Make your photos suck!
Sink your teeth into this spooky project and learn essential Affinity Photo skills
Why not transform your friends into fiendish vampires for Halloween? Not only is it a fun project to try on a dark night, it’s also a great introduction to some key toning and compositing tools in Affinity Photo.
An effect like this might seem complicated, but it’s much easier and quicker than it looks. With a cunning combination of textures and Blending Modes, we can ‘turn’ our subject in just a few minutes. Our supplied texture images can be used to create bloodshot eyes and give the skin a cracked, broken look. Then you can stretch out teeth into fangs with the Liquify command, and skew colours with a combination of Adjustment Layers.
We’ve supplied a portrait for you to practise on, but why not use your own photo as a starting point? All you need to do is photograph a person (with a suitably terrifying expression, and teeth on show) against a plain backdrop.
1 Get the grungy look
Click the Adjustment icon in the Layers Panel and choose Black & White, then click the Blending Mode dropdown and choose Luminosity. Drag down on Reds for grungy skin, then add a mask to hide any areas that look overly dark. Add a layer and change the Blending Mode to Soft Light for moody contrast, with Opacity at 50%. Add a third layer, then set Opacity to 20% to desaturate slightly.
2 Colour the eyes
Click the Add Pixel Layer icon in the Layers Panel then go to the Blending Mode dropdown and choose Color Dodge. Double-click the colour box to choose a colour for the iris – we’ve chosen red – then grab the Brush Tool, zoom in, and paint over them both. Use the ] and [ keys to resize your brush. If it’s too strong, try dropping the layer Opacity. If it’s too bright, try duplicating the layer and set the copy’s Blending Mode to Multiply.
3 Create fangs
Grab the Selection Brush and tick Snap To Edges, then paint to select one of the teeth. (Hold Alt and paint to subtract.) Press Ctrl/ Cmd+J to duplicate, then click the Liquify Persona. Use the Warp Tool to stretch the tooth into a fang. Click OK. Press Ctrl/Cmd+J to duplicate the tooth. Right-click over it, choose Transform > Flip Horizontal, and position over the other side. Add a Layer Mask and paint black to blend the fangs in.
4 Skin textures
Open Texture02, then copy and paste it into the portrait. Change the Blending Mode to Overlay. Grab the Move Tool and position the crack over the cheek, rotating the layer if necessary. Add a Layer Mask. Using a large, soft brush, paint with black to confine it to the cheek. Copy in Texture03, choose the Overlay Blending Mode, and paint another mask to confine it to the cheek.
5 Bloodshot eyes
Open Texture01 from the download. Copy and paste it into the portrait. Move it over the eye. Change the Blending Mode to Multiply. Alt-click the Layer Mask icon in the Layers Panel to add a mask. With the Brush Tool, paint with white over the whites of the eye. Duplicate the layer with Ctrl/ Cmd+J, then delete the mask, position over the teeth and paint another mask with a white brush.
6 Creepy colours
A final Curves layer at the top of the layer stack helps to control the brightness and contrast. Drag up on the curve line to lighten, and down to darken. You can also introduce colour shifts using the channels in Curves. Target Greens then drag up on the line, then target Blues and drag up. Make a new layer, then paint with black around the edges to make a vignette. Lower Opacity to suit.