Fake Tattoo Tutorial #2

Hey there!

Today’s Photoshop tutorial is going to be fun! Have you ever wanted to get a tattoo? (If you don’t already have one). Well now you can learn to create a virtual one! This lesson is short and easy

Step 1
Open up the image you want to place the tattoo on, it works better when the skin surface had some definition, or muscle. Now go to Image, Adjustments and then to Desaturate. Also, you’ll want to create a slight blur to it, so go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur, (o.4). This makes the tattoo look more natural. Save this as a new document, call it Desaturate, and then close it.

Step 2

Now open up that same image in it’s original as well as the image you’ve chosen to use as the tattoo. It’s important to note that the tattoo image must have a transparent background. Drag the tattoo to the area you want it displayed. Resize it on the skin to fit, (command-T on the Mac).

Step 3
There is two steps to this filter, go to Filter, Distort, and Displace. Type in the amount of horizontal and vertical scaling you want. I’m using 10 and 10, but yours may vary a bit. Press Ok, then select the Displacement image we made earlier, then Ok.

Step 4

This is the last step. Find the Tattoo layer blending mode and select Multiply, this will show some of the skin underneath, also it makes it appear more realistic if you turn the opacity down (between 70-80%).

Note: it’s optional to add a bit of little drop shadow. You can do this by double clicking on the tattoo layer to the layer styles and choosing drop shadow.

Now You Mum won’t freak when she see that it’s just a fake!

This is the end result.