only (With text in them), and some will have additional notes written in this document.

First you select a picture that you like:

I have chosen this picture because it is average size and resolution, just the type thing that you can easily find on the web.… I also really like the expression ;p. Normally, I would chose a much larger higher resolution picture… the increased size and detail makes it easier to make changes, but it also makes any imperfections really jump out and show up. It is also sometimes hard to find really big hi-res images, so I felt that this tutorial would be more universal if I used an average image.

This picture also has fairly neutral lighting without a lot of harsh shadows and highlights. Pictures with strong directional lighting can also be used, but it makes the process much more difficult.

Step 1:

I increased the size some to make the image easier to work with. This one would only take a 30% increase before the image quality got odd and blotchy. There is some blotchiness, but we will deal with that later. I used the Bicubic Smoother function in Image>Adjust>image size, because it decreases pixilation slightly when increasing image size.

Step 2: Find a hair donor. (Sorry for any typos on picture text in the pictures. I was concentrating on the manipulating when I made the pictures, not the text and got careless).

This hair donor/picture not only has good definition and hair texture with similar lighting to the face we have chosen; it also has fairly neat and tidy hair covering areas that we will have to be adding hair to in the picture when we get to that point. That means that it will be easier to select and steal the hair, and we can probably steal all the hair we need from this one picture. It is not uncommon to have to steal you hair from multiple sources which makes things more difficult because you then have to match the textures and colors of different hair.

Keep a copy of your hair donor on a separate layer in your picture so you have him handy and do not have to dig him up again later on… just turn off the visibility of that layer when you are not using it.

Step 3:

Manipulations usually get uglier before they get pretty; wrestling the wig onto Orly is a classic example. You just have to grit your teeth and work thru the scary stages. ;p

Step 4:

That’s the hair layer that is being flipped horizontal. ;p

Step 5:

Photoshop CS2 has a fantastic warp tool which I used here, but the same thing can be done using other tools available in other versions. You can select parts of the wig using a very loose feather (10px or more) and rotate and move them around and then patch them together again. Or the distort and perspective etc… functions also can be used (Any thing that will allow you to bend skew or alter the shape some). Also the liquefy filter can be very useful for some alterations… or any combination of these tools. The Warp tool in CS2 allows you to do things much easier and with fewer steps. In my opinion, this one tool improvement alone is worth the cost of the upgrade to CS2…I Love CS2 Warp! ;p

Step 6:

It is always easier to remove more later than it is to try and add something back in that you erased/cut earlier.

Because the face we picked is lifted up more than the face in the hair shot, the slight sliver that was missing from the top is no longer an issue in this picture. You won’t always be that lucky. When it is just a small sliver missing off the top of a head, it is pretty easy to replace by either opening an new layer and cloning some of the hair onto that and then cutting and shaping it Like I did here; OR, You can make a copy of some of the top hair using a loose feather, maneuver it above the top of the head (Like we did with the wig), and then cut away the excess the way I have done to shape the top of his head in this one.

BTW, The same techniques that I use for getting Orly into his wig are the ones that I use to replace the top of the head when PJ has chopped it off of Legolas or Aragorn… *Rolls Eyes* they are sometimes chopped off at the eyebrows!

Step 7:

Notice that there is some of Orly’s hair line peaking out from under the skin of the wig skin. The reason for that is because Orly has a lower hair line than Legolas does… His hair line was shaved back about an inch for the movies… the famous Mohawk happened during one of these shaving sessions ;p. To look right as Legolas, you have to place the new hair line higher, and reconstruct the forehead in between.

Step 8:

When working on a larger higher res image, I use a much wider feather on skin patches like this… usually between 8 and 15 px. Same for the blended edge of the skin that is attached to the wig and any other selections that need to blend.

I also frequently have to make several skin patches instead of being able to make just one like in this picture. They all go onto separate layers.

Step 9:

As mentioned before several skin patch layers are frequently necessary. The advantage to multiple patches is it allows you to move them around and adjust positions and coverage with simpler tools than the warp. You can also adjust brightness and opacity separately to blend better. This really helps on larger hi-res pictures where textures are more noticeable and must be maintained. Of course, keeping track of all of those skin patch layers can get a bit confusing, and taxes the Memory… yours and the computers. ;p

Step 10:

Sounds like a lot of changes, but it’s really just some tiny tweaks to match up colors, shading and textures better along the hair line, and to bring the hair closer to a natural look for this face. Small adjustments like this have to be made regularly as you go along.

