Shiny Dress Tutorial

The beginning steps of this tutorial are the same as my Gradient Dress tutorial, so if you have completed that successfully, this should prove no problem. This is a rather hit and miss technique and works well with lots of experimentation.
NOTE We are going to be using a Plug-in for this tutorial. Before you begin, you will need to download Harry's Filters from here & install them. If you have not used Plug-ins before, I strongly recommend you read the Introductions to Plugins for beginners on the above site.

1. Open the base you are going to use. I usually give mine a white background to work with. Create a new layer named Base Dress. Select the Paintbrush tool with a size of 1.	2. For this tutorial, I am going to make the base dress a grey colour, but please feel free to experiment.	3. Choose palette colour number 1 and draw the outline of the dress. It always helps to Zoom in on the image while you do this. Don't worry if it's a bit messy, we'll clean it up in the next step.
before after
4. Choose the Eraser tool and set the size to 1. Zoom in on your image and erase any extra pixels - you want the dress to be 1 pixel think at all points. Also make sure that the lines of the dress are smooth, get rid of any ugly bumps by deleting and redrawing sections.	5. Select the number 2 colour from your palette and Flood Fill the interior of your dress.	6. Click on the Magic Wand tool. Click on the area outside of the dress. When this is selected, go to Selections/Save to Alpha Channel. Click on OK and on the New Channel screen, type in Dress Outline and OK This is will save the selection and we won't have to keep selecting it again.

7. Create a New Layer and name it Dress Shading. Pick colour 1 from the palette. Select the Airbrush tool with a Size of about 5, Hardness of 0, Opacity of about 60% and Density of 100.	8. Airbrush the shading on to the doll. Pay particular attention to the folds at the bottom of the dress and the shape of the body. Don't go over the top and don't worry if you go over the edges.	9. Select the Retouch tool. Choose Smudge from the drop down list and enter approximately the settings above

10. Now, carefully, start smudging the shading you made before. It's a lot easier than it seems at first, just take your time. Smudge the dress folds downwards to begin with...	11. ...then upwards to shape them.	12. Continue in this way, smudging up, down and sometimes across until you are happy with the way it is blended. Take you time and watch how the folds develop.

13. When you are happy, go to Selections/Load from Alpha Channel. Load Dress Outline. Press Delete on your keyboard to delete the excess blur, then press CTRL+D to drop the selection. Your doll should now look something like this so far. If you are not happy with the shading, you can always smudge some more, add some more, delete some more etc until you are satisfied.	14. If you are happy, we are now ready to add the highlight. Create a new layer called Dress Highlight. Use the Airbrush with the same settings as before, only make the size 2 to draw on some highlights.	15. As with the shading, use the Retouch tool to smudge the highlight downwards. You may want to change the Size down to around 5. Then start smudging upwards and from side to side or around the curves, as necessary.

16.To delete any excess highlight that has gone over the edge, go to Selections/Load from Alpha Channel. Load Dress Outline. Press Delete on your keyboard. Your doll should look something like this.	17. We now want to create a merged copy of our dress. Press SHIFT+D to Duplicate your image.	18. Go to the duplicate image. Hide all layers except for those to do with the dress i.e. base dress, dress shading & dress highlight

19. Right-click on one of the visible layers and choose Merge/Merge Visible from the menu. You will now have a layer called Merged which contains your whole dress.	20. Press CTRL+C to copy this layer. Go back to your original image and press CTRL+L to paste as a new layer. Move the layer into place.	21. On the Layers Palette double-click on the new layer and rename it Merged Dress.

22. Go to Layers/Duplicate. Hide Merged Dress and all the other dres layers so that only the base and Copy of Merged Dress are visible.	23. Now we get to the exciting bit! Go to Effects/Plug-in Filters/Harry's Filters/Harry's Filters. If you do not have this, take a look at my note at the top of the page. Choose Color and Col@rize from the two drop down lists.

24. You can be sensible and use the sliders, but I'm a big fan of the Random buttom. Press this until you like the look of the preview and then apply. Try to make your choice quite a dark colour. Your doll should be looking something like this so far. Rename this layer after the colour of the dress (e.g. Purple Dress).	25. On the layer palette, duplicate the layer Merged Dress again and drag it to above the layer from step 16.	26. Apply Harry's Filter to the new layer, go for a lighter colour this time. Name this layer after the colour of the dress (e.g. Green Dress).

27. Set the layer blend mode of the latest layer to Dodge.	28. Drop the Opacity of this layer until the dress looks good. You may need to repeat steps 24 - 26 a few times until you get a good combination of colours. Remember, you can create as many layers as you like, just hide the ones you're not using at the moment.	29. If you like the dress as it is, you can leave it now. I like to play around a bit though. Repeat steps 17 - 20, this time merging your 2 layers with the filters applied - e.g. Purple Dress and Green Dress - and paste this merged dress as a new layer on you original image. You may want to rename it to make it a little less confusing.

30. If you find that your new, merged layer is too light or dark, go to Colours/Adjust/Gamma Correction and move the sliders until you are happy.	31. Duplicate you newest layer and apply Harry's Filter again. Set the Layer Blend Mode to Dodge and drop the opacity. If you get a bit braver, also try his Add Color, Color Mood and from Artistic, Color Cocktail and Atmospherizer. There is no right or wrong way to do this, just have fun.	32. Play around as much as you like until you find something you like - or just keep all of them! I guarantee you will find this very addicting!

Your finished doll!
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