Cover help

[Astroida]

I'm doing an album cover for a band and discussing about the said cover, I came up with a few ideas. Now, they really want their faces (in color) on the cover and white background, and it just doesn't match. So I got an idea to some some face outline like Danny Brown's XXX album (no link because of low post count, so just google it). Any ideas how to achieve this? Thank you in advance.

 

[ibclare]

There are multiple ways to achieve this kind of thing. Using layer>adjustment>thresshold will give you think black outlines around the shadowed areas.

The method I'm showing you uses layer fx (at bottom of layers panel). Duplicate original (always keep a copy). Now click on the fx symbol and choose blending options. When the dialogue window opens, go to 3rd box, blend if. Choose the right (white) slider and move to left. Once the details start to disappear more than you want, hold down the alt/opt key and split them. Move the left half more left till you get the effect you want. The last thing I did was apply a layer mask and paint in black over parts I wanted removed or decreased in opacity.



You can, of course, go further with the blend if option or the layer mask. So, taking the layer mask a step further:

 

[Astroida]

Thank you. Advice you gave me works perfectly. I did a trial on a picture and here are the results

 

[ibclare]

Very nice Astroida. It looks really good. I hope you can put together what you need. Looks like you have the techniques down. Glad I could help.