How to Do Graffiti Stencil Graphics in Photoshop

Layer blending modes help you simulate graffiti in Adobe Photoshop.

Graffiti artists paint with spray cans, typically without the luxury of time to linger over their work to perfect it. When they apply graphics using stencils, the combination of their painting method and their haste creates overspray that fuzzes clean lines with droplets of aerosolized pigment. Simulating the combination of these artists' work style and their painting tools in Adobe Photoshop requires the foresight to choose methods that can help you work smarter, not harder.

Things You'll Need

• Close-up photograph of a wall or building

Instructions

1. Open the "Window" menu and choose "Paths" to reveal the Paths panel if it isn't already visible. Open the fly-out menu at the top right corner of the panel and choose "New Path." Name your path "Stencil" and click on the "OK" button to finish creating it.

2. Activate the Pen tool in the Adobe Photoshop toolbox. Set the tool's drawing mode to paths in the Options Bar.

3. Draw the shapes that comprise your stencil. To maintain the reality of the illusion you're creating, avoid creating solid areas within open areas unless you can attach the solids to the outline of your shape. For example, if you draw the shape of a lower-case "E," don't create the solid within the open area inside it.

4. Open the fly-out menu at the top right corner of the Paths panel and choose "Make Selection." Set the feather radius to 10 pixels in a high-resolution file and 5 pixels in a low-resolution document.

5. Open the "Window" menu and choose "Layers" to bring up the Layers panel. If it's docked with your Paths panel, simply click on its header to bring it forward.

6. Click on the "Create a New Layer" button at the bottom of the Layers panel. Double-click on the new layer's name in the Layers panel and call it "Stencil." Set its blending mode to "Dissolve" using the layer blending mode drop-down menu at the top left edge of the Layers panel.

7. Double-click on the foreground color swatch in the Adobe Photoshop toolbox to bring up the Color Picker so you can set the shade you want for your graffiti. Once you've chosen your color, switch to the Paint Bucket tool and click inside your active selection to fill it. The Dissolve layer blending mode automatically adds a fuzzy oversprayed edge to your artwork.

Tips & Warnings

• Vary the opacity of a layer set to Dissolve blending mode to change its appearance from a solid with over-sprayed edges to the type of light, dotted fill that an aerosol can produces when it's sprayed at a distance from the surface you're painting.

• Load individual subpaths from the set of paths you drew to build your stencil. Press the "A" key on your keyboard to activate the Direct Selection tool, then Shift-click on each subpath to select it. Once you've chosen the subpaths you want, load them as a selection from the fly-out menu at the top right corner of the Paths panel. This enables you to use different paint colors for different parts of your graphic.

• Blur the edges of your shapes after you've filled them with the Paint Bucket to increase the diameter of their oversprayed edges.

• Duplicate your painted layers on top of themselves to increase the opacity of your paint.

• If you combine different paint colors to create your graphic, create an individual document layer for each paint color to make it easy to refine your work.

References

• Adobe Systems: Using Adobe Photoshop CS5

Resources

• The Photoshop CS3/CS4 WOW! Book; Linnea Dayton and Cristen Gillespie
• The Photoshop CS/CS2 WOW! Book; Linnea Dayton and Cristen Gillespie
• Photoshop Masking and Compositing; Katrin Eismann
• Photoshop Restoration and Retouching, Third Edition; Katrin Eismann and Wayne Palmer