> PHOTOSHOP USER>^ FEBRUARY 2020[ 92 ]
STRETCHING YOUR CREATIVITY IN PHOTOSHOP
Step One: We’re going to use an image from Adobe Stock
of a female soccer player. If you want to follow along with
the photo used here, you may download the JPEG preview
for free, or license the full-resolution version from Adobe
Stock by clicking here. To download the preview image, log
in with your Adobe ID, and click the Save to Library but-
ton. Then, you can double-click the image in the Libraries
panel (Window>Libraries) to open it. To make it easier to
work with the image, increase the resolution of the practice
file. (We normally don’t recommend enlarging images, but
this is only for practice purposes.) Go to Image>Image Size,
turn on the Resample checkbox, select Preserve Details 2.0from the Resample drop-down menu, set the Width to
2,000 pixels, and click OK.
Picking a colorful subject is important, as you want the
“color drag” to stand out. This soccer player has a mix of
black, white, flesh color, blue, yellow, and brown. You can
go as colorful as you want. Also, keep in mind the pose
of the subject. We need to get a slice of all the colors in
the subject, so we’ll need to make many duplicates of the
model to build up the colors to create that slice (you’ll see
what I mean by that shortly).
Once you’ve chosen your image, crop the canvas to a
square shape; size isn’t important, just use the original imageBeing creative and finding new effects in Photoshop is always fun. Sometimes you see a trend or
an effect and wonder how it was made, and reverse-engineering it is as much fun as creating it.
In this tutorial, we’ll look at a technique I’ve seen recently called the “pixel stretch effect.” This is
an effect where the main colors of a subject are stretched out and manipulated to look like a ribbon
flowing behind them. It’s actually not that difficult to replicate, so in this tutorial, we’ll walk through
a method using the tools in Photoshop. We just need a subject, a background, and some jiggery-
pokery to get the parts we need to create this cool-looking effect.DAV EC L AY TON
Designing in Photoshop
©Adobe Stock /R. Gino Santa Maria