Picture Worth A Thousand Words

This one was a lot of work! I had to start over a couple times, but I think it turned out pretty good. To start, I opened the original picture in a PhotoShop document and color corrected it using levels and curves. Next, I created tons of custom brushes of my name in another blank document using text, then define brush preset. After my brushes were created I selected the shadows and midtones of my image respectively and copied them each into their own layer, then made my midtones gray and my shadows black by going to edit, then fill. Then I combined them both into one layer, making a black and gray portrait. I created a new layer and made it white, then stamped my name brushes all over it. Then, I created another new layer, made it white, and moved it above the portraite layer so it could act as the white background. I selected all of the portraite layer and hit ctrl + C to copy it. Then I clicked on the name stamped layer and added a layer mask, then selected the mask and hit ctrl + V to paste the portrait onto it. I deselected it and inverted it (ctrl + I). I activated the name stamped layer so it showed through the portrait mask and my name showed through all over! I stamped some more where I didn't like how it looked, and used a soft brush to fill in some areas. I also created another layer above the masked layer and stamped a couple name brushes in random places to make it look different. For the colors, I selected the masked layer and gave it a gradient overlay in layer effects. I selected the screen blending mode and the rainbow color pattern. I had to try a couple times to get the overlay to work. For some reason the first time I tried it, the whole portrait layer just disappeared. Up to this point I'd followed the instruction on my own, but now I called Ms. Minkel for help. She didn't know what the problem was either, so I just started over. It worked like a charm the second time! I like how it turned out, but I think I could have taken a better picture to start with. I am glad that I got the color overlay to work, though, because I really like how that part looks. I had a lot of fun messing around with this project! It's a cool trick to learn.