Solid Gold Famke

by Marcelo Gomes

In this tutorial, I'll be showing you how to make a cool gold effect. You can also make silver, copper anything or metallic with this technique.

You will need Photoshop 4.0 or higher and some experience using Photoshop layers and filters. The same techniques can be used with other paint packages and hopefully you'll be able to find the analogous tools in your software. Let's turn Famke Janssen into gold!!!


First, make a selection over the part you want to turn into gold. Try using the lasso selection. It's the best one in this case.		Using CTRL+C and CTRL+V, you will get a new layer like this one.		The lasso tool.


Now, it's time to use Curves in this new layer. It will look really strange at first, but it will get better.		Using the Image/adjust/curves. Adjust it to get a metallic effect over the picture.


Time to use Image/adjust/hue/saturation. This is a great tool to make silver or gold or any other color effect. Use the settings above to make it silver. DON'T FORGET TO CHECK COLORIZE!!!		Use the settings above to make it gold. DON'T FORGET TO CHECK COLORIZE!!!


The curves effect is not perfect, so let's use the smudge tool (finger) to make the gold look softer.		Using Brightness/contrast to give more contrast. I've used the following values: -2, +50


Made some adjustments with lines and smudge. Copy the gold layer and turn the new one into MULTIPLY mode. That's only to make the gold more bright, you don't have to use it with if you think it's not necessary.		Here's where you turn the layer into MULTIPLY. Make OPACITY: 70.


Let's create a new selection, this time to make a shadow over the gold, to make it look more realistic.		Paint it with black, them use filters/gaussian blur (value=3).


Duplicate the shadow layer. The first one (bottom) is mode: normal and 50% opaque. The second (top) is mode: overlay and 40% opaque.		How to turn the shadow layer into overlay mode.

Here's the final image, flatten it to use a filter/lens flare to give a glow effect. Use lines and smudge tool to fix some details.

Marcelo Gomes is a frequent contributor to the Digital Concept Gallery and an all-around nice guy. He's constantly adding to his impressive line of X-Men images and recently launched his X-Men 2 Fan Art website. The website showcases his artwork and includes downloadable X-Men wallpaper and some impressive forays into Flash animation.

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