How to Create Surreal Vector Lines in Photoshop

Learning how to create surreal vector lines in Photoshop lets you produce whimsical images that you can enlarge to any size without loss of quality. This task requires creating a surreal photo, which you can do easily by merging two or more plain photos. Before using Photoshop's vector tools for tracing over this photo, reduce the number of colors in the photo by running the "Image" palette's "Posterize" command on it. If you need to adjust the vector lines you create, use the "Direct Selection" tool, whose tool palette icon is shaped like a white arrow.

Instructions

1. Click the "File" menu's "Open" command, and then navigate to and double-click a photo with which you'd like to create a surreal image. For example, double-click a dog photo to begin creating a surreal photo of a dog with a man's head.

2. Click the lasso icon from the tool palette to run the "Lasso" selection tool, and then drag around a portion you want to cut out from the image you just loaded; for example, drag around the dog's body, but not its head, to prepare to make a cutout of the body.

3. Click the "Select" menu's "Invert" command to select the photo regions you want to omit from the surreal photo, and then press "Delete" to delete those regions. This action leaves just the cutout you want, such as the dog's body.

4. Repeat the previous three Steps to create the remaining cutouts for your surreal image. For the dog/man example, load a photo with a man's head, and then make a cutout of the head.

5. Click the tool palette icon shaped like a four-headed arrow to run the "Move" tool, and then click one of the items in the "Layers" palette. These items represent the cutouts you made.

6. Drag on the canvas to position the cutout to the place you want it for your surreal photo. For the dog/man example, drag the cutout of the man's head so it appears over the dog's body.

7. Click the eyedropper icon from the tool palette to run the color sampling tool, and then click a shape from your surreal photo. A shape is an image region with a uniform or nearly uniform color; for example, click the man's hair to sample the color of the hair.

8. Click the tool palette icon shaped like a nib pen to run the tool for creating vectors. Click the square icon above the tool palette to choose the "Shape" layers option, which will create shapes from your lines. These shapes will have the color you just sampled.

9. Drag the mouse around the shape in your surreal photo whose color you sampled in Step 7. Photoshop will fill the shape with the color you sampled.

10. Use the instructions from the previous three steps to create the remaining surreal vector lines and shapes from the surreal photo.

References

• "Photoshop CS5 for Dummies"; Peter Bauer; 2010