Step 11:

This step fills in the areas of skin that are missing between the skin part of the Wig and the forehead of the face. It also allows you to create a blend from the face into the hair line that looks smooth. It is sometimes necessary to have more than one layer of cloned skin, especially on large hi-res pictures. When using the clone tool for this you need to be sure to sample as close to the area that you are adding skin to as possible to make shading and textures blend smoothly. Small strokes at low strength are the trick… if you can see the stroke when you make it, it is probably too big or you are sampling from the wrong spot for the area you are trying to fill and blend. The areas you are trying to cover and blend should just slowly disappear and blend away. It takes practice, and if you get a part you really like, you may want to stop there and open a new layer to work on so that you can not mess up the good part. You will probably be undoing a lot more strokes then you keep when doing this part… I do. ;p

When doing this part of the blending along the hair line, I sometimes do a mixture of Cloned layers and additional stolen skin patches at reduced opacity… the reduced opacity skin patches help maintain skin texture which is very noticeable on Large hi-res images.

Step 12a:

This picture just shows you the selection lines that I used for step 12b. The color is different because I had to use a screen capture program to be able to show you the selection lines.

Step 12b:

The contrast of the skin of the wig, skin patches and cloned skin were slightly lower contrast then the face. I did not want to just decrease the whole face because I would loose detail, but I wanted it to gradually blend into the new skin and hair line so I selected the area of the Face layer seen in 12a with a loose feather and only adjusted that part of the face.

Step 13:

See, I told you that you may need extra clone layers ;p. after making all the adjustments in 9 thru 12 I noticed that the shading from the shadow at the hair line to the forehead was too abrupt, so I needed this step to smooth it out… this will happen a lot when you are maniping. ;p

Step 14:

*Snerk* take away the background and he turns into a bubble head! …Another example of things in manipulations looking worse before they look better. ;p

Step 15:

Step 16:

If you have a workable exposed ear, it is probably easier to use and alter it than to try and steal and blend in a new ear… unfortunately Orly’s pretty dark curls frequently get in the way. I work on a copy of the upper half of the ear on a separate layer, because it is easier to control and if you decide later that you got it wrong, you can always toss that layer and start over again. Besides, you are going to need another ear on the other side before we are finished… wait and see ;p

If you do not have a good exposed ear to work with, steal one from another picture, and match up the color and textures as best as you can. Then with a low strength soft eraser brush erase as much of it as you can to expose the original lower ear if you can… the area where the ear attaches is very difficult to match up and shade correctly, so if you can use the one that came with the face/head great.

The Liquify filter is another possible choice to use in altering the ear shape, Or any tool that will allow you to pull or stretch one part of and image. .

Step 17:

*Hums* “ Don’t he make your Brown eyes blue…” Yup, got to get those blue contacts in now ;p.

BTY, when I said “colorize function” I was talking about the colorize function in the Hue/Saturation tool. There are a lot of tools for changing colors and adding colors though… Experiment and see what works best for you.

Playing with the contrast and brightness not only alters how light or dark they are, but it also helps bring out more detail and make them more intense.

If your color tool does not list Cyan, then use the Red adjustment… removing red adds in Cyan. ;p

How strong of a shift you want in color and intensity is a matter of personal taste, so play around with this and have fun.

You can try and steal blue Irises but matching the anatomy and lighting can be tricky, and it usually alters the expression in them too. You can also paint them in if you can draw well… Which I tend to do on larger pictures, but It ca be tricky. If you are painting the eyes, always remember to work on s new layer above things, this not only makes mistakes easier to fix, but also allows you to alter opacity levels for subtle adjustments.

Soooo… up above in the picture text is how I made his dark brown eyes blue. I do all of the changes on layers with copies of the irises, rather than the original because it gives me greater control and also is easier to see what you are doing as you make the adjustments… the selection lines if you are working on the original face layer really get in the way.

Having the Irises on a separate layer has another advantage; you can erase thru parts if you need too. In this case, I erased away the pupils and the white highlights on the colored copies, so that the original darker color showed thru… The pupils and highlights had turned blue with everything else making the eyes look flat.

Step 18:

*Evil Grin* More clone work ;p. Remember what I said before, if you can see the stroke, it is either too big or you are sampling from the wrong spot. If you do it right, you will just see the whiskers slowly disappear. You will be using the undo a lot again… I did. ;p

This picture of Orly does not have nearly as much scruff as some of his other pictures, and being smaller it was easier to get rid of what he had without alterations in texture showing. If he has more scruff, or if you have a big Hi-res image where alterations in texture really show up, you will probably have to do a combination of Cloning, and skin patches like I did for the hair line.

