Applying a Realistic Tattoo
Oct 22nd in Photo Effects by Arik
In this tutorial I will be demonstrating an advanced technique to achieve a realistic tattoo. We will be using masks, adjustment layers, displacement maps, and several brushing skills will be applied.
So the first thing I did was go looking for a good stock image. I wanted a face with a lot of detail such as facial hair, expression, and most importantly, pores! I tend to get my stock images from the free site www.sxc.hu. Being impoverished and all I can't afford to spend a buck on each picture. I ended up using this great image by Emiliano Spada.
Next thing we need is a tattoo design. You can create your own but I am not only poor, I am lazy as well. Head over to gomedia.us and get your hands on their Vector Sample Pack (from the Freebie Section).Step 1
Ok, open up your stock image and duplicate it by clicking on the layer and dragging it to the New Layer icon down the bottom (it's the one to the left of the trash can). Name this layer Base, desaturate it (Ctrl+Shift+U) and duplicate it again. The reason I am doing this is that I like to have multiple stages of my base image, just in case I mess up, so that I can come back at any given time and fix errors.
Step 2
Time to prepare our image. I really want to bring out the detail in the skin, so I am going to up the contrast and adjust the tones a little bit. Let's add three adjustment layers: First, a Levels layer, then a Brightness/Contrast layer, and last a Curves layer. You can add each by going to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels/Brightness/Curves depending on which you're adding. Adjustment layers allow you to change the properties of the image below without actually destroying or changing image data.
Step 3
The well known 'S-shape' in the curves layer enhances contrast but may have a downside. As you can see, some parts of the stock are affected heavily by the light. These parts include the forehead and parts of the cheeks. The curves layer can make these parts too light and eliminate their detail. To solve this, you need to apply a layer mask to the curves layer and brush up those parts.
You can do this by going to your layers palette, clicking on the curves layer, then down the bottom clicking on the button third from the left to add a Layer Mask. Once you've added a layer mask, you'll see an extra mask clipped on to the layer. Click on that mask, and then using a softish brush gently paint black over the areas where you do not want the curves layer to show through. Remember that when you add a layer mask, white lets the layer show through and black hides it.
Step 4
I was not all too happy with what I had, so I decided to use the Burn Tool (O) to touch up the image manually. I used a large, soft brush and set the range to Shadows with an Exposure of 32% (shown)
Now go to Layer>Flatten Image and save the file as Displacement.psd. DO NOT CLOSE THE FILE, as you will lose everything. Hit Ctrl+Z to undo the 'Flatten Image' command and now go to File > Save As and save the file as Tattoo.psd or any other name apart from Displacement.psd
We will be using the Displacement.psd file as a displacement map. Therefore we shouldn't edit it any further, and any change we apply to our image from now on will be saved into the Tattoo.psd file. Ok, on to the fun part...
Step 5
Now that we've finished prepping our image, we can finally start applying the tattoo. Open up your Gomedia free vectors file in Illustrator (preferably, but you can also open it in Photoshop). Copy and paste a design of your choice onto the face. Rotate it and adjust it accordingly, so that it fits more or less. Mask out any parts that should not appear to have a tattoo on them. In my case these are the lips. Rename the layer to 'Tattoo' so that you can find it easier. Close the vector eps file and do not save the changes. Here is how my design (tribals, set 3) looks applied.
I masked out the top part so that it doesn't go over the lips, and I got rid of the tips that stick out beyond the face.
Step 6
Duplicate the shape layer twice. There now should be a 'tattoo copy' and 'tattoo copy 2'. Set the 'tattoo copy' layer to Overlay at 80% Opacity. Set the 'tattoo copy 2' layer to Soft light at 64% Opacity. Hide the original 'tattoo' layer.
For organizational purposes, I have created several layer sets and dropped my layers into those sets. You can create a layer set by clicking on the icon in your layers palette that is located between the 'new adjustment layer' icon and the 'new layer' icon. Using layer sets will smooth your workflow.
Step 7
Rasterize your 'tattoo copy' layer by right-clicking on it in the layers palette and selecting Rasterize layer. This process will return the blending mode to Normal so we must set the blending mode back to Overlay and the Opacity back to 80%. Now go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian blur and blur the layer with a value of about 2.0 pixels.
