First thing we need to do is extract the photo we want to work with into photoshop.

A good way to extract the photo is by using the pen tool and zoom in by 400% and by fine tuning you can draw up the exact picture you want to extract.

A quicker way of doing this but also more sloppy is by going to filter -> extract where you will get an extract dialogue. By using the highlighter tool you can highlight the areas of the picture you want to extract.

Choose a relatively small brush size, approx 15 will give you fairly good results. Go for smaller brushes for more accuracy. Another point you want to keep in mind is the colour of the brush on your photoshop. Try to choose a colour different than your picture so it will be easier to distinguish it. Once you choose the brush size start drawing round the perimeter of your picture. For smaller details is advisable to choose smaller brush size. So you basically will draw and outline the perimeter and all the edges of your object. Insist on smaller details to get higher detail.

Tip! Fill in the inside non highlighted areas of your object with a solid blue colour. Use the fill tool on the left hand side of your photoshop interface for this. The result should look like this:

Use the preview tool on your right hand side to get an idea of what your picture is gonna look like when you extract it.

Even though at this stage it looks rather messy we can fix that by using the “history brush tool” that restores the original look of your image before you extract it.

To apply the history brush tool we need to fill in the background layer with a striking colour like red, and use this brush to restore the edges that got messy during the extraction.

In this example we are zooming in the finger of our object and apply the “history brush” to restore the original look of our edges.

The more you zoom the longer it will take but the more accurate your picture will look in the end.

Once you are done with smoothing out your edges we can begin with turning our picture into a statue.

1. The first thing we need to do is getting rid of the background colour by clicking on Image -> Adjustments -> Saturation and bring saturation all the way down to zero. This will take the colour out of your statue, turning into a greyish looking preview of your statue.

2. The next thing we need to take care of is the hair. Since hair give away the real life nature of your object. So we are gonna grey out the hair as well into the same shade as the rest of the stone looking statue. In order to lighten up the hair colour we are gonna use the Dodge Tool which is placed on the left hand sidebar of your photoshop interface. Just under the Fill Tool.

By clicking and dragging over the hair we notice straight away that the hair start lightening up. You can use the Dodge tool wherever else you have darker colour standing out in order to blend them in. Feel free to use bigger brush on your Dodge tool in order to evenly fade out large areas of your image.

3. Next step is to bring in some “noise”. In order to do that we are gonna go to Filter -> Noise -> Add Noise and start playing around with the amount of noise we wanna add. As a rule of thumb 4% should be enough for a statue looking image.

4. Last thing we are gonna do is use the Burn tool to add some shadows, which will give our statue a sense of depth by darkening up those areas where shadows would be. In short the areas that are hiding under the light. You may bring the brush size down a bit to add some shadow wrinkles on the clothes of your statue. Make some corrections if needed by using the dodge tool once again.

Finally choose an appropriate background and throw your statue on top of it and the result should look like this!

Try to find your own funny ways of applying this cool effect to play around with your Photoshop!

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