Shepard Fairey: Hope Campaign Poster Technique in Photoshop

Shepard Fairey's original poster.

Original Image of John Lennon.

In Photoshop:

- Open Desired Portait

- Use the Magnetic Lasso tool to cut out the model in your chosen portrait. Then use the Quick Selection tool+ to correct any rough edges/missed edges. 

- Add a mask. Then select the thumbnails in layers panel instead of the Mask.

- Add Levels adjustment layer so that you can adjust the contrast. With this image of John Lennon, change the first number to 32, the middle number to 0.72 and the third number to 198.

- Save as a PSD file.

In Illustrator:

- Open the Shepard Fairey Hope template.

- Select the "Top Blue" layer. Go to the File drop down menu and click Place. Insert the PSD file you saved of your portrait and make it the right size, and place it in the position you want. 

- Keep portrait selected. Click the Object drop down menu and Rasterise it, but change the background to transparent. 

- Go to the Effects drop down menu, click on Artistic and then Cut Out. Change the number of levels to 2, change the Edge Simplicity to 5, and Edge Fidelity to 1 and click OK.

- Go to the Object Drop Down menu and rasterise the image again, but this time make the background White. 

- Click Image Trace at the top of the screen and press OK.

- Open the Image Trace panel and change the Threshold to 100

- Click Expand (On same tool bar as the Image Trace Panel)

- Select the Magic Wand Tool (or press Y on a Mac). Select the White Background of the portrait and delete. 

- Change to the Selection tool (Black Arrow) and select your portrait.

- Use the Eyedropper Tool to select Dark Blue from the colour swatches (Reference Image Layer) 

- Lock all layers apart from the "Top Blue" layer.

- Use the Direct Selection tool (White Arrow) and use it to select any part of the portrait that over-laps onto the border and click delete. 

- Use the same tool to delete any Red patches in the model of your portrait's hair, and click delete twice. (Optional - Delete all, none, or just a few)

- Use the Selection tool (Black Arrow) to select the portrait. 

- Click on the Eraser tool and use it to smooth out any rough edges of the model's face

- Lock all layers apart from "Top Red"

- Use the Eraser tool to rub away some the Red colour on the left side of the model's face, and the background on the left-hand side. 

- Unlock "Middle Blue" and lock the "Top Red" layer and use the Eraser to remove some of the Top Blue. 

- Now lock the "Middle Blue" layer, and unlock the "Lines Texture" layer. Use the Eraser tool as before. 

- Unlock the text layer, and change to desired text. 

Finished Result from John Lennon Portrait.