Rangefinder Magazine
March 2005

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Photoshop: Cinematic Motion by Scott Kelby & Felix Nelson

This is one of a series of Adobe® Photoshop® tutorials sponsored by Adobe Systems and the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) to be reprinted in Rangefinder taken from the Photoshop User magazine, the official publication of NAPP (www.photoshopuser.com).Here’s a technique that’s used over and over again on promotional movie posters. It’s a pretty simple technique, but it allows you to take basic images and create a very mysterious-looking, drama-filled, Hollywood-style poster.

STEP ONE:
Create a new RGB document. Press “d” to set the Foreground color to black. Press Option-Delete (PC: Alt-Backspace) to fill the Background layer with black.

STEP TWO:
Open any city landscape image of your choice. Using the Move tool (V), click-and-drag your image into the new document you just created. (This will add a new layer to your document, Layer 1.) Resize or reposition as necessary (see example at right). Press Cmd-Shift-U (PC: Ctrl-Shift-U) to Desaturate the image.

STEP THREE:
Open a close-up image of a person’s head or face. Select the Elliptical Marquee tool from the Toolbox and make an oval selection around the person’s head (include some hair, portions of the neck, and background). Using the Move tool (V), click-and-drag the selection into your new document. Press Cmd-Shift-U (PC: Ctrl-Shift-U) to Desaturate.

STEP FOUR:
Use the Elliptical Marquee tool to make a selection around the face, slightly smaller than the original image area (see example). Press Cmd-Opt-D (PC: Ctrl-Alt-D) to bring up the Feather dialog box, enter a radius of 25 pixels, and click OK. Press Cmd-Shift-I (PC: Ctrl-Shift-I) to Inverse the selection. Now, go under Filter, under Blur, and choose Motion Blur. Enter 90° for the Angle and 580 for the Distance. Then click OK.

STEP FIVE:
In the Layers palette, change the layer Blend Mode to Linear Light and lower the layer Opacity to 85 percent. Press Cmd-D (PC: Ctrl-D) to deselect.

STEP SIX:
Repeat steps three through five to add a different person to your new document (as shown). Make sure you move the layer containing the second person (Layer 3) below your first person (Layer 2) in the Layers palette.

STEP SEVEN:
Once again, repeat steps three through five to add another person to your new document. And again, move the layer containing the third person (Layer 4) below your first person (Layer 2) in the Layers palette.

STEP EIGHT:
Choose the Type tool from the Toolbox, and add a headline to your document. (We used 195 pt. Trajan for our text.) Click on the Add a Layer Style icon (the black circle with the “ƒ” in it at the bottom of the Layers palette), and choose Outer Glow. When the Layer Style dialog appears, choose Normal for the Blend Mode, click on the Color Swatch and set black as the color. Raise the Opacity to 100 percent, choose 30 percent for Spread, 65 for Size, and then click OK.

STEP NINE:
Create a new layer by clicking on the Create a New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. Move this new layer to the top of the stack in your Layers palette. Click on the Foreground Color Swatch, choose a royal blue color, and click OK. Press Opt-Delete (PC: Alt-Backspace) to fill the layer with blue, and then change the Layer Blend Mode to Color to complete the effect.

Scott Kelby is the president of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) and a best-selling author.

Felix Nelson is the Creative Director of Photoshop User magazine and NAPP and is the Art Director for Mac Design magazine. He is also a co-author of several Photoshop books and a Photoshop instructor.