How to shrink body parts in Adobe Photoshop CC using liquify

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Course contents
SECTION: 11
Smart Objects 9:03
SECTION: 16
Artboards 20:14

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Course info

93 lessons / 12 hours 20 projects Certificate of achievement

Overview

Course Overview

Hi there, my name is Dan Scott. I am an Adobe Certified Instructor (ACI) for Photoshop. 

In this course I will teach you everything you need to know about getting started with Photoshop.  

This course is for beginners. You do not need any previous knowledge of Photoshop, photography or design. We will start right at the beginning and work our way through step by step. 

You will learn the Photoshop 'secret sauce' whereby we will magically enhance our background and when necessary completely remove people from images.

By the end of this course you'll posess super skills! 
  • Learn the skills to mask anything… including the dreaded hair. 
  • Using your amazing new masking skills, you will be able to clearcut images.
  • You will learn how to make type interactive. 
  • Together we will look at popular current visual styles and learn the tools and tricks necessary to recreate them. 
  • There is a fun section where you will learn how to distort, transform and manipulate images
  • We will create our own graphics using simple techniques from scratch. 
  • I will teach you to retouch photographs like a professional.. 
  • Finally - any good Photoshop user should know how to put an island inside a bottle! 

There are exercise files available to download so that you can follow along with me in the videos. There are lots of assignments I will set so that you can practice the skills you have learned. 

If you have never opened Photoshop before or you have already opened Photoshop and are struggling with the basics, follow me and together we will learn how to make beautiful images using Photoshop.

Course duration 8 hours 35 mins + your study.

Get the completed files here.


Awarded the Best Photoshop Course by Learnopoly in 2023

Daniel Scott

Daniel Scott

Founder of Bring Your Own Laptop & Chief Instructor

instructor

I discovered the world of design as an art student when I stumbled upon a lab full of green & blue iMac G3’s. My initial curiosity around using the computer to create ‘art’ developed into a full-blown passion, eventually leading me to become a digital designer and founder of Bring Your Own Laptop.

Sharing and teaching are a huge part of who I am. As a certified Adobe instructor, I've had the honor of winning multiple Adobe teaching awards at their annual MAX conference. I see Bring Your Own Laptop as the supportive community I wished for when I was first starting out and intimidated by design. Through teaching, I hope to bring others along for the ride and empower my students to bring their stories, labors of love, and art into the world.
True to my Kiwi roots, I've lived in many places, and currently, I reside in Ireland with my wife and kids.

Certificates

We’re awarding certificates for this course!

Check out the How to earn your certificate video for instructions on how to earn yours and click the available certificate levels below for more information.

How to earn your certificate

Work your way towards your certificate for this course by following these simple steps.

  • Watch the course videos
  • Complete the Class Projects - look out for the videos marked with
  • Upload your class projects into the My Projects area in your account
  • Complete and pass the Knowledge Quiz (Merit level courses only)
  • Complete the Distinction Certificate Project (Distinction level courses only) - look out for the video marked with
  • Upload your Distinction project to the My Projects area in your account
  • Request your certificate when you've completed the requirements for the certificate level you're working towards

Good luck!

Pass certificates

We’re awarding ‘Pass’ level certificates for this course.

You can work your way towards your ‘Pass’ certificate by following these simple steps.

  • Watch the course videos
  • Complete the Class Projects - look out for the videos marked with
  • Upload your class projects into the My Projects area in your account
  • Don’t forget to request your certificate when all your projects are complete

Good luck!