Next, this is where your creative mind steps in. You will have to mask away parts of both 'copy' layers until you have found a satisfying result regarding the opacity of the tattoo. I prefer to use a big brush and alter in between 10 and 20 percent opacity while brushing. Here is how my result looks:
Congratulations, you have just gone beyond the part that is covered in any other tutorial. You have created something that looks more or less real. But we are not done yet.
Step 8
We are almost there--time to apply our displacement map. Select your 'tattoo copy' layer and go to Filter > Distort > Displace. Leave the default settings and hit ok. A window will come up prompting for a psd file. Now navigate to your Displacement.psd file and select it. Select your 'tattoo copy 2' layer and hit Ctrl+F. This will repeat the filter for this layer giving you something similar to this:
Conclusion
I hope that you have learned something from this tutorial and I hope that you understand that it takes a lot of time and effort to make something look real. The best way to achieve such an effect is by experimenting and constantly looking at challenges from a different angle. When I first started doing this it took me about 6-8 hours to get a good balance and to develop this technique.
Please note that sometimes the displace filter can have a negative effect. In such cases either do not use it or play around with the opacities of the layer and the Fade Displace option under the Image tab. You will truly achieve great results by playing around. Here is my final product that I submitted to a contest:
Sample PSD
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User Comments
( ADD YOURS )Aloke Pillai October 22nd
Amazing as usual. A great tutorial and this deserves a coffee.
Cheers
Purely a 10/10
( )Glory June 20th
What if I wanted to use a brush instead of a vector image, what would I do then?
( )tr0n October 22nd
Great tute! thank you!
I’d def like to see more tutes from this guy. Good to see some nods to better workflow methods – layer masks, sets etc.
Keep the quality up, this site is shaping up to be the definitive PS tutes guide on the web.
( )Connor Phelan April 28th
I def agree
( )Nathan October 22nd
Thanks for this tut man. I saw something similar the other day and was thinking on how to do it. Guess this explains it all =)
( )Joefrey Mahusay October 22nd
Great Tut, i will try this in my own..Thanks for sharing.!
( )Dinu Kuruppu October 22nd
Awesome!!! Thanks for all the contributions.
Added PSDTuts to my gallery site as well. Will add all your other great sites soon.
( )Marko Novak October 22nd
Absolutely better than overlay
( )Collis October 22nd
Hey guys, sorry just fixed up the broken PSD link, if anyone tried to download it earlier it was incorrect, but now all fixed up
( )Mark October 22nd
Wow nice tut really nice
( )seemore October 22nd
thanks for introducing and sharing this tut!
-see-
( )amdrus October 22nd
Nice, as always. The net is flooded with wack tutorials, and it is hard to find ones that you really learn from.
( )But at psdtuts I always know I can find something useful, and learn something each time… You are my saviour(s?)!
Lee October 22nd
Another great tutorial… Enjoy the coffee i bought you guys
( )Helen October 22nd
wow this is amazing tnx 4 sharing
( )Mr_LeE October 22nd
great job
( )Timothy Diokno October 22nd
Yup! Another great addition to PSDTuts. And really, I thought it was all in the overlay.
( )Timoteo Ramos October 22nd
Right you are, there are lots of tuts saying that only overlay will do it realistically. Displacing it is the way, but in order to get a good looking B&W, desaturate isn’t quite the best way…
( )Perhaps in the future psdtuts can show us the ultimate B&W tutorial… Desaturate get so much depth info lost, and that’s kinda a downer when you want to use the displacement filter. I saw some non-destructive methods using adjustment layers that can provide much more dramatic contrast without giving up depth information. Anyway just wanted to point out something, nice tut… Beatifull graphic quality… Cheers from Brasil…
Brian Larter October 23rd
Awesome tutorial, but I still think it looks fake, definitely better then the other tutorials though….I think it’s best to just make models get tattoos (I’m kidding of course).
On a side note, this is by far the best tutorial site by far that I’ve read. I hope in some way these are being archived in an organizes fashion. I’ll b using this site for years to come.
