How to Recreate Barack Obama Posters
- Thread starter lhmaloney
- Start date
Kyle Stebbins
AD GURU
A great deal of time was spent on these designs. In other words, it won't be possible to just apply some filter and get this kind of result. The cool thing about the Obama poster is that it is 100% vector. You could blow this image up 10,000x and it would still look wonderful.
I would approach this in Illustrator.
Live Trace your original image and adjust the threshold as necessary. From there, use your pen tool to draw the shapes around your face following the contour of your skin.
If given the option I would certainly not attempt this in Photoshop. In fact, I would probably not use Photoshop at all.
You can use the pen tool in Photoshop but you will sacrificing the necessary features to tweak it to look just right. Not to mention, you won't be able to live trace anything in PS.
I would approach this in Illustrator.
Live Trace your original image and adjust the threshold as necessary. From there, use your pen tool to draw the shapes around your face following the contour of your skin.
If given the option I would certainly not attempt this in Photoshop. In fact, I would probably not use Photoshop at all.
You can use the pen tool in Photoshop but you will sacrificing the necessary features to tweak it to look just right. Not to mention, you won't be able to live trace anything in PS.
Last edited:
oneinfiniteloop
Veteran
Just place your picture into Illustrator and draw with the pen tool. Trace the shapes, shadows, etc. There are some good tut's at www.gomediazine.com for this kind of stuff. Also, the artist that did the poster you posted is Shepherd Fairey, check out his work at www.obeygiant.com.
Matt Grunau
Adobe Demigod
Illustrator would be best, but for this kind of very simple design with no gradients simple sold color for positive and negative space, you could certainly use the pen tool in Photoshop to create custom shape layers with the wanted fills.
Michael T
Well-known member
Matt I agree with you that photoshop would be fine for this kind of project but if you need to blow up the final image to many different sizes then I would use Illustrator.
Vector is a great thing with art when the need to change size is a must. If your doing just one size then Photoshop will work also.
Vector is a great thing with art when the need to change size is a must. If your doing just one size then Photoshop will work also.
Zak Forsman
Major Contributor
oneinfiniteloop
Veteran
That's a pretty sloppy result for that tutorial. Plus, you do all that Photoshop work posterizing it when it's completely unnecessary. You can just draw guidelines across the face with the pen tool in Illustrator and use those. Check out this tutorial below, it's much better and helps you understand the process better.
http://www.gomediazine.com/tutorials/holiday-vector-pinup-tutorial/
Kyle Stebbins
AD GURU
Nice, Zak. This tut is fantastic...
Though I do feel like its a bit excessive and boasts some unnecessary steps. - However, it is a much better tut than anything I've ever put together.
I would like to echo.
Illustrator Illustrator Illustrator.
Honestly, beyond setting certain levels, I don't think Photoshop is necessary at all.
You can do almost anything with Photoshop for RGB... but if you are making something for print... PLEASE PLEASE PLEEEEEASE don't rely on PS.
oneinfiniteloop
Veteran
That is somewhat of an erroneous statement. Photoshop can be just just fine for print. It's a matter of knowing what you're doing. Yes, vectors are scalable, but there is plenty of print stuff that is done all in PS.
On topic, I guess it depends on what people what the final result to be. The way they used PS in that tutorial to posterize the image is pure laziness and completely unnecessary, but for people who want quick results with no regard to the final result and/or process, I guess it works. Ripping off the look of someone else's artwork without having any idea of what you're doing is flat out stupid, IMO.