Create an Awesome Stylized Motivational Sports Poster
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Your choices stick across every tutorial on this device.
You can build a dark, grungy sports poster in Photoshop from four photos, a stack of adjustment layers, and one line of text.
The look is the desaturated, high-contrast style you see in athletic ads, where the athlete is dark and the color is muted.
This tutorial is for anyone who wants to composite a subject, a background, a sky, and a prop into one scene without destroying a single pixel.
By the end you will know how to select highlights and shadows from a channel, dodge and burn with Curves, and unify four images into one color scheme.
The video was recorded in Photoshop CS6, and every tool it uses still works the same way in the latest version. A few commands have moved or been renamed, and the notes in each step say where.
The athlete in the photos is Lewis Howes, a former football player turned entrepreneur, who shared the images for this tutorial.
Key Takeaways
- Ctrl or Command clicking the Blue channel loads the bright pixels as a selection. A Curves layer made while that selection is active darkens only the highlights.
- Two Curves layers on Luminosity with inverted masks replace the 50% gray dodge and burn layer. Painting white at 20% Opacity reveals each curve a little at a time.
- Luminosity is what keeps a Curves layer from blowing out color. The same curve on Normal pushes the oranges and yellows on skin into neon.
- Placing an image with File > Place makes it a Smart Object, so Gaussian Blur lands as a Smart Filter you can reopen and change.
- The desaturating comes from Black and White adjustment layers at 75%, 60% and 25%. Lowering the layer Opacity keeps a hint of color instead of stripping it all.
- A Gradient fill layer set to Radial, scaled to 387% and reversed, becomes a vignette on Soft Light that darkens the edges without turning them black.
Table of contents
- What You Will Learn
- Requirements
- Keyboard Shortcuts
- Step 1: Place the Sports Poster Images as Smart Objects
- Step 2: Darken Highlights and Shadows with the Blue Channel
- Step 3: Dodge and Burn the Sports Poster in Photoshop
- Step 4: Blur and Desaturate the Poster Background
- Step 5: Darken the Ground with a Masked Black Layer
- Step 6: Blend the Sky with Multiply
- Step 7: Replace the Medicine Ball with a Rock
- Step 8: Shade the Poster Rock in Photoshop
- Step 9: Unify the Sports Poster Colors
- Step 10: Add the Sports Poster Text with an Outer Glow
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Your Sports Poster in Photoshop
- Related Links
What You Will Learn
- How to place four images as Smart Objects so every edit stays reversible
- How to select the highlights and shadows of a layer from the Blue channel
- How to dodge and burn with two Curves adjustment layers on Luminosity
- How to blur, desaturate and darken a background with Smart Filters and Clipping Masks
- How to blend a sky with Multiply and warp a rock into the athlete’s hands
- How to unify four images with a Photo Filter, a vignette, and an S curve
Requirements
Before you start
- Photoshop CS6, the version used in the video, or the latest version
- A photo of an athlete, cut out from its background with a Layer Mask
- A background photo, a sky photo, and a rock photo
- A display font for the quote. The video uses Trajan Pro Bold.
Keyboard Shortcuts
| Action | Windows | macOS |
|---|---|---|
| Save the Smart Object | Ctrl S | Command S |
| Load a channel or mask as a selection | Ctrl click the thumbnail | Command click the thumbnail |
| Duplicate the layer | Ctrl J | Command J |
| Invert the mask | Ctrl I | Command I |
| Disable or enable a Layer Mask | Shift click the mask thumbnail | Shift click the mask thumbnail |
| Group the selected layers | Ctrl G | Command G |
| Free Transform | Ctrl T | Command T |
| Undo | Ctrl Z | Command Z |
| Create a Clipping Mask | Alt click between two layers | Option click between two layers |
| Add to a Lasso selection | Shift drag | Shift drag |
| Fill with the foreground color | Alt Backspace | Option Delete |
| Fill with the background color | Ctrl Backspace | Command Delete |
| Zoom with the mouse wheel | Alt scroll | Option scroll |
| Paste | Ctrl V | Command V |
| Commit the text | Ctrl Enter | Command Return |
| Move Tool | V | V |
Step 1: Place the Sports Poster Images as Smart Objects
Start with a wide landscape document. The one in the video is 1080 pixels tall.
Go to File > Place, pick the background photo, and click Place. Press Enter to commit it. Do the same for the athlete, the rock, and the sky.
The Place command brings each image in as a Smart Object. You can tell by the small icon in the bottom right corner of the layer thumbnail.
Smart Objects are the reason this whole poster stays editable. Every filter you run on one becomes a Smart Filter you can reopen later.
Note: In Photoshop CS6 the command is File > Place. In the latest version it is File > Place Embedded. It does the same thing and the image still arrives as a Smart Object.
Turn off the visibility of the background, the sky, and the rock. You will work on the athlete first.
Double click the athlete’s Smart Object thumbnail. It opens in its own window. Click OK on the dialog that appears.
Inside the Smart Object, the athlete needs a Layer Mask that removes his background. The video does not show this part, because it has been covered in other tutorials.
The mask was made with the Quick Selection Tool, then a Layer Mask, then Mask Edge to refine the edge around him.
Press CtrlS (Windows) or CommandS (macOS) to save the Smart Object. Back in the poster document, the athlete now sits on a transparent background.