( )brandy October 23rd
just a suggestion:
if you don’t want to go through the trouble of opening up illustrator to grab your vector, just use “Place…” (in the File menu). This does pretty much the same thing as copying & pasting from illustrator, but you get to skip a few steps.
( )brandy October 23rd
to clarify–
* “…just use “Place…” (in the File menu in Photoshop).”
( )Arik October 23rd
Hey guys!
Thank you for putting up the tutorial, I am really excited to see it here and the replies it is generating.
Brandy, thanks for the tip!
Thank you!
( )Arik
Drew October 23rd
-OR- a simple CRL+J would do the same thing without all that effort. If you’re going to put keyboard shortcuts in your tut, try to include all of them.
( )Thomas October 23rd
great tutorial. this site has had some of the most useful and best illustrated PS tutorials I’ve seen. Thanks!
( )Vito October 23rd
MASTER TUT MAN!! DIG.
( )Sam October 23rd
awesome, this is the best psd tutorial blog i’ve found, i can’t wait for more
( )Arik October 23rd
Thank you for uploading and thank you for the kind replies. I hope I will be able to write more tutorials for this website. For me this is really a big step forwards and I was ecstatic today when I found out about this.
( )Thanks,
Arik
LIVE TELEVISION October 23rd
very nice effect.
( )Kath October 23rd
Coulda helped to distort->spherize the tats you placed on top of the head before you overlayed them. That way they could seem to have dimension within the picture and wouldn’t look quite so flat. Otherwise, very awesome.
( )JoK October 23rd
Aouch ! Excellent really !
I have always asked myself how to do a great photoshop tatoo, this way seems to be one of the best !
Thanks !
( )Russ @ bombay potatoes October 23rd
Nice tutorial but I’m not sure it looks realistic enough. Maybe if there was a bit more noise added.
( )Prank Videos October 23rd
Simply amazing! lemme see whether i can edit my pic with a cool tattooo
( )omodudu October 23rd
I wish your posts were more frequent. Great job.
( )jo October 23rd
i don’t think it’s a great tutorial.
except a tattoo just below HIS left eyes, everything looks patched n made up artificially, still lot of finishing touch needed.
Thanks
( )Max Thrane October 23rd
Wow, really nice!
Gotta try it when I get some spare time 
( )Midnightbrewer October 23rd
Good tutorial, except that it needs a few edits:
1. Please explain why you set the tattoo layers to Soft Light and Overlay. Does it help the highlights? The shadows? It just “feels right?” (The last suggestion, by the way, would be an example of a bad explanation.)
2. Why do you tell the reader to set the layer type and opacity, then to rasterize the layers, then finish by telling them that, because of the rasterization, they’re going to have to go back and set the layer type and opacity again? Why not just rasterize first and then change the layer settings? This would eliminate an entire redundant step out of the tutorial.
( )Daniel October 23rd
Sorry to seem dense but you lost me with the Displacement Map. What does the source file supply to the process?
( )lukxiufung October 23rd
May I know how the text ads work? I wish to add a function like yours in my blog. I registered in text-link-ads already but your link not look like a referral link. Please give me a guide, can? Thanks!
( )Collis October 23rd
@lukxiufung:
Yep they changed the way referral links work I think now it’s a big javascript thing, my link is just the old referral link which I never updated to the new ones. I guess you could write to their support maybe? Good luck!!
( )will October 23rd
you don’t need to rasterize anything. smart objects don’t require it. in fact, smart objects would make this whole process a lot easier.
( )baloot inc October 23rd
whoa..
this is great tutorial..
i must do this and make my head bald as he does it..
pretty damn..
( )Erik October 23rd
Who the heck wants “jason” on his forhead =P
( )Great tut! Thx
Lau @ Digital Photography Tutorials October 23rd
Good tutorial. And good subject the mickey mouse is quite funny.
( )Photoshop Tutorials October 23rd
Awesome as usual.
( )lukxiufung October 23rd
Ooohh… means after they sign up then the advertiser/TLA will contact you to put on the links there?
( )Awesome October 24th
Awesome!
( )Arik October 24th
@ MidnightBrewer (no.35)
1) Yes it just felt good. I played around a while and this was the best combination imo.
