1 Isolate the animal
With the Quick Selection Brush, paint over the animal. (If
it picks up any background, hold Alt and paint to subtract.)
Once you have a selection, go to Select>Refine Edge.
Use the controls to improve it – increase Radius and
check Smart Radius. Set Output to: New Layer. Hit OK.
4 Angle the details
Continue pushing the pixels with the Liquify tools. You
can take the effect as far as you like, perhaps by making
the details, like the eye here, more angular. If any areas
go wrong, you can rebuild them using the Reconstruct
tool in the Liquify toolbar. Hit OK when you’re happy.2 Fill in the backdrop
Go to the Layers Panel, highlight the bottom layer and hit
Cmd/Ctrl+J to duplicate it. Cmd/Ctrl+click on the rhino
layer’s thumbnail. Go to Select>Modif y >E xpand and set
15px. Go to Edit>Fill and choose Contents: Content-
Aware to create a rough backdrop minus the rhino.5 Tidy the edges
There will be messy patches around the edges of the
animal. Click on the Create New Layer icon in the Layers
Panel and grab the Clone Tool. Set Sample: All Layers in
the tool options, then zoom in, hold Alt to sample the
nearby background, and clone to tidy any messy edges.
3 Reshape the body
Right-click on the top layer and ‘Convert to Smart Object’
(CS6/CC only). Go to Filter>Liquify. Use the Forward
Warp tool and a large brush size to nudge the edges of
the animal into whatever shape you like. The Forward
Warp tool is most effective with lots of short pushes.
6 Finishing touches
Switch to the Spot Healing tool, set it to Sample All Layers
and paint to remove any messy spots. Finally, boost the
tones. With the top layer highlighted, click on the Create
Adjustment Layer icon in the Layers Panel, pick Cur ves,
then plot an S-shaped curve to boost the colours slightly.STEP BY STEP / Box clever
WATCH
THE VIDEO
Pet project
We’ve provided the
start image for this
project, but if you’d like
to experiment on one
of your own images,
why not take a pet
portrait? Pets make
excellent subjects for
photography, as they
don’t mind having a
camera pointed at
them and – with dogs
or cats in particular –
it’s easy to capture
dramatic action poses.
For a masterclass on
pet photography,
turn to page 66.Watch the video online at bit.ly/NPhoto56 March 2016 55
LIQUIFY FILTER