Draft time is around the corner and that means it's jersey change season. I thought this year I'd share a few of my tricks for those who want to give jersey changing a go. This isn't the be all and end all of course there are many ways to do jersey changes, this is just how I do it. I've written this assuming you have at least a basic knowledge of photoshop and it's tools. Enjoy! PART 1: Prep 1. Firstly, find a good looking image (preferably good quality - not too pixelated). I always try to choose images that require the least amount of work, obviously you don't want to kill yourself doing this. So look for guys in common football positions and preferably in their white jerseys. Black (or dark jerseys) tend to lose their shading when you lighten it to aqua/teal and it looks fake. That being said, for this example I'm going to be using a dark jersey Gibril Wilson as it was the best pic I could find. 2. Now the "cheaty" part. If you've chosen a pic in a common position/stance this part will be a lot easier. For helmets: You'll need to find a good quality pic of a guy in a phins helmet. This can generally be any player but try to keep it as close to the actual helmet the changing player uses as possible. For numbers: Ideally you want to find a pic of a player with that number. ie: Travis Minor had 28 for a while. This is usually the hardest part as the numbers follow the jersey folds. So this is where it's most important to find a pic in the same position/stance. If you can't find an ideal "28" you can always look for a "2" and an "8" this allows you to broaden your search a lot more but you won't necessarily get the right look positional wise. You may need more than 3 pics for this as you have to also get the sleeve numbers and sleeve logos. If you want to get super picky (which I usually do) you can also look for images that have similar colouring (this may save you time later). These are the pics I am using to complete my jersey change. PART 2: Process 1. Open the image you want to change and duplicate the main layer. You don't want to lose the original image "just in case" you make a mistake and need it again. It's just safer this way. 2. Use the polygonal lasso to outline the existing numbers. Then select the clone stamp tool and using the bits of jersey around the numbers clone stamp them out. Try to keep roughly the same shading so it flows better. 3. You only need to do this if you're using a coloured jersey that isn't the phins ie: White or Aqua/teal. Use the polygonal lasso tool to highlight the jersey area. Go to "Image > adjustments > hue/saturation" then click the "colorize" box and adjust the levers so you get a rough phins jersey colour. It doesn't have to be exact just close enough to look like a phins jersey. Don't worry if it runs over the edge a little as you'll most likely be cutting the player out so you can fix it then. 4. Now open the other images you will be taking the numbers and logos from and start copying and pasting. Use the polygonal lasso cut them out. Remember to keep them as layers, do not flatten them. 5. If you pasted the numbers and logos from a rough cut, take this time to neaten them up using a hard edge eraser. 6. Zoom out and take a look at how it's going. I suggest doing this regularly. 7. Open the image you are going to use for the helmet. I find when I do this that it is easer for me to only use the helmet and recolour the existing facemask. This, imo, gives the most realistic look. Again don't worry too much if it doesn't line up exactly with the existing helmet, just so long as it look realistic enough you will be fine. 8. Now repeat step 3 on the remainder of the player. Ie: for the gloves, pants, socks and shoes. PART 3: Finishing 1. Once you've done all the above you can move on to tweaking the layers to get the most realistic effect you can. Ie: if a number is too bright I just reduce the opacity, if it's too dull I adjust that layer's brightness and contrast etc etc etc... This is probably the most fiddley part of the whole exercise but you'll see much better results if you take the time to do it. 2. Once you've finished tweaking compare it to an actual phins player image and see if there are any details you have missed. For me it was the small "Dolphins" logo on the chest, every little thing counts. 3. You're done. Now you can make your sig! Let me know if you have any questions.
Awesome tutorial DM, thanks. Jersey changes are something I've never tried in photoshop, they're difficult to pull off. Great work here, and nice job on the tutorial.
you know, when I wrote that I thought there's only one person I know on the boards that may have a problem with that sentence... no prizes for guessing who I thought that might be
great job DM. maybe next time add a few steps that dont exist. like maybe after step 3, have your neighbor punch you in the kidney. or after step five, sprinkle magic fairy dust on your keyboard. just throw something crazy in there so dumbasses like lucky will read it and say, "ah ha, i knew there was something tricky involved."
I'm with you Lucky. Seriously, this is all Greek to me. I'd love to have the talent you guys have, but I'm just stuck out here with this monster, called a computer.
ur pants dont look quite natural either, in comparison to the jersey numbers on the chest. duplicate just the pants, then put then new set off pants directly over the other ones, and set the filter to Overlay or soft light, then adjust the opacity until it looks natural. oh, and nice job on the socks.
Yeah, I would say that college players would be a little bit harder than other pro players. It's definitely one of those "work on it and you'll only get better" type deals. Thanks for the advice.
Can someone explain more about the helmet? Are you using the lasso tool to cut out the helmet? Or are you clone stamping it over the existing helmet? How do you keep the face underneath so good if you're clone stamping? The helmet seems to me to be the hardest part of the whole thing...I'm not patient enought to cut out the facemask part of the helmet...LOL>
depends on the helmet you are changing from... sometimes i just find a dolphins helmet of the same angle and the previous picture and size it up.... sometimes it is hard to change the colors to the white dolphins helmet
I would use the lasso tool. I keep the facemask from the original picture and just hue/saturate it until it's the right colour (or as close to the right colour as possible). You will still need to outline the facemask to do this but it doesn't take as long as it looks