Design a Coldplay/Apple Inspired Portrait in Photoshop

Posted In Design, Featured, Photoshop | Author: David Leggett 130 Comments

You don’t have to be an obsessive Coldplay fan like me to admire the beautiful effects shown in the latest Coldplay / Apple ad. This tutorial will show how to design portraits based on that style.

Coldplay / Apple Style Portrait

This tutorial will show you how to create a portrait based on the style of the latest Coldplay / Apple Ad featuring “Viva la Vida” from Coldplay. In case you’re not familiar with the commericial I’m referring too, findthatsong has uploaded a copy of it onto YouTube.

Here’s a quick look at what we’re going to create:

Coldplay / Apple Style Preview

Before going any further, I’d like to give a quick shout out to Fabio who wrote an awesome tutorial for a similar effect based on the same ad. Maybe I’m not the only Coldplay fan out there!

Time to begin!

Step 1 - Create the Document

Begin with a document sized to your liking. I’m working at around 750×450px myself, but the exact size really doesn’t matter.

What does matter is the background color though. Using the Paint Bucket Tool, fill your background layer with a dark (nearly black) green or blue (#010500).

Step 2 - Adding Light

Create a new Layer.

Using a large, white, soft brush (500-1000px, 0% Hardness), paint the lower part of your image. The brush should basically extend from the very bottom of your canvas in all direction to the other edges of the canvas.

Lower the Opacity of your new layer to around 70%.

Background with a Soft Glow added

Step 3 - Coloring the Light

For this step, we’re going to be playing with a similar effect that I discussed in my Unique Abstract Website Header Photoshop Tutorial. Create a new Layer, and select a large (400-600px), soft, orange (#f38c11) brush. Paint a large dab to fill the bottom right of the canvas.

Now select a light blue (#2afaf0) and paint in the bottom left of the canvas.

Finally, fill in the top center of the canvas with a shade of purple (#c94ce1).

Set this layer to Overlay.

Step 4 - Adding some Highlights

Create a new Layer.

Using the Brush Tool, and a small (30-60px) soft, white brush, paint a few lines curving around the center of your canvas. Apply a Radial Blur (Filter > Blur Radial Blur), using the Spin blur method with an amount between 50-70. Set this layer to Overlay.

Add highlights with paint and a radial blur filter

Step 5 - Insert Photo

Desaturate the Subject

Time to add a photograph of our subject into the portrait. Going over the process of cutting out a subject is out of the scope of this tutorial, but I will suggest using the Pen Tool to prepare such a cutout.

When you have a cutout prepared, Paste it into a new layer in your document. Line it up so that the highlights seem to be coming from behind it.

Destaturate (Images > Adjustments > Desaturate) the cutout so that the subject is black and white on top of the colored light we created earlier.

Step 6 - Dodge and Burn

In the Coldplay / Apple commercial, the subjects are nearly silhouetted with the light bursting out from behind them. However, the photo I chose is pretty clear, as if there is a light source in front of the subject.

If you have the similar problem on your image, you can fix it using the Dodge and Burn Tools.

Grab the Burn Tool (Located underneath the Paint Bucket Tool) from the toolbox, and in the Options Bar, set the Range to Shadows. Using a large, soft brush, paint over most of your subject to darken it. I’m going to leave a bit of the right side of my subject lit up to show that there is some light reflecting off of him.

You can go back with the Dodge Tool to bring out some brighter highlights if you find it helps light up part of your subject.

Dodge and Burn Tools in Photoshop

Finished with Dodge and Burn

Step 7 - Adding the Smoke Effect

There are a few ways we could go about creating smoke in our design (We actually featured an interesting smoke effect in our May Tutorial Roundup), but in this tutorial we’re actually going to use a stock image.

Download the “smoke” stock image from stock.xchng (Requires a free account).

Paste and Transform the smoke stock image so that it’s positioned and sized somewhere over your subject. Set the blending mode for this new layer to Screen.

Screen Blending Mode

Confused about what just happened? The Screen Blending Mode can be very handy sometimes, as any pixels that are black will essentially become transparent in the blended layer.

Step 8 - Adjusting Smoke Color

Using any of the Selection Tools (Magic Wand Works Great), select the smoke from the stock image. Apply a feather to the selection (Select > Feather) of a 1-3px to soften things up.

Create a new layer, and using the Paint Bucket Tool, fill your selection with a light blue/cyan (#28dff5). Set this layer to Color.

