How to Dwarf a Giant in Photoshop

All right folks, time do dive in. Altough I'm still very busy setting this thing up, but I've decided to start with the first tutorial ( I couldn't wait ). It's a how-to for making a dwarf from a giant ( as you may have guessed from the title ), very useful trick indeed.

For this example, we'll use a picture of two basket ballplayers, I can be wrong but isn't the left one Yao Ming ( quote from Time: "Striding in at a lanky 2.26 meters-who knew a Chinese could grow so tall?" ) ? We'll shrunk him in no time to about the size of a hobbit.

Read on!

1. Ok, open the source picture in Photoshop.

Click to enlarge

2. Change the name of the picture-layer to "playfield" ( always give the layers a logical name, so you can handle your file when you're working with a .psd with a massive 100 layers … ), by clicking two times on it's name.

3. Duplicate the layer: Layer > duplicate ( top of the screen ).

So now we have a layer to work with. We call this one "player".

4. We're going to "cut" Yao out, so we can transform him. To begin with, add a layer mask ( in the layer palette, click on the add layer mask-icon ) to the player-layer. A layer mask works like this: the areas you paint black, disappear, and the areas you leave white ( or paint them back with white ), are visible. The main difference with simply erasing is that with a layer mask, you can call parts back at any time if you made a mistake somewhere. So unless you are an eraser-master, a layer mask is the best option.

Set the underlying playfield-layer to "invisible" by clicking on the eye-icon, so you can easy see what you're doing.

Then pick a brush with a hard edge and size 13 ( find out what works best for you ).

Now brush slowly around our basketball player ( take a smaller brush tip for details like his fingers ). Make sure the foreground color is set on black ( it standard is, otherwise strike "d" ). You'll want to zoom in to make it easier: view>zoom in or "ctrl++"

5. When you've bin around him, let the background disappear by filling the big area around him with black. To get the filler in your hands, hit "g". Click somewhere aside the player and it's vanished.

6. So, now we have our giant "cut out" on a separate layer so we can transform his size. But there's still a copy of him in the playfield-layer: we'll have to remove him there. Therefore, make the "player"-layer invisible and select the "playfield"-layer ( and thus making it back visible ).

In this layer, we're going to "stamp him away", with digital ink. Pick the clone stamp-tool and set brush size to about 65.

Now, to suck up our digital ink, press alt and then click on an area next to his leg ( to begin with ). Now you can "stamp" with this color/texture by clicking over his leg.

See how it disappears? It's Photoshop magic! Go on by sampling different colors, try to sample them as close to the desired area as possible ( to remain darkness or texture ). Do the same with the blue and red parts. Don't mind the white lines, nobody will notice these, so just stamp over them …

7. So far, so good. Now we have the play field with an empty spot where Yao stood. Now make the player-layer back visible, and there we have what we started with. At least, it seams like that. But, now we have our player on a separate layer and an "empty" background ( so we don't have to worry about the background shrinking too when we modify Yao ).

Click to enlarge

8. Now it's time for the big action: the shrinking. Hit "ctrl+T" to get in "free transform"-modus ( or edit>free transform ). First thing is clicking the chain-icon to keep the properties.

Then change the 100% next to the "W" in 50%. Hit enter, or make modifications with the crosshairs.

9. Drag him to the right place.

Hmm, it still looks like he's floating. That's because there's something missing: a shadow on the floor. Let's fix this. Duplicate the player-layer ( layer>duplicate ) and call the copy "shadow".Turn the "shadow" around: edit>transform>flip vertical and drag down till his two feet are touching ( hold shift while dragging to go straight down ).

Not yet right, it needs some rotating: edit>transform>rotate (or again ctrl+T ) and then turn it around with the ground crosshair, till the four feet make contact.

Set the blending mode of the shadow-layer to "hard light", this let's the underground shine trough a little.

Now place the shadow-layer underneath the player-layer.

The shadow is a littlebit conspicuos: adjust this via image>adjustments>brightness and contrast, then slide contrast to -70.

That's a lot better!

10. There you go! Wasn't that hard, was it?

Click to enlarge

It's my very first tutorial, so feel free to give critics & comments on how to improve!