Note: Mask Edge is now Select and Mask, which arrived in Photoshop CC 2015.5. The latest version also has Select Subject and Remove Background, which make the cutout in one click. Clean up the result in the Select and Mask workspace. For a hard edge like hair against a busy background, channel masking still gives the cleanest result.
Step 2: Darken Highlights and Shadows with the Blue Channel
The first stylizing step is two Curves adjustment layers. One darkens only the highlights, and the other darkens only the shadows.
To do that, you need a selection of the light pixels. The Channels panel gives you one.
Open the Channels panel and click through Red, Green, and Blue. Look for the channel with the most contrast between the lights and the darks.
In the video the Blue channel wins. The darks are clearly darker than the lights. The Red channel is grayed out and flat, so it would not work as well.
Hold Ctrl (Windows) or Command (macOS) and click the Blue channel thumbnail. Photoshop loads the bright pixels as a selection.
Go back to the Layers panel, click the New Adjustment Layer icon, and choose Curves. The selection becomes the Layer Mask, so this Curves layer only touches the light pixels.
Drag the middle of the curve down a little. The highlights darken and the shadows stay put. Do not go far. A slight darkening is all you want here.
Rename the layer Highlights.
Now the shadows. Press CtrlJ (Windows) or CommandJ (macOS) to duplicate the layer, and rename the copy Shadows.
Click the Layer Mask thumbnail, open the Properties panel, and click the Invert button. The mask flips, so this layer now targets only the dark pixels.
Click the Curves icon at the top of the Properties panel and pull the curve to add contrast in the shadows.
Toggle the two layers off and on. The athlete already has the dark, grungy look, and you have not touched a brush yet.
Tip: Clip these Curves layers to the athlete now. Hold Alt (Windows) or Option (macOS) and click the line between each adjustment layer and the layer below it. The video catches this later, when the curves start darkening the background too.
Step 3: Dodge and Burn the Sports Poster in Photoshop
Dodging and burning adds shape to the face and the arms. The usual way is a 50% gray layer on Soft Light, painted with the Dodge Tool and the Burn Tool.
This video uses a more advanced method with two Curves adjustment layers. It gives you far more control.
Add a Curves adjustment layer and name it Burn. First, watch what happens on the Normal blending mode.
Drag the curve down to an extreme. The saturation blows out, and the yellows and oranges on the neck turn neon.
Set the Burn layer’s blending mode to Luminosity. Now the curve only changes brightness, and the colors stay put. This guide to every blending mode in Photoshop explains why.
Pull the curve down to the darkest you would ever want the image to be.
Click the Layer Mask thumbnail and press CtrlI (Windows) or CommandI (macOS) to invert it. The mask turns black and the effect disappears.
Press CtrlJ (Windows) or CommandJ (macOS) to duplicate the layer and rename it Dodge. Shift click the mask thumbnail to disable the mask while you set the curve.
Drag the curve up to the lightest you would ever want. Do not blow it out. Shift click the mask again to enable it.
Click the Burn mask. Set the foreground color to white and pick the Brush Tool. In the Options bar, set Opacity to 20% and Flow to 25%.
Paint over the areas that should fall into shadow. Each stroke reveals a little more of the burn curve.
Click the Dodge mask and paint the highlights the same way. You may not see much at first, but keep going.
Toggle them off and on. The face has far more shape.
If you overdo it, lower the layer Opacity. Or reopen the curve and pull it back. That is control a gray layer never gives you.
Select every layer you have made so far and press CtrlG (Windows) or CommandG (macOS). Name the group Lewis.
Step 4: Blur and Desaturate the Poster Background
Turn the background layer back on. Press CtrlT (Windows) or CommandT (macOS) for Free Transform, scale it up a little, and drag it into position. Press Enter.
Note: In Photoshop CS6, dragging a corner handle with Shift held kept the proportions. Since Photoshop CC 2019, Free Transform keeps proportions by default, and Shift does the opposite. In the latest version, drag a corner handle without Shift.
The background is sharper than the athlete, and that mismatch gives the composite away. Blur it a little.
Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, set the Radius to about 1.1 pixels, and click OK.
Because the layer is a Smart Object, the blur lands as a Smart Filter. Double click Gaussian Blur under the layer to change the radius later. This is another reason the video places every image instead of pasting it.
Add a Black and White adjustment layer. It strips the color completely, which is too far.
Lower the layer Opacity to about 75%. Some color survives, and the image reads as desaturated instead of gray.
Black and White has one advantage over a plain desaturate. Its color sliders let you change how each color converts, so you control the tones instead of just removing them.
Clip it to the background. Hold Alt (Windows) or Option (macOS) and click the line between the Black and White layer and the background layer.
The small down arrow next to the adjustment layer icon tells you it is a Clipping Mask. It now affects the one layer below it and nothing else.
Add a Curves adjustment layer and pull a gentle curve for contrast. Clip that one too.
Nothing sits between the two right now, so the second clip is not strictly needed. It is a habit worth keeping. Anything you slide under it later stays untouched.
Step 5: Darken the Ground with a Masked Black Layer
The background is still too bright. A black layer at low Opacity darkens it, but you do not want to darken the sky at the same time.
Pick the Lasso Tool and trace around the mountains, keeping the sky out of the selection. Do not be precise. A rough outline is fine.
If you miss a spot, hold Shift and drag to add it to the selection. Skip the cactuses for now.
Click the New Layer icon, then the Add Layer Mask icon. The selection becomes the mask.
Click the layer thumbnail, set the foreground color to black, and press AltBackspace (Windows) or OptionDelete (macOS) