Create a PropagandaStyle Poster

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THE ART OF PROPAGANDA dates back to at least the Persian empire, which was a big thing in the Middle East 500 years BC. Evidence from further back is lost, mainly because of a lack of written records, but the idea of sending a simple message to as many people as possible is as old as mankind. Propaganda posters from the 20th century honed the idea, and frequently took simple messages and hammered them home, often using stereotypes, insults against enemies, and other low-down dirty tactics.

We’re not going to try any of that here, but we can use the format of the propaganda poster to create a striking image, and we can use Photoshop to create it from a couple of photos. By cutting down the color palette, and removing almost all detail from the image, we can create something that catches the eye and can be understood from a distance, without too much reading. Any text we use will be large, in a bold color, and be comprised of as few words as possible, to make it easier for the uneducated masses to absorb the message.

One thing we’ve left off the finished poster is the disclaimer, required under federal law, that the message is a paid advertisement. The campaign to elect MaximumPC’s executive editor to the office of president starts here! 1 CHOOSE SOME PHOTOS We’re aiming for a propaganda poster feel here, so are going to use a couple of faces. We’ve pulled some photos from a public domain image library, but you can use shots of your friends for a fun twist. Anything will do, as long as the faces are looking in roughly the right direction. 2 CREATE SECTIONS You need to chop the faces into sections [ Image A]. We find the most comfortable way to do this is with the Pen tool, creating paths on the image we can later load as selections, but if you prefer another method—a selection brush, for example— use that instead. Sections include the whole head and shoulders, just the shoulders, mouths, and any parts of the face that are strong in contrast, such as beards. We found it useful to put a guide across the image just below shoulder level (“View > Rulers,” then drag a guide from the horizontal ruler) to use as a baseline. Pull both images into the same document, on different layers, and line them up in the way you want to see in your final image before building up your selections—this saves trying to move groups of paths or selections around later. As paths and selections aren’t tied to layers, saving them means we can use them on any layer later. Save as a PSD, because there’s going to be a lot of layers, and Adobe’s format preserves them. 3 CHOOSE A COLOR SCHEME You’ll want a limited color scheme for this look— frequently reds, white, and blues, or the blue/ orange contrast that’s on every movie poster. British examples, particularly from the early 20th century, used a tan color, along with red and a darker brown, which is what we’re going to use here. Use the “Add to Swatches” button on the Color Picker to make it easier to find them later—you can also automatically add the colors to any Creative Cloud libraries you’ve got, so you could use the same colors in InDesign later, for example. 4 GRADIENTS We’re going to fill in the sections we created with gradients, using dark and light versions of the colors we chose [ Image B]. Try to get the darker parts to line up with shadows on the photographs, if you can. Create new layers for both faces, and load your paths as selections (or load your saved selections) one by one, creating a complete gradient head on each new layer. The Gradient tool shares a space on the toolbar with the

Paint Bucket, and blends between foreground and background colors. The length of the line you draw with the tool determines how quickly the colors blend, even when you’re painting across a selection, so keep it within the outline if you want both colors represented. This can take some time, and will show up the quality of your outlines and selections—you can always add more if you need to, and tidy up the edges with the Eraser. 5 UP THE NOISE We’ve placed a new background layer behind our painted people, on which there is a gradient blending between two of our chosen colors. We’ve also used “Free Transform” to slightly resize and rotate the faces so they’re the same size and looking the same way. We used the Brush and Eraser, plus Magic Wand in conjunction with “Clear” and “Content Aware Fill” to tidy up areas where the colors didn’t quite meet together. Then we added a noise layer over the top of everything by converting the two faces into Smart Objects, then running “Filter > Noise > Add Noise” on them both [ Image C]. By applying this as a Smart Filter, we can edit it again later if we want. 6 BACKGROUND AND MESSAGE As a final touch, we’ve taken a photo of a summer sky and placed it right at the top of the layer stack, changing its blend mode to “Multiply.” Then, just above the background layer, we’ve put a layer with a yellow flash on it. Still keeping within our color scheme, we’ve added a rectangle and some lettering, each going on a separate layer. The text is right in front, so it’s not made illegible by the blended photo. 7 FINISHING TOUCHES A quick crop to trim out the edges, and a final save in PSD format, and our message to the populace is ready to be hastily pasted on walls and store fronts all over the nation [ Image D].