INSTRUCTIONS: Low Poly Portrait & Creating an Action


LOW-POLY IMAGES come from a technique originally used for making 3D models and scenes for video games. You can create your own flat, low-poly image in Photoshop. 


The more polygons you make, the more detail your design will have. See the picture of the cat below ↓ ↓ ↓:




While is seems like it would take an extremely long time to build, a few tricks in Photoshop will help you expedite your design. 

 I. MAKE A NEW DOCUMENT that is 8x10 or 10x8 at 300ppi and drag a large, 6MP image into it.

II. CHANGE THE FOLLOWING SETTINGS on your computer:
  1. In the APPLE MENU (top left corner), go to System Preferences. Select "Keyboard" from the second row. Check "Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys."
  2. Back in PHOTOSHOP, go to Window>Actions (opens a new panel)
  3. Select your Polygonal Lasso Tool and uncheck "Anti-Alias" in the option panel. The selections you make with the lasso tool usually have a slight blur on every edge. This removes the blur so the triangles "lock" together better without too many gaps between shapes. 
  4. View>Show>Grid
  5. View>Snap
  6. View>Snap to> Uncheck all except Grid, so it only snaps to your grid
  7. Photoshop>Preferences>Guides, Grids, & Slices and use the following settings:
III. BASIC STEPS to follow for creating the design:
  1. Select your image layer
  2. Select the Polygonal Lasso tool and make a triangle. It should "snap" to points on your grid.
  3. Edit>Copy  
  4. Edit>Paste. This pastes your triangle on to a new layer, but it also deselects it.
  5. Go to Select>Reselect. This will put dancing ants back around your triangle.
  6. Filter>Blur>Average. This will blur all of the colors together and take the average of all of those colors. 
  7. End this process by clicking on your original image layer again.

 That's actually it for steps. To start, make 10 triangles on new layers. Make sure you go back to step one every time. Have all of the triangles come to to mutual points of other triangles. See below ↓ ↓ ↓:
If you have trouble seeing the edges of your triangles, turn down the opacity of your image layer. After you make 10 triangles, or however many it takes for you to become comfortable with this process, you will start to realize how tedious this is. Photoshop can help with that by making an ACTION, this is a process that you create for Photoshop to repeat. So, really, you want to be able to create a triangle with the polygonal lasso tool and then let Photoshop do the rest.

IV. CREATE AN ACTION for this tedious process:
  1. Select your "image" layer.
  2. Take your polygonal lasso tool and make your next triangle.
  3. In your Actions panel, go to the little menu in the top left corner of the palette and select "New Action" from the dropdown menu.
  4. Photoshop will ask you what to name the action. Call it something like "Low Poly". Give it a function key, such as F3 and shift. That means whenever you want Photoshop to "run" this action, you just have to hit shift+F3. Then hit Record.
  5. At this point, anything you do will be recorded by Photoshop. Follow steps 3-7 in the basic steps. Then hit the STOP button at the bottom of the actions panel. 

Now you have an action! Try it a few times to make sure it works. Make a triangle with your polygonal lasso tool, then hit shift+F3. Continue until you finish. Remember, the more triangles you make, the more detail you will have.


Try it with an animal, a flower, or something organic...

 
...or imagine the possibilities...