2) Because while I was recreating the result I bumped into that obstacle myself, it’s because I didn’t work one step ahead. My bad, I know.
@ Daniel (no. 36)
The source file (displacement.psd) is where Photoshop gets his brightness values from which he in term applies to the displacement effect. Depending on how dark or light the pixels are, photoshop moves them in a different direction.
@ Will (no. 39)
True, but somehow AI didn’t give me that option when I pasted in the vector. Usually it does.
Thanks for the pointers guys.
( )saurabh October 24th
Amazing tutorial….
( )Thanx 4 posting…
KeYon October 24th
Hey.. i m a bit disappointed this time.. it was to confusing.. the author was not in command.. plus some of the steps mentioned in the tutorials were not getting performed… in Abobe CS2…
( )Arik Jones October 24th
My name is Arik as well. When I saw the author name, I automatically thought, “Hey, I don’t remember doing a PS tutorial…”. lolz.
( )Mark October 24th
…. wow! ….awesome tutorial! thinkin of doing a big ass tatt on someones back to try out the techniques! .. or possibly a big fat belly … hmnnn?
oh…. awesome site too! so many shXte ps tutorial sites out there good to see one which clearly kicks their ass outta the www!
( )HARMAN October 26th
Awesome Man Awesome!!!
Thx for sharing.
( )maria October 26th
AWESOME!!!!!!
I m Spechless
SUPERB!!!!
( )ebrahem October 27th
thanks man . I love your tut
( )Jason October 31st
My only problem with this is that it only works in a black and white image. When I tried this and left the subject coloured it looked horribly fake.
Ive tried playing with it but no luck so far.
( )Jeffrey November 2nd
even with the black and white photo, it looks very fake. This is not a good tutorial at all.
( )Custom Icons November 2nd
Awesome. Simple technique – but effective.
( )thanks for sharing!
DM
Sergey November 3rd
how come when I right click to rasterize, it’s not selectable. if i go to Layer > Rasterize, the only option available is All Layers.
( )Antonio November 3rd
Wow, very nice. I love this tutorial. Excellent work.
( )Ariana November 8th
didnt understand it…
( )Agilius November 10th
Good job. Takes a while but it useful sometimes
, however, it’s a bit fake, I can see the shape of the tattoo not matching the curves of the face.
I am glad to see nice tutorials like this since I don’t have to much experience with photo editing
. I have to train a bit so I could blog more about photo editing on my blog. Keep going!
( )Fawad November 29th
One Word
Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
( )god056 December 7th
i found handy techniques with this tut
great job!
but can someone please make a tut for tattoo on colored images? reading through the tut already gave me the impression that this is for b&w pics only. (which someone else already pointed out)
( )andy stewart December 20th
the one on the lips is sweet..! not sure about the ones on the face., but love the burn effect on the original,
http://www.andystewart-design.com
( )Rom December 21st
you are awsome, thanks!!
( )greetings from Argentina
psmag December 27th
Nice tutorial, I didn’t see combination of 2 blending modes up to now (for tattoo that is). And it works for color images too – check this out: http://saver43.hit.bg/pages/www.saver.tk_er07121970_1280×960.htm
( )whizkid May 4th
thats fucking disgusting!!
( )daniel October 3rd
that is crazy “roflol”
just for next time tag it as NSFW…..
THX
( )HN January 2nd
This was great…but up to a point, when I realized the final image would come out black/white. If you’re doing it in color it’s going to be different. Still, I got some good tips from this. Thanks!
( )Photoshop Files .com January 6th
Nice, if you want to submit your PSD to our site would be great.
( )Addy January 17th
very smart work……good
( )Addy January 17th
very smart work……good
( )web fanatic January 24th
great tutorial, thank you
( )tin February 15th
nice!,:D..
( )ORAINGUTAN February 15th
Wow!good tutorial! Thanks
( )Andrique Sondropogolos February 19th
“Usually these tutorials instruct the user to import an image they want to use as a tattoo and to set it to overlay. ”
Isn’t this exactly what this tutorial tells us to do?…
( )chris February 25th
Amazing stuff,very cool!…thx…
( )Brad March 24th
Something I never would have thought of – the displacement filter. Excellent idea though, makes me want to experiment a little more with it.
