Circular Pixel Stretch Effect Photoshop Project

Photoshop is a very powerful program and you can do a lot with it. Editing photos is obviously a main use for the program and you can do lots of eye catching things to photos. This project is a fun way to utilize Photoshop and it is not very difficult to do. You don't need a lot to accomplish this project, just Photoshop and a photo. Be a little selective with the photo you select for this project, it works nicer to have a photo with limbs sticking out in various spots. Sports or dancing photos are specifically suited, but of course you can use any photo you like.

The first step is to open your photo is Photoshop. I used a stock photo of a dancer for this project.

I always start by pressing Control A, then Control C and Control V. This selects everything on screen, copies it and then pastes it to a new layer. I prefer to work on a copy of the photo rather than directly on the background, just in case you need to go back to the original photo for some reason.

Once you have copied the photo and created a new layer with that copy, add a layer mask to the new layer. To add a mask, click on the mask button at the bottom of the layers panel. You'll see a new white box appear next to the layer.

We only need the woman for this project, so we will need to mask out the background of the photo. A layer mask hides parts of the layer it is applied to. This is preferable over deleting the bits you don't want because you can easily recover the layer by erasing the mask and bring back the parts of the image.

To start, we need to select just the background. Use the quick selection tool to make quick work of selecting the background. This tool is located in the left hand toolbar. Click on the photo and the tool will select like colored pixels, more or less. Sometimes it selects things that are close in color. Pay attention to where the "marching ants" are, you may wish to work in sections over trying to select the whole background at once.

Start by clicking on the layer mask you created in the last step then click around with the quick selection tool to select the background. When you have an area selected, click on the paintbrush tool and select black from the color picker. Next paint over the selection with the color and you will see the layer disappear. If you don't see any changes, make sure you click on the eye next to the background image. This will hide the background image and you'll see the layer mask reveals a checkered background showing it is now transparent were the mask is. If you accidentally mask over a part of your image you need, switch the paintbrush color to white and brush over the image. This will bring the image back again.

Continue masking the image until just your subject is left.

The next thing we want to do is select colors from the photo that we will use in the pixel stretch to make the big colorful circle around the subject. Use the rectangular marquee tool to drag a long skinny rectangle over noticeable blocks of color in your photo. Try not to include TOO much skin color though as it will end up looking very fleshy at the end (😬). Drag the rectangle over the area you want to use and then press Control J (on a Mac). This will copy the section and move the selected part to a new layer. If you have multiple sections of colors, which you should, you'll need to click on the original image in the layers panel, otherwise you'll be trying to pull pixels from the new layer you made. In this particular photo, there was a lot of blue and a little red so I copied those sections.

Once you have the sections copied to a new layer, drag the edges of the rectangles to the edges of the canvas (the edge of the screen). Drag both left and right so the colors go all the way from one side to the other.

Once I did this with the two blocks of colors I had, I decided I wanted to add some yellow. I just drew a rectangle with the marquee tool and then colored in yellow with the paintbrush.

Select the layers that have the stretched colors and go to filter>Convert for Smart Filters. This will allow you to use the filters on these layers. Next, go to Filters>Distort>Polar Coordinates... Press OK on the Polar Coordinates box that pops up and you'll see that the pixel stretches have turned into a round record looking shape.

Now that we have the pixel stretch in a circle, we will want to rasterize the layer. Rasterizing a layer will convert any type of vector layer into pixels. This step is important because if you try to adjust the polar coordinates filter, it will be a lot more difficult without rasterizing the layer first. To do this, make sure you are on the polar coordinates layer then go to Layer>Rasterize>Layer. Once the layer has been rasterized, drag the layer down in the layers panel so it is behind the subject.

The polar coordinates filter works by attaching one end of the image to the other end. This tends to leave a seam in the coordinates. I like to hide the seam, which is accomplished by rotating the image until it is behind a body part. In this case, I hid the seam behind her upper body.

When you rotate the polar coordinates, you may need to expand the canvas to show all of the image. You can either go to Image>Canvas size and adjust it from there, or you can use the Crop tool and drag the crop boundaries outside of the canvas which will add additional space to the canvas. I am sure one of those actions is more correct than the other, but they both seem to accomplish the desired result of adding more space to the image so you can see the edges. Adjust the size of your circle so it hits the edges of the feet or whatever it sticking out from the subject (a ball or tip of a shoe, etc).

Now that the layer is aligned with the subject, we can add another layer mask and hide some of the polar coordinates. Click on the circle layer and add a layer mask by clicking the layer mask button at the bottom of the layers panel. Use the black paint brush to brush over the parts of the layer you want to mask. In my case, I wanted to take out a lot of the flesh colored part of the circle and hide the part in the lower right corner of the circle.

Now that the image is all aligned, we just need to add a gradient background. Add a new layer, then select the colors you'd like the gradient to be. You can add colors that are similar to the image or use contrasting colors to make the image pop. I decided to use more of the yellow that I added to my pixel stretch and decided to have it gradient to a white. To pick your colors, use the color chooser and pick which colors you want. Once you have your colors selected, click on the gradient button. To apply the gradient, click and drag a line. A short line will have create a very sharp gradient going from one color to the other with a more obvious line. A long line will make a more gradual gradient which a softer division between the two colors. Play around with the direction of the gradient by dragging the line different directions.

If you didn't already, move the gradient behind the other layers in the layers panel.

This is a fun project that is very eye catching and doesn't take a very long time to do. You can get so creative with this process as well!