300 is a 2006 film directed by Zack Snyder that is actually based on a comic by Frank Miller (he's
responsible for Sin City too).
A sequel to this movie, Rise of an Empire, came out a few months ago but I haven't seen it yet :-P
Now, onto the picture.
First, let's take a look at the before and after:
The change is pretty dramatic :-)
Sorry about the watermark but it's cute, right? On a next post I'll show you how to
create your own signature so you can add them to your photos.
Before we go into details I just want to say that my sister did a beautiful job on sewing Viperine's dress.
In case you haven't noticed yet, it's based on what Queen Gorgo wears in the film:
Before doing anything to my photo I saved some stills from the film to keep as reference and
also to have as inspiration, example:
And of course, a poster of the film too:
I Googled and searched a PNG or PSD image of the 300 text
(feel free to save this pict for your project):
Why PNG or PSD? Because these type of pictures usually, if you're lucky, will have their
background blank (removed) so you can put them directly onto your picture without needing to
cut them out yourself (someone else did the job for you and saved you some time yay!).
I also found this video that gave me some ideas on how to do things:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo6Mm1FFnzA
Now here's a you a caption of my Photoshop layers:
As you can see I did borrow some tips and tricks from the video tutorial. I'm going to explain what these layers are for, from the bottom (first layer) to the top (last layer).
The 1st layer is the Background layer, it's the original photo, nothing altered.
The 2nd layer is Background Copy and it's exactly that, or it was until I made my changes by
using Content Aware and Clone Stamping to fix distracting things like hair flyaways and
glares in the eyes. I also made made the whites of her eyes a little brighter with the Dodge Tool
so they really POP!
Notice I Masked this layer to bring back some parts of the original Background layer. If you
don't know about Masking, well, you really should! It will save you in a lot of situations!!! I
recommend this video to learn more about Masks (and it's under 4 minutes long!) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztywetz3DO4
The 3rd layer is a Levels adjustment layer and what I did with this one is just some contrasting
by simply sliding the first arrow to the right. Again, I did some Masking here because I didn't
like it how some parts of the photo looked with too much contrast.
The 4th adjustment layer is Hue/Saturation. The photo was too colourful for our 300 look so I
lowered the saturation to -65. But of course, I didn't want Viperine to be de-saturated, only the
background! So I brought back her colour by painting the Mask (again LOL).
5th adjustment layer is for Color Balance. I pumped up the reds, decreased the greens and
added a little bit of blues. Again, I didn't want this to affect Viperine so yeah, I Masked again by
painting her silhouette black (black conceals, white reveals!).
Adjustment layer number 6 is a Gradient Map! For this layer I actually followed the
instructions of the How to: 300 Look video tutorial that I linked above. Basically you just add
the layer and then you choose a gradient, in this case I chose Gold 1.
The 7th adjustment layer is Photo Filter. I did this one because it was instructed in the how to
video too and I thought it looked good so I went ahead and chose a custom orangey brown
colour and completed the look (it also gave Viperine a nice Greek Goddess tan LOL).
Number 8, Sunbeam, is just a layer that has been painted with a spot of white on the top left part.
By doing this I got a nice little lightbeam on my photo.
Layer 9 is the 300 text (the PNG file that I showed you previously). I clipped 2 layers on it
(clipping means these two layers only affect the image it's been clipped on) so I could turn it
from bloody red to a cute pink that I color eyedropped from Viperine's snakes (I got the perfect
matching colour that way!). Also notice the FX, Effects, Drop Shadow. Yes I put a little shadow
under the text, just like on the poster. Click with the left button of your mouse on the layer you
want to drop shadow onto and then click on Blending Options (it's first on the top!). There
you'll find shadows and other cool things ;-) You can also use Blending Options on a Text Layer.
Sounds like I did a lot! But work flies when you're having fun editing and of course here the
work was extra compared to a normal photo since we're trying to copy a surreal look from an
artistic looking film.
If you want to try this 300 look I can assure you that you will already get a pretty good effect by
doing a simple version of what I did.
The picture on our instagram:
(I'm not sure if I'll edit those picts with a 300 effect yet, will see...).
Love <3
Mariko.
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