( )jho April 15th
is cool bro….but more simply tric maybe
( )I love tattoos April 16th
SO COOL, now all my dreams can come true yay!
( )donn April 23rd
i cant rasterize the tattoo copy layer
( )Jet June 29th
this tutorial is for advanced PS artists, i’m not like that and i don’t knob the term “mask out”,.. so i didn’t get it that much,…
( )serpentemx July 9th
Man I got lost on the displacement window prompt what fle do I open?
( )Bebo Darren August 24th
Great tutorial, im on paint shop pro but this tutorial was still really handy.
Cheers
( )Skunkie September 27th
I appreciate the inclusion of adjustment layers and layer masks for a more efficient work flow. The idea to use displacement for a tattoo is also kind of neat.
But i also have to critizise a few points. When adjusting curves and level accurately, there should be no need to mess around with brightness and contrast sliders. It´s like doing a surgery with a chainsaw. And using the burn tool to kind of draw a shadow on his forehead doesn´t seem right to me either.
Still learned a lot, muchas gracias!
( )LAuric October 27th
Hi I love it
but How can I get just the black effect like on original picture without the tattoo?
Like also the picture on my URL…
email me…thanks
( )Please Help!
bebo skinz December 20th
cool helped me get a cool looking version, thanks for this
( )Alex from (Tucson Marketing, Emerge) December 25th
Interesting tutorial, i tried working with it and applying Gaussian blur helps achieve a little better effect.
( )sportvoeding January 1st
Very nice Tut, i was wondering for a long time how to apply things to the human skin.
But this had the anwser.
Thanks,
From the Netherlands
( )hazem March 19th
thinks for all thise information becouse it help me to arive to alt of skills
( )asifa March 21st
very nice thanks
( )nie April 7th
that model is soo ugly why can’t they use hot people like me?
( )Richard Ryder April 16th
This was a very good lesson…….. I think this is good for Jr.’s
Unlike me.
( )retoucher77 June 4th
very handy tutorial indeed. Thank you for sharing
( )Jan June 14th
really helps
( )smaugthewyrm July 4th
this tutorial works on color with one small addition. add a hue saturation adjustment layer to each of the tatto copy and tatto copy 2. each hue layer should ONLY EFFECT THE LAYER BELOW IT, option click the line between the two layers…
turn off tattoo copy 2 and its hue layer.
now, in the 1st hue layer, click colorize, move slider on saturation too 100%, then slowly move the hue color until you see a blueish blackish color appear.
do the same to the hue layer on tattoo copy 2.
i also had to adjust the opacity on both tattoo layers to get a good effect.
most tattoos have a random raised effect where the artist ‘dug’ a bit. some scar tissue results. i am working on a way to add that… usually they do this when they outline the pattern… so the raised portion will show mostly on the edges. i think a path layer with a stroke effect applied might do the trick.
see results here:
( )http://nl.tinypic.com/r/if1ziw/5
Sydney Architectural photographer August 9th
The tats on the cheeks look really realistic, not so much on the head… but i’m sure using this technique to apply tattoos where one would expect to see them could be very convincingt.
( )tonella October 3rd
Looks good. I tried something similar but with I used another technique much simpler
Look here:
http://tonela.deviantart.com/art/Tribal-tatto-139078796
( )sem October 26th
that sucks
( )iChan November 24th
where can i find tatoos?
mail me please
( )BuyungR November 29th
just googling with key word “free tatoo vector” or “free tribal vector”
( )have fun
BuyungR November 29th
nice tuts…displace is the key for all the step.cool^^
( )E-coli December 1st
Wow! This is great! Thanks!
( )Tattoos January 1st
Awesome tutorial this is such a great way for tattoo artists to mockup new designs for clients.
( )raziyeh January 13th
nice…
( )xlr83r January 30th
gr8 tut. Used it for a school project (create album art for band) and it looks really great. take a look at some of my stuff….
( )http://www.wix.com/xlr83r/Graphic-Gallery
(i know it isnt gr8, but im only in yr 8. pretty good for a 12 yr old ,eh? make sure you leave a comment.)
yo mama February 4th
long tut…
( )