Another thing that I frequently need to do to get rid of his scruff is to open a new layer and use the paint brush tool with a soft edged brush at a very low opacity (only ~5%) and paint over the areas that the clone tool did not quite cover or that need more blending. At such a low opacity, you will not see the individual strokes, but the irregularities and whiskers will slowly disappear. The problem with too much painting over, is that the textures do not always match, which is why I use a combination of all of the above.

Step 19:

Just a bit of lighting correction. ;p I used a layer with a skin patch to lighten the shadow and soften it’s edges. It also works on those bright washed out overly highlighted spots… you can play around with the opacity to soften the effect and fine tune it too. It is a very effective way to fix and alter lighting in general however; if you do a lot of it you will really rack up the layers… not that I care, I’m used to having 60 to 100 layers in a picture.

I’m also an insane control freak. ;p

Step 20:

Stealing clothing is a lot like putting on the wig… a lot of work. So if I can adapt what Orly is wearing, (like I will do here) I do. Besides it is nice to see him wearing something else once in a while… I can’t believe that Thranduil let his son leave home without a single change of clothing… even the filthy Ranger had a spare shirt ;p

When selecting the shirt I used a 1px feather… you want crisp edges on clothing. When you add hair or a background, you may notice light or dark lines or halos showing, when you see those use a soft edged small brush eraser (~5px) on low strength (~30%) to gently erase them away.

If you are stealing clothing from another picture, you want the outer edges crisp, but if you are trying to blend say a sleeve onto the rest of the costume, you would want a very wide feather where the 2 parts join and blend. You will also have to take the stolen clothing apart, alter the shape to fit Legolas, and finally blend them all back together. You will also have to match the lighting on the clothing to the lighting on the face… sound like fun? ;p

Step 21:

When using the clone tool to remove the old collar, you should do that on a layer that is above the shirt, but below the new collars… I sort of messed that up on the text on the picture. After the old collar is gone and everything looks good, you can merge that layer down into the shirt layer before using the burn and dodge tool to make your shadows and highlights. By high strength, I mean between ~70 to 100 % for the clone tool. The burn and dodge tool is used at low strength ~10%. The paint brush tool at a fairly low opacity can also be used to help blend the altered parts of clothing.

Step 22:

A lot of this will be hidden under the hair layers that you have coming down over the front of the shoulders, but it is good to have it peaking out from behind, and if the upper layers are at lowered opacity, the hair showing thru will add depth to the whole look.

Pay attention to Gravity and the way hair should spread out when it hits the shoulders and catches on clothing (Or skin ;p) when you are adjusting the angle and shape of all hair layers. You can also use hair brushes and pre-drawn hair in your manipulations, but I frequently like to steal some hair from another picture to have under those layers and then I lower the opacity on the upper layers so it shows thru very slightly… it gives it a lot of detail, texture and color variation that looks very real.

Hair can also be drawn in by hand from scratch… a lot of work, and it takes a lot of practice to get it looking good and realistic… something I am getting better at with time ;p. I usually steal hair from a base picture, maybe add a bit more with a brush or pre-drawn hair (not always, and not usually a lot) and then I have a layer (or 2 or 3 ;p) above everything else that I use to draw in extra hair over the top of everything else… I mess it up a bit with loose strands and wisps which makes it look more real… you will see that at the end. ;p

Step 23:

Use the same alterations to Contrast, brightness and saturation as in previous step. Use 1px feather to cut away parts overlapping the ear. After I have cut away the hair covering the ear, I readjust the opacity back up to 100%.

That should read; Copy Pointed ear layer onto a new layer and flip Horizontal… It (not I) should be put on a new layer… *Stupid Typos* ;p

Step 25:

You now have a second ear, but the Angle/perspective is not quite right, and it is too small. See next step.

Step 26:

I used the warp tool to stretch the ear, but other transform tools and liquefy filter will work too.

Once again; it looks worse before it looks better. ;p

Step 28:

Notice the overly dark edge on the left side of the new lock of hair? That will have to be partially erased in a later step. You can also see a slight whitish line between the left shoulder of the shirt, and the lock of hair that goes behind the shirt… that will also have to be erased.

