A Lesson to all morphers using photoshop

[Alumian]

Hey guys,
I've just been patrolling the forums recently and i've noticed that a lot of morphers are only using the liquify tool in photoshop. There is so much more that can be done to amplify muscles in an image.
Thats why i'm dedicating this thread to teach you guys a lesson on how to achieve this via my method.
Now before i begin, i'm not saying i'm the best, but i know that my method is better than liquifying.

First of all, try and get your hands on the latest version of photoshop, i use Photoshop CS4, but it shouldn't have anything that Photoshop CS3 doesn't have.
Lets Begin.
1. Select an image that has a fair amount of muscle mass on it already, BUT, you don't want to get a picture that has too much muscle mass or it will give you nothing to work with, because if you make the muscles too big and out of proportion, then it becomes outlandish, unbelievable and far too obvious, it completely ruins your work.
I have selected this image to work with, this is just a picture i picked up from google.


2. Open the file in Photoshop and create 2 extra layers ontop of this image, name one of the layers "shadows" and one of them "lighting", you do not need to name them if you can remember which layer contains what. Select the layer named "Shadows" and select your Brush Tool from your toolbar on the left, press "x" to make the selected color turn black, and go to the top of your screen and set the opacity to 50%. Change your brush size to suit the width of the shadows for the muscles in your picture.
Then you need to zoom in, unless you have a large enough image, but the main idea of zooming in is to make the lines neat and accurate. Accuracy is everything.
Then you need to draw ONE SINGLE LINE ontop of the muscle shadows so that you can see a big black line where the shadows are, similar to mine.


Looks pretty crap at this point, doesn't it?
3. Move over to the opacity for the actual layer, and chance that to 0% so it becomes transparent. Then, slowly, using your up arrow key, one key stroke at a time, increase the opacity until you can see the lines slightly, but so that they are not obvious, similar to mine.


Adding in shadows gives the ILLUSION of larger muscles, without actually morphing the size of them. For this image, i could raise the opacity to 20% without it being obvious. But wait! Theres more!
Remember that second layer we created?
4. Select the "Lighting" layer and select your brush tool again, change the color to white, set the opacity of the brush to 50% and increase the size so it is just a bit smaller than the size of one of the person's abs. With the opacity of the layer set to 100%, put ONE LAYER OF WHITE onto each muscle except for those that are shadowed, remember, you need to keep in mind where the light is comming from, in terms of this image, i would cover all of his left side, both pecs, and only his right forearm in white. Do it so it looks similar to mine.


Again, looks bloody aweful.
5. Set the layer opacity to 0% and repeat what you did with the shadows, but this one can go higher for some pictures, lower for others. For this image, i could raise the opacity to 10% without it becomming obvious.


Again, lighting vs shadows creates greater depth when it comes to muscle mass, creating the illusion.
6. Hold ctrl, shift and "e" at once, this will merge all visible layers, putting the shadows and lighting to the actual picture. NOW we get to use liquify. Go into Filter and hunt around for the liquify tool, it will be in a different place for different versions of photoshop, in CS4, it will be the 4th option, i don't know where it is for CS3, won't be hard to find. Anyway, using the forward warp tool, with a brush approximately the size of the muscle you're trying to amplify, drag slowly outwards, THIS TOOL WILL ONLY WORK ON THE OUTER MUSCLES, such as the arms and legs, THIS WON'T WORK WITH PECS/ABS. After you've done this, make the tool much smaller, and push the smaller areas around the muscles, such as the part just below the shoulder, just above the bicep, push it in, to make it look like the muscles are bulging out more.

Anyway, everyone knows how to liquify, now lets do the inner muscles.
7. Select the Bloat Tool, and make it just a bit larger than the muscle your amplifying, and then bloat it for just a moment, if you do this too much, then it distorts the picture and makes it look crap.


Now for the second last step, one last thing that we can do is something that not all people like, and that is increasing vein cover.
8. To increase vein cover, create a new layer, select the "eyedropper tool" and find the darkest part of the person's skin. THIS IS NOT THE SHADOWED AREAS. I mean the part that still has color to it, so in this case, it would be a dark brown. Then select the brush tool and set it to a size of how big you want the veins to be. Keep in mind that they should not be too big or it becomes outlandish and out of proportion. Once you have selected the size you want, just drag lines, they will be the veins.


Then the final step.
9. Right click the layer and go into blending options. Check Bevel and Emboss, set the depth to 1000% and the size to 1px, keep the soften at 0px. Go down and set the highlight opacity to 50% and the shadow opacity to 100%. Bam, thats it! You're done.


Vein cover works better for some pictures than others, it didn't work that well on this picture as you can see, however, if the person is wearing a shirt and you want to indicate that veins are running under it, you must draw in the veins to the start of the shirt and then you must change the color of your brush to the same color of the shirt via the eyedropper tool, then continue drawing the veins under the shirt and then it will have a 3d effect.

Thats my tutorial, have fun and morph away!

[musclegrowthdm]

I have been Looking for different ways to do that! THANK YOU! I haven't had a photoshop lesson ... formally anyway.

This really helped me with morphing! I was getting so done with liquify. Just try doing it in After effects. It's like pulling your hair out really slowly. If only I could just apply shadows and merge layers as easily in after effects. Shadowing and lighting have always been the hardest part of photo shop for me. You helped me greatly!

Thanks again

D

[Alumian]

Lol you're welcome

[lostblue7w]

The above guide is great.

Does anyone have any tips on morphing cocks or growth, making guys taller?

[toughluck]

Definitely a few useful tips here! I tend to get a little overboard in my efforts and this has some dry cut steps.

By the way.....It's been a verrrry long time since I've contributed(Do the old folks remember me?), but I've got a nice series of images in the works ala work I've done before such as http://www.musclegrowth.org/forum/showthread.php?t=4665 ....
Let me know you're interested to get me motivated in finishing!!

[TheMM]

Originally Posted by toughluck

Definitely a few useful tips here! I tend to get a little overboard in my efforts and this has some dry cut steps.

By the way.....It's been a verrrry long time since I've contributed(Do the old folks remember me?), but I've got a nice series of images in the works ala work I've done before such as http://www.musclegrowth.org/forum/showthread.php?t=4665 ....
Let me know you're interested to get me motivated in finishing!!

Well of course we remember you Toughluck!

Now excuse me while I chain you to your floor until you post something new...

[dominicrue]

Holy crap Tough luck! I'm so happy to see you're still around. I would love to see some new stuff from you

[toughluck]

hahahaha thanks guys. I'll try to get my new thread up asap!

[MASSMANN]

GREAT TIPS !! is their a liquify tool in CS2 ? I use warp a lot

[madstatic]

Thanks for the tutorial... I just got Photoshop for work and I put this together... long time lurker here... love all the work I see on this site!!

I also have one of Leighton S. but Can we post nudes?

[MuscleHintz]

This is great advice! Though I don't currently have Photoshop on my computer, I plan on getting it eventually. This would be a good help to make muscles look bigger without going overboard on bloating them.

[Aielyn]

Originally Posted by Alumian

There are some issues I thought I'd raise, regarding the results. I can actually suggest ways to improve it all.

1. The embossing of the veins has been done poorly. If you look at his neck, you can see some pre-existing veins, and it is easy to see that the shadow is on the right. This is consistent with the lighting in the image, but not with the drawn veins. Although I don't know photoshop's commands (I'm a GIMP user), there should be an option to tell the program which direction to emboss in.

Taking it further, though, the veins look very artificial. Try running a layer-wide Blur filter on the layer with the veins after embossing them - it may need to be a gaussian blur in order to allow you to control the level of blurring. What you want is just enough blur to make the edges soft, while maintaining the strength of the shadowing and lighting. Then use an eraser tool at a low opacity (I assume such a tool exists, with appropriate functionality), and use it to reduce the opacity at the ends, so that the veins appear to be going into the body, rather than just stopping abruptly.

2. A similar issue arises in the cases of the lighting and shadow layers - even at low opacity, a close examination shows the edges of the artificial changes in brightness. A simple way to address this is to apply a blur filter (perhaps a few times) to the layer before adjusting the opacity. There are more subtle ways to handle it, and methods that can produce far superior effects (such as burn/dodge effects, which directly brighten or darken, rather than adding white/black, or using fuzzy brushes rather than the normal solid ones)... but I'll leave it at this for the time being.

In addition, try using the liquefy tool directly on the vein layer before merging, and take a bit of time to make the veins look like they're following the curve of the body. Look quickly at the vein drawn on the collarbone - it looks drawn on, because there's no sense of curvature relative to the body. If it had been liquefied to match the curvature of the body, it would look far more natural.

3. When using the liquefy tool, irrespective of whether you're following this guide or not, it always causes distortions in the image that are particularly noticeable - mostly, pixels that are too large, making the image look quite clumsy at times. I believe that photoshop has a "heal tool", similar to that in GIMP. While I can't describe the exact process for photoshop, I can do so for GIMP - first, have a copy of the original image open separately (or as a separate layer, if you prefer). Select a reference point on the original to use to perform the healing. Make sure the opacity is set quite low (below 20% tends to be a good idea), then draw onto the altered image where you want the texture to match that of the original. This will also further blend out the edges of the various shadows and lighting, as well.


I've just done up my own version of the image, using not only the suggestions I made above, but also some extra tricks I've picked up. All done in GIMP starting with the original image.