Downloads & Exercise files

Transcript

Hi there, this video is all about moving body parts around. We are going to move his belly in and his biceps out. So much easier than the gym, we're going to use the Liquify Tool in Photoshop. Let's get started, let's go to 'File', and open up 'Liquify 01'. Whatever you do don't open up 02 yet, it's a surprise for later. 
Before we get started it's best to right click the background and convert to a Smart Object. Just means that later on we can turn this Filter on and off otherwise it's distorted forever. With that Layer selected let's go to 'Filter', and let's go to 'Liquify'. So before we get started, I love that this technology, like I love that it can do it, like it's amazing that Photoshop can do it. I also acknowledge that I spent a lot of time teaching people at magazines. How to retouch models, and how to kind of remove the folds and rolls that we all have. I don't know, there's a little bit of awkwardness around retouching bodies. 
So what ends up happening is, Liquify is this kind of separate little window here. So you kind of work within this window when we're liquefying. The first tool we use is this one here called Forward Warp. In terms of the brush size you can drag it over here. I'm just using the same technique we used earlier on, the square brackets. I'm going to pick a nice big brush, something like 500. I'm going to click, hold, and slowly drag. It's best to do little bits at a time so you get a feel for the tool. If you try and drag it all in one go it ends up looking a little bit more fake than this does. 
So we're just kind of clicking, dragging little steps, little baby steps. Just to tidy in. Now I'm going to make my brush a little bit smaller because I want to kind of effect this bit. I'm trying to get it flat. How good is it? Actually we want him to be-- let's get him right in there. You're welcome, buddy. So turn Preview on and off down here to kind of see how it was before, and how it is now. There are going to be some problems in this one. There's kind of like folds of the skin here that we just can't get rid of with the Liquify Tool. We can get rid of it with the Healing Brush which we'll do in an upcoming video. So maybe double back to this guy. And what am I doing with them? I'm just kind of-- I feel like I've invaded his personal space now. 
It's fine with the belly but it's not anymore, anyway. The Ford Warp is a nice easy one. I'm going back to a big brush. I'm just going to kind of push this bit in. It's better to use a big brush in just small movements, than like small brushes that ends up looking quite obvious what you're up to. So remember, before, and after. Let's look at some of the other tools, let's look at this one here first. So this is one called Pucker, and Bloat. Pucker makes things smaller, so I'm going to use a brush size. You can play around with things like the Density and Rate, just how much it affects, by default. Photoshop have got it pretty good but you can mess around with that if it's kind of going too fast or too slow for you. 
I'm going to click once on his nipple. Click a couple times, can you see, it does make a little smaller. I'm going to make that bit a little smaller and I'll grab the 'Bloat Tool'. What do we want bigger? We're going to give him big muscles, so a nice big brush, and around the bicep area, I'm just clicking. Once, you can see, it just gets fractionally bigger. I'm just double clicking, triple clicking, trying to give him some bigger biceps. Same width, I make it slightly smaller for his triceps, make them bit bulgier. There's a point where it starts looking really fake. As in this skin, and all of its texture becomes a bit overdone. So you got to be careful. We're just messing about here, so we're not too worried. 
We're going a little bit overboard. Let's give him some big forearms. Let's pop out his chest just a little bit. I'll show you two other features. There's lots in here, can get quite complicated but let's stick to the stuff that's easy, and that you'll use most of the time. There's these two here which are quite useful, there's this thing called Freeze, and Thaw. So hit 'Freeze', pick a brush size, let's say, I'm going to click on his nipple, make it go red. I've clicked it a couple of times. All that means is that when I start using other tools, say the Ford Warp, I got a big brush. Watch what happens if I start dragging, it kind of like-- it's called Freeze, so it freezes. All right, so I pause that. Enough of my eternal laughter. 
All right, we're back though. You get the idea what it does, right? So I'm going to undo using 'Edit', 'Step Backward'. It just freezes particular areas. Say it might be like a logo that's on a shirt and you're trying to distort the fabric. So I keep the logo frozen while you're distorting around it. And when you finish, see the Thaw button here? You click on that, and just color it out, and now it's back to normal.
Now the last thing I'll show you is this tool up here. It's called the Reconstruct Tool. Basically it's like an undo brush, or a history brush. So I'm going to make a bit bigger, all its going to do is-- remember this is my original. This is where it's at now, if I paint across stuff you can see, it's going to kind of put it back to where it was. So it's a brush that allows you to kind of undo as a brush rather than going Step Backward. I'm going to Step Backward, and let's just say-- I was working on about this, but just looks a bit weird so I'm going to click and hold and put it back to where it was. When you are finished, you can click 'OK'. 
The cool thing about it is that Liquify is something I can turn on and off. A little bit stressful on your machine though but we are professionals now, we're using Smart Objects, and in turn using Smart Filters on top of them. Your homework is going to be opening up 'Liquify 02'. That is my gift to you today, open it up, and enjoy the experience. I will see you in the next video, if you come back. Bye now.

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