silhouette tutorial

We all love a good silhouette. Especially of sweet little faces.  So {as promised} I’ve put together a tutorial on an easy way to make one.  Now, easy may be relative so bear with me.

But first, a little silhouette inspiration:

silhouettenecklaceetsy-e1280465023109 stella & hodge etsy

silhouette-collage

Blue-Painted-piece image

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decor pad

Feeling inspired?

Here we go …

First, you’ll need a camera, a subject, a computer and some type of photo editing software {I use paint.net {a free downloadable software with similar features as photoshop. Any expert graphic designer would laugh at me for using such ‘sub-par’ software, but it works. And it’s free}.

When taking a photo of your subject {in my case my No.2}, use a background that contrasts with the skin {in my case a dark background}.  Be sure to get a good profile shot from the top of the head to below the shoulders. Keep in mind that this was in the morning {hence the p.j’s} and I stuck some gel in his too-long hair and it looks very funky.  I swear he’s a cute kid.

So, first up, open your photo in your photo-editing software.

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Change the image to black and white

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In the adjustments drop down menu, select brightness/contrast and adjust so that there is a greater difference between light and dark in the photo.

You may have to play around a little with this to get it right.

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Now, using the Magic Wand tool {see the one that is blue in the Tools bar on the left}, click on the background. This will highlight everything that is that color on the photo. You can see a tiny dotted line where the outline is.

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Now delete what you’ve just selected {press delete on your keyboard} and the background is now transparent.

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Using the eraser tool {again, the blue one in the Tools menu on the image here} erase the extra stuff in the background that was not deleted. I also shaved off a little bit of #2’s hair and cut off his shoulder.

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Now, use that Magic Wand tool again to select the background.

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Then in the edit menu, select Invert Selection so that just the silhouette is selected

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Again in the Edit menu, select Fill Selection.

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With the eraser tool, make any adjustments to the silhouette

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And you’re done!  Before saving, I cropped mine using the Rectangle Select tool

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and then that cropping tool that is blue in the top menu bar {the jaggedy square – that’s the technical term}. Now save the image as a .png {so that the background will remain transparent} and you are finished!

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If you want to get a little bit crazy, here’s another thing you can do.

Figure out the size of your image {go to Image, then Resize and this menu will show. Look at both the Resolution and the Print size}.

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Then open up another image of some type of background paper. This one is a free download found here. You’ll need to adjust the size of this to a slightly larger size than your silhouette image {for example, my silhouette is set to 300 resolution and 4 inches by 4.3 inches. I resized the background to also be 300 resolution and 5 inches x 5 inches}.

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Now click on your silhouette image {up in that top right section where the pages you are working on are held} and use the Magic Wand tool to select your silhouette

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Now copy

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click over to the background image {again in that top right spot} and Paste as a New Layer

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You’ll have this

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Now in the Layers menu, choose Layer Properties and change the Opacity to 0. This will make your silhouette layer transparent but you’ll be able to see the outline {can you see it?}

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Press that same jaggedy square cropping tool and you’ll get this:

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If you copy and paste it to a new background, you’ll have this:

b yellow

Super cute.

Here’s another:

girl

And just for fun, one more:

isabella {That’s my niece who is perhaps the cutest child I’ve ever seen}

So as you can see, it is not a hard thing to do, it just takes a lot of steps. I hope I haven’t thoroughly confused you.  I know there are about 25 other ways to make a silhouette, but this is one way to do it.

Happy silhouetting!

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