How to create an Andy Warhol style image

Open the your image 

 Turn the image into a black and white image by going to Image > Mode > Grayscale (click to ‘discard colour information’ if the dialogue box pops up). 

 Go to your layers panel and right click on the layer to duplicate the layer twice. Call one of the new layers ‘Hair’ and the other one ‘Face’.

  Make sure you are working on the ‘Hair’ layer. Go to Image > Adjustments > Levels. Once the levels panel is open we need to make the hair have a stronger contrast between black and white so move the three sliders until you have values around 139, 0.53 and 215. You can experiment with these values until you feel you have a good strong contrast.

   

  The reason we have two layers (‘Hair’ and ‘Face’) is because having adjusted the contrast on the hair the contrast on the face isn’t what we need. We now need to work on the ‘Face’ layer so go to your Layers panel and deselect the eye symbol (layer visibility) on the ‘Hair’ layer so that the layer is no longer visible.

   Click on the ‘Face’ layer and repeat the process of adjusting the levels to get a good contrast. I found these values (44, 1.71 and 186) worked for the face but, again, experiment with these until you are happy with the contrast.

 Go to your layers panel and make the ‘Hair’ layer visible again. We now need to blend the two layers together so making sure you are working on the ‘Hair’ layer (as it should be the top layer) go to your tools on the left hand side and select the eraser tool.

  You now need to erase the face and body part of the ‘Hair’ layer 

What we are now seeing here is the hair from the ‘Hair’ layer and the face and body from the ‘Face layer’. You may find you need to increase or decrease the brush size of the eraser. You can do this using these two keys [ and ]. If you feel you have a harsh line where the hair meets the face try selecting another ‘grainy’ brush to make that edge seem more natural.

Once you have done this we need to make our image a colour one again so go to Image > Mode > RGB Colour. Click on ‘Don’t Merge’ when the prompt pops up.

 Go to your Layers panel and create a new layer (click on the menu button at the top right of the Layers panel and ‘New Layer’ is the top option). Name this layer Foreground. Make sure it is the top layer.

 Open in Photoshop the Colour Reference.jpg file

 Use the Eyedropper tool to select the orange colour from this file. Go back to your Gaga image, select the paint bucket tool and making sure you are on the ‘Foreground’ layer click on your image to fill the entire thing with orange.

 Go to your layers panel and click on the drop down menu that should currently say ‘Normal’. Change this to ‘Multiply’ 

15. Create a new layer and call it ‘Hair 2’. Deselect the visibility on your ‘Foreground’ layer so that the orange can’t be seen.

16. Go back to the colour reference file and using the eyedropper select the yellow. Go back to the Gaga image, select the paintbrush tool and make the brush size relatively thick using the [  ] keys to adjust the brush size.

 You then need to colour in Gaga’s hair 

 Go to the drop down list on the layers panel again and change ‘Normal’ to ‘Multiply’.

 Create another new layer and name this one ‘Face 2’. Again make sure it is the top layer. Repeat steps 16, 17 and 18 but this time deselect the visibility of the ‘Hair 2’ layer so it can’t be seen, pick up the pink from the colour reference file using the Eyedropper and instead of colouring in her hair do her face and body.

Toggle the visibility of your ‘Hair 2’ layer so that it can’t be seen and then select the ‘Foreground’ layer. We then need to delete some of this layer so select the eraser tool and erase the orange that covers her face and body.

 We then need to delete the hair section. Select the ‘Hair 2’ layer and click on the eye so that is visible and then using the Magic Wand tool select everything outside of the hair shape by simply clicking anywhere on the background of the image.

Once you have selected everything outside of the hair shape go to the menus at the top and go Select > Inverse. This should select the hair shape. Click on the ‘Foreground’ layer on your Layers panel and press delete. This should delete the section of the orange foreground that was covering your yellow hair.

 Deselect the visibility of the ‘Face 2’ layer so that you can see the pink colour. At this stage you may notice that you have some slight overlaps around the edges of the different colours. Take some time to use a combination of the eraser tool and the paintbrush tool to tidy these up (working on the relevant layers). It doesn’t have to be perfect as it is aiming for a screen-printed look. 

 Create two new layers. Call the first one ‘Lips’ and the second one ‘Eyes’.

 Select the ‘Face’ layer (not ‘Face 2’) and click on the selection tool (Rectangular Marquee Tool). 

Select the area around the lips but be careful not to select any other parts of the face shading…

 Go to the menus at the top of your screen, go Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast. Up both brightness and contrast to about 80.

 Go to your colour reference file and using the Eyedropper tool select the red colour.

 Go back to the Gaga image and select the ‘Lips’ layer if you’re not already on it. Then using the Paintbrush tool colour in her lips. Once done go to the layers panel and change ‘Normal’ to ‘Multiply’ as you did on the other layers earlier.

 Press CMD + D to deselect the area.

Click on the ‘Face 2’ layer and using the Eraser tool erase the pink from her teeth.

Click on the ‘Eyes’ layer. Go to the Colour Reference file and using the eyedropper select the blue. Go back to the Gaga image.

Using the paintbrush tool draw the blue around her eyelids.

3 And then once again on your layers panel change ‘Normal’ to ‘Multiply’. Your Andy Warhol style image should now be complete and end up looking something like this ...