This is a quick tutorial on how I created the stencil effect for the poster.

Quick Steps

• Select background (expand and smooth your selection).
• Fill with white.
• Black and white (not an adjustment layer) your photo and up the contrast.
• Merge the photo w/ the background.
• Make your photo a smart object.
• Apply Gaussian Blur and Cutout(In that order).
• Tweak both filters (every photo is different).
• Live Trace it in illustrator to and color each shape.
• Expand and Tweak the trace.

Detailed Steps
Select background (smooth the edges out)
Using your favorite selection tool to select the background of your image. Smooth out your selection by going to Select>Refine Edge and use the smooth slider to smooth out your edges.

It also helps to contract your selection a bit this creates a darkened border around your subject.

Fill with White
Fill your Selection with white.

Black and white (not an adjustment layer) your photo and up the contrast
You have to use the Image>Adjustment menu for this step because you want the filters applied in later steps to affect the edited version of the image and not the original. Not the best practice to completely destroy your image but a necessary one.

Merge the photo w/ the background
Fairly self-explanatory when you apply the filters to the image you want to make the entire image reside on one layer.

Make your photo a smart object
Go to Filters>Convert for Smart Filters to make your image a smart object this will let you adjust filters to get the best image later.

Apply Gaussian Blur and Cutout(In that order)
I used about 4px Gaussian blur. For the cutout I used 3 levels with 0 edge simplicity and 3 edge fidelity. If your image doesn’t have enough detail and is muddy, try taking down Gaussian blur. If your image has to much detail for you take the blur for edge simplicity up.

Tweak both filters (every photo is different)
If your image doesn’t have enough detail and is muddy, try taking down Gaussian blur. If your image has to much detail for you take the blur for edge simplicity up.

Live Trace it in illustrator to and color each shape.
Open your image in Illustrator and release the crop area and delete it. Also get rid of any clipping masks ect. Then go to Object>Live Trace>Tracing options. You can use my settings below or find your own.

Expand and Tweak
Live Trace is hardly ever perfect, by expanding your trace you can tweak individual paths. Go to Object>Expand and then click OK. Now you have all the individual paths for your tweaking pleasure.

Make a shape like a square or circle.

To start out make a simple shape in Illustrator, like a circle or a square. I’m using a circle with a 1pt black line.

Next select and run Spiderweb from the Scritpographer Console.

Just like the last tutorial select and run Spiderweb. If you can find the Scriptographer window just go up to Window > Scriptographer > Main and it should pop up.

The Spiderweb options panel

after running hte script you should see this options panel. Here is a breakdown on the options

• point distance : This is the distance between the starting spots of the “strands” of the web.
• use curves : If this is checked the “strands” will be curved like in the thumbnail for this post
• Remove original path : If this is checked the original path that you created back at the start will disappear
• use random stroke width : if checked this will generate random widths for all the strands between the min and max width.
• minimum stroke width : the minimum width of strokes if the random stroke widths box is checked
• maximum stroke width : the maximum width of strokes if the random stroke widths box is checked

once  you get your options set click “ok” and watch the web generate.

Spiderweb

As you can see I used curves and random stroke widths. You can just expand the shape once you are done to alter the individual lines by going to Object > Expand.

Have fun!

Look for another Scriptographer tut next sometime next week.

basics

download and install

you can download Scriptographer for free here and then follow the installation instructions to get started. Once you get it installed go ahead and grab the four scripts that I’ll be using here.

• text pencil
• crowdomatic
• spiderweb
• fadenGraydiExplosionpack

Place these scripts in the folder with the other scriptographer scripts, again they have instructions at their website here.

Text Pencil

drawing with words

Text pencil is the script that got me interested in scriptographer right from the start. It lets you define a set of words and then you get to draw out shapes using those words.

When you open illustrator if you don’t see the scriptographer window go to Window > Scriptographer > Main to get it open.

The window should look like the image below.

Then select text pencil from the script list and click run, this should open the text pencil interface and let you control the font size and what you are saying. Remember to click “refresh text” when you are done.

Next you want to define which of the tools you are going to assign text pencil tool to these are the ** and // buttons at the bottom of the scriptographer interface.

Then click that tool from the illustrator tool bar and you are ready to go.

If you get lost you can always use the drop down from the text pencil interface to get back to the letter you want.

And your done.

Later that same week she emailed me this wonderful link explaining how to setup and Illustrator document with bleed using clipping masks and stacked layers.

Preview in Illustrator with Bleed