Step 29:

I’m probably too neurotic about maintaining all of my layers as much as I can, but it really is nice to have them if you find a problem late in the process. You can also recycle layers if they are not merged, like the ear that we warped into a point on one side, and then stole for the other side. I also take copies of layers out of old completed pictures to use in new pictures… why clean up and remake something (Weapons, or other props, ear, bracers, locks of hair etc…) a second time when you have it already cleaned and ready in a previous picture. ;p . When I’m finished with this picture, I can steal this whole face for another one later on if I leave my layers intact… just remember to link them together before you drag them off into another file. ;p

Step 30:

These are the adjustments that I made individually to the face and all the skin type layers individually. To adjust the skin attached to the top of the wig, I had to select along the hairline using a 3px feather and adjust the skin part of the layer separate from the hair.

Step 31:

This is to get rid of some of the blotchiness and to also soften some of the deeper shadow and brighter highlights and give the skin an overall softer and more ‘Elvish’ look. I use the brush tool at such a low setting so that you get a very translucent paint over that does not destroy all of the texture. Like working with the Clone tool, you want to sample the colors you are going to use from very close to the area you are working on (I use the eye dropper tool and sample frequently). Brush size varies from 2 px all the way up to 30 px depending on where I’m working and I concentrate on areas that have sharp transitions in color or saturation.

I softened the bags under his eyes also, but I did not remove them… Orly/Legolas has bags all the time to some degree, and he doesn’t look like himself if you remove them completely.

Step 32:

Background choice is a very personal thing and you can have a lot of fun with it. I tend to like backgrounds that pick up on the colors of my figure and help to tie things together. In real life the colors of things surrounding you tend to reflect light and color so that there is some blending and picking up of color between subject and surroundings. It may not be as perfect as I try to create in my pictures, but that is I what I do and the reason that I do it. Others like to use vibrant contrasting colors, and that also works very well with many styles. I chose a background from a Rivendell cap; the warm fall colors tied in well with the peachy skin tones, and the grass is tying in with his shirt… not perfectly, but I will fix that ;p.

You may notice that the outer edges of his head and hair are now showing up too pale and washed out with the color of the background. That needs to be fixed too.

Step 33:

I first lassoed the grayish edges and increased the saturation and darkened them some I had to do this on the individual hair layers one at a time. Then I used a 5px soft edged eraser at about 30% to gently erase some of the edge and soften it until it blended better with the background.

Step 34:

I wanted the shirt to tie in better with the background grass and other colors that were a warmer and earthier green. So I used the Hue tool to shift that, but the color balance tool or a photofilter could also be used. I decided to embellish the shirt with some leaves (used a brush or tube) and some scroll work (Hand drawn) to make it more elvish. I did this on a layer above the shirt layer but below the hair layer.

On a new layer above the face layer but below the shirt layer I painted some slight shading/shadow to make the shirt edge look less flat and pasted on. ( used s soft edged brush at 5% opacity and the dropper tool to pick the color near the area I was working on and then chose one shade darker before painting.)

I Finally decreased and softened/partially erased that dark line on the edge of the hair that I pointed out earlier. I also used the Dodge tool on the shirt to add in some shadows where the hair overlays it, and also used it on the tops of the shoulders to add more shading and make it more rounded appearing instead of slightly flat. (Dodge tool at about 10% strength with a soft edged brush).

Step 35:

Hair is never perfect in real life. There are always a few strands out of place, so I used a new layer to draw in some hair over the top of all the rest of the hair. I used a 1px soft edge brush at about 60 to 70 % strength, and sampled with the eye dropper to choose my colors. I also shifted the color brighter or darker depending on if I wanted to add in highlights or shadows. If the individual strands look too sharp and stand out too much, I use the smudge tool with a soft edge brush at about 5 to 10% to soften it some. I also use the smudge at 10 to 20% on the tips of the hair to draw them out and make then softer and more wispy.

Step 36: Semi Final.

All the individual changes have been made, and the picture is basically finished. So I added a frame and my signature. You can still have a bit of fun, by playing with the filters and trying out some simple effects. I usually make a copy of the whole picture and place it on a new layer above everything except the frame and signature. Then I try different things on that layer.

Step 37: Final.

For my final version, I used the Diffuse glow filter with a very fine grain to give the whole picture a soft glowy look that I though suited Legolas. It was a bit strong at full strength, but because I had done it on a copy layer overlaying the rest of the picture, I was able to fine tune the effect by reducing the opacity to 60%. I then used my eraser to erase the effect completely from the Irises of his eye so that they would still be bright and sharp.

Well, that is how I do it from Start to Finish. Hope you enjoyed it and find it useful.

Start: Finish:

Cactuskim