Finished Colored Smoke

Step 9 - Enhancing the Background

Duplicate the Smoke layer (not the color, but the smoke layer - Layer > Duplicate Layer while selected), and move the new layer underneath your subject layer.

Transform the new smoke layer so that it takes up a lot of the background behind your subject. Set this new layer to Color Dodge. You may wish to also apply a slight Guassian Blur to this layer.

Step 10 - Add Dark Lines

Steps for creating the Black Lines

Create a new layer underneath your subject. Using the Rectangular Marquee Tool, make a long selection spanning about the width of your canvas.

Fill the Selection using the Paint Bucket Tool with a dark color (black will work fine).

Deselect your selection by going to Select > Deselect (Or Ctrl + D).

Now, Transform your black rectangle (using Free Transform, Scale, Rotate, Perspective, or any mix of those you are comfortable with). We want the side of the bar that is going to be underneath our image to be more narrow than the end coming out of our subject (similar to a sunburst effect).

Use the Move Tool to reposition your bar. Set the blending Mode to Overlay. You may consider fading your bar out like I did with a large, soft eraser.

Add a few more of these bars using the same technique.

Black Bars added to the Design

Time for Polish

At this point, you’ve finished the effect we were aiming for! You don’t have to stop here of course. If you’re going to continue playing with the design, and adding your own finishing touches, here are a few suggestions that may get you started:

Add a Vignette - Fade out your borders to a dark black color. Since we’re designing a portrait in this tutorial, it’s a really nice way to frame your subject!
Add some abstract dust - We’ve got a brilliant Photoshop tutorial for adding Abstract Dust and Spray Effects to designs like this which you may be interested in!
Play with Text - Some clever text placement can really add a lot to a design! White text seems to look really great on top of this effect, especially if you’re using a blocky Type.

As usual, you can grab the PSD Sample to play with and see how we went about doing certain things!

And here is another example of the style put to good use!

Ocean is Theory Sample

An additional sample featuring the lead singer from the band Ocean is Theory. Thanks for letting me use the photograph Josh!

130 Comments

Anthony Woods June 12th, 2008
wow :O just wow :O im going to try this after i wake up later and be sure to post my result on the forums! Give it a crack readers and post your results on the forum

Once again, top notch tutorial david!
bl4kdev1l June 12th, 2008
NICE TUTE man!! GREAT JOB!!
David Leggett June 12th, 2008
Thanks Anthony and blakdev1l! I’m looking forward to seeing your finished version on the forum Anthony
Roxi June 12th, 2008
Amazing!
Thank You, David!
Eric June 12th, 2008
Thats cool thanks I will give it a try
liam June 12th, 2008
Cool, very nice end effect. Capture the feel of the video well
SPV June 12th, 2008
Excellent tutorial! I love it, great job =]
Neo June 12th, 2008
great job I love the tutorial and i love the way u made it. thats exactly what this site needs to get it going at full steam.
David Leggett June 13th, 2008
Appreciate all the feedback folks =) I’m glad you all found it so useful!
al June 13th, 2008
Very cool tut man - great work. I really like the rollovers and the Note on the overlay effect.

BTW - found your site through PSDTUTS but I have to say I prefer your style… Thanks!
David Leggett June 13th, 2008
Thanks al! It thrills me that we were featured there this morning, and we’re seeing so many new faces today. They’ve got a wonderful site going over there. Hope you’ll subscribe and join in the discussion whenever you can mate!
andy June 13th, 2008
serendipity! was just browsing some blogs while listening to that track and voila! (cant get that song outta my head!). Tried out the tutorial, just having difficulty with the black lines - and maybe i need a “cooler” photo… thanks!
Lorenzo June 14th, 2008
awesome!! i’m a coldplay fan too! hehe.. thanks so much.. i just finished this project
Erin June 14th, 2008
Awesome tutorial!!
Not as good as I’d hoped but I like it.

(I’m aware of the little mistake in the lower right corner, just didn’t fix it)

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y269/bookfreak_lilly/coldplay1.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y269/bookfreak_lilly/coldplay2.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y269/bookfreak_lilly/coldplay3.jpg
godisanartist June 14th, 2008
Hello David, this my first time visit your great site. I knew it from abduzeedo.com. I think tutorial9 will be one of my favourite sites. Great Works and helpful tutorial!!! God bless!
Tutorials Guru June 14th, 2008
great tutorial
Tyler Bramer June 16th, 2008
It is a very good tutorial indeed. I’ve seen a number of comments spread (not here) regarding how the finished images don’t seem to match the quality of the commercial. This tutorial is well done, but I believe that there should be a few more steps involved into creating the effect. The current background is somewhat only half-finished. It needs more depth and a better sense of realism. I’m going to be working on my own concept of Coldplay and I hope that I can find a way to add a few steps onto the end of this tutorial.
Fay June 16th, 2008
hahahah… nice one!
Coldplay rocks!!
But I’m gonna do something similar for my fav band, which is Muse!!
xxxx
Paulgeo June 16th, 2008
I also found you through PSDTuts, and I like what I see. I Will definitely be coming around more often. Thanks for the great work.
ANGST June 19th, 2008
One question: what source is the one that appears in the final example? , where says “theory ocean is”…

Thanks!
ANGST June 19th, 2008
…Font I mean
David Leggett June 19th, 2008
@ ANGST - That would be Caligari designed by Jérôme Berthemet. Hope that’s what you were looking for mate!
ANGST June 19th, 2008
@ David Leggett …Wow! Thanks man!!!
Roger Alarcon June 19th, 2008
EXCELENTE TUTORIAL…
Ben June 20th, 2008
Seriously….. awesome tut.
Imbo June 21st, 2008
Outcome: http://img385.imageshack.us/img385/919/kanyewestuk4.png

Awesome tutorial
cruddpuppet June 23rd, 2008
I love the outcome, but I’m wondering why the topic (Coldplay) is so specific. o.O
Tyler Bramer June 23rd, 2008
The topic Coldplay is used because this is the effect used in the new Coldplay Apple commercial.
cruddpuppet June 23rd, 2008
Ah, I did not know that. Thanks.
Website Design June 25th, 2008
Awesome tutorial! Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
NKHAT June 25th, 2008
NICE COLORS ,AND GOOD WORK , THANK YOU
SuadeConnects June 25th, 2008
Used this effect with some masks on a client business card. Turned out SWEEET! Thanks for the tut man.
Monica June 28th, 2008
I love this, thanks for sharing it with everyone!
My result: http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e323/YRProcks66/Stuff/highvoltagecopy.jpg
Allan July 1st, 2008
Thought I would give this a shot tonight when I got home. I took a picture of my dog and spruced it up. Would love to hear what you guys think. The cutout of the dog was a little rough because I didn’t feel like taking tons of time to do it. Here’s my result!
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3055/2630099256_c048b1139c_o.jpg
David Leggett July 2nd, 2008
Ahahaha, Viva la Fifi. I love it

A job well done Allan!
Tutorials Guru July 6th, 2008
great one
dzineblog July 8th, 2008
This Is A killer Tutorial! You Rock !!
Christine July 8th, 2008
I had a go at this tutorial and this is what I came up with.
I thought that it was really straightforward and was really impressed with the result.

http://www.christinelam.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-1294
Ren July 8th, 2008
I lurrve coldplay to death. that ad such an ace, and i’m gonna try this.
Anil July 13th, 2008
I found this Tutorial great for creating a header image for my blog.
http://anilpatel721.wordpress.com/
Jordan July 13th, 2008
Really nice effects. For desaturating the portrait image you should probably use channel mixer and check the monochrome option rather than using default desaturation. Normal desaturation sort of deadens the image while channel mixer allows you to make it black and white with nice contrasts.
Nick M July 13th, 2008
Holy crap!!
Ocean Is Theory are the freaking shit!
I have seen them at shows like four times.
So weird to see them here.
Harold Cuadra July 14th, 2008
This is exactly what i was looking for …thanks man
steffan July 15th, 2008
love it! Great tut!

http://www.kihitsu.com/images/viva.jpg
John Dwight July 15th, 2008
If anyone is interested in photoshop magazines and ebooks go check photoprodirect.blogspot.com.Thnks
John Dwight July 15th, 2008
If anyone is interested in photoshop magazines and ebooks go check photoprodirect.blogspot.com.Thanks
arsheffield July 16th, 2008
Tried some variations; I liked generating clouds and using that as an overlay instead of the smoke.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/arsheffield/2674536019/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arsheffield/2674536019/
KellySEO July 17th, 2008
Great TUT as design is my second string. The rollovers make your explanations really clear and easy to follow.
fredy July 19th, 2008
hey im trying to get the color distribution right but im not getting the same effect you got can u help me out

email- fredy_915@hotmail.com

a video would help me out a on how you made this .
fredy July 19th, 2008
never mind i got it finally . =)
umar July 21st, 2008
i am a photo shop noob here
i couldn’t get photo shop brush to paint the colors i followed exactly what you wrote there

btw nice website
john July 24th, 2008
this is a really easy guide even for noobs thnx
NuclearWiz July 28th, 2008
Thank you very much for this great tutorial! Keeep em coming
My really nice(ithink) result :

[IMG]http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g272/arnaud360/SS.jpg[/IMG]
NuclearWiz July 28th, 2008
**http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g272/arnaud360/SS.jpg
Nithon July 30th, 2008
Hi
i really liked your tutorial
My two tries:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nithon/2717832240/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nithon/2717045963/
Gabby July 30th, 2008
NICE But
i dont get the setup of the image do you use CMYK RGB what is the setup ther i do not get the color right and the mask of the smoke not remove compleat the black
what i do rong
thank you
Raph July 31st, 2008
you can find the original ad on apple’s website:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/ads/sonic/
Sacha August 16th, 2008
awesome tut….this is wath i get…
http://img384.imageshack.us/img384/4379/sfondoficofb6.jpg
i use this one as wallpaper…
and this is the work with my face…
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/2986/iosfondoys5.jpg
i d0nt like it….
dekm0k August 21st, 2008
hi… thanx for da tut.. its help me a lot… Your Awesome…. ^^
this what i get:..
http://img239.imageshack.us/my.php?image=44711810yj1.jpg
Andrew August 21st, 2008
Here are my two tries, featuring Chris Martin! I know the pen cutout isn’t perfect, but I’m too lazy to correct it. The difference between the two pictures are minuscule but I’m OCD like that, the first one has a little bit of the glow surrounding Chris Martin kind of flowing and overlapping him, displeased with this, I corrected it in the second one.

http://www.addictedblogging.com/ChrisMartin.jpg
http://www.addictedblogging.com/ChrisMartinv2.jpg
Rob August 27th, 2008
[IMG]http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa251/robwoj/vivalavidaLONGGALMOSTDONEtehrevscre.jpg[/IMG]

Thanks.
KingofLeon October 1st, 2008
Dude, this sucks. Doesn’t even look like the Coldplay Ad. I keep seeing lame attempts to re-create the cloud swirls and energy bursts and its just not happening.
David Leggett October 1st, 2008
@KingofLeon: I’ll disagree with you, and also point out that we are trying to capture elements like swirling smoke, bursts of light, and other ideas that insinuate motion all in a single frame. For implied motion, I think this tutorial does a good job imitating the ad.
Art Ross October 8th, 2008
Anyone know what font COLDPLAY is using?
Gerson October 12th, 2008
Que buen Trabajooooo !!!
esta increible ! me gustaria que me ayuden con una foto mia !
Podrian ayudarme !
Gracias !
It's Me Abhishek October 22nd, 2008
I just wanna show you my work Sir . . .

http://images.orkut.com/orkut/albums2/ATYAAABgkXLMjo_ths_Y2o41UL7OYIUhvPIPvGBWfvMMVkxUHwAeEogQqgs4OSWqwjZNgr0_kUMVsulSBjPAMFxe7OEoAJtU9VBVJk3ZosnR-IxG5scPrfH-Py2lSw.jpg

Please revierw it & reply if there is any correction to be made
Nathanneman October 27th, 2008
just showing my work: http://img385.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cpcopyvt5.jpg
Vibe October 28th, 2008
Hey, awesome tutorial!
I just downloaded your PSD and was wondering what font you used for “coldplay”
Could you please let us know as soon as you can!
Thanks alot for the great tut,
Vibe
saigee October 30th, 2008
hey dude,, this is really cool ,,,excellentoooo..
Christine November 4th, 2008
My attempt:

http://flickr.com/photos/christinelamphotography/2991281999/
Rafeael November 5th, 2008
thats realy cool!!! hi to all… I´m Asuncion, Paraguay byee!!!
jagan November 6th, 2008
it very usefull to me

Thankyou
nakaora November 19th, 2008
A little bit different…

http://img213.imageshack.us/my.php?image=framdisconk3.jpg
underdos November 24th, 2008
wow greats thanks. its very wonderfull
Romeo November 26th, 2008
thank you , I love it.
London November 27th, 2008
Gorgeous effects! Really, really cool.
MiKe December 26th, 2008
Where is the Overlay thing? i cant find it:S

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