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How to: Turn someone into a ghost in Photoshop

Elena Santos

Elena Santos

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Halloween is here again! Many people will celebrate this day with special Halloween parties at their local pub, but if you’re one of those who prefer to stay home and play trick or treat with the kids who come up to your door, we’ve got a nice plan for you. Switch on your computer, open up Photoshop and get ready to transform a nice portrait into a scary ghost with this easy tutorial. Are you ready? Let’s go!

How to: turn someone into a ghost in Photoshop

1. Open the photo of your “victim” and duplicate the background layer with Ctrl+J. Then desaturate this copy with Ctrl+Shift+U.

How to: turn someone into a ghost in Photoshop

2. Create another copy of the background layer (Ctrl+J again), go to Filter > Blur and apply a Motion blur effect to this third layer. Make sure the angle is 0 degrees and try different distance values until you obtain something similar to my image.

How to: turn someone into a ghost in Photoshop

3. Now add a vector mask to this third layer and grab the brush tool. Set foreground color to black, opacity around 10% and start painting over eyes, nose and mouth. This will reveal them slightly through the blurring effect.

How to: turn someone into a ghost in Photoshop

4. Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E and all visible layers will be flattened into a single layer on top of the others. Make this new layer the active one and go to Filter > Render > Lens flare. Tweak settings as shown below and add this effect to both eyes on your image.

How to: turn someone into a ghost in Photoshop

5. Now go to Layer > New fill layer and add a Solid color layer. Make it green, turn the opacity down to around 20% and change its blending mode to “Color”.

How to: turn someone into a ghost in Photoshop

6. Finally go back to that same menu and add a Gradient layer. Choose the “Foreground to transparent” gradient style, set the mode to “Radial” and make sure the angle is 90º and the “Reverse” option is enabled. In my example I used white, but it looks great with black too.

How to: turn someone into a ghost in Photoshop

7. Your ghost is finished!

How to: turn someone into a ghost in Photoshop

Elena Santos

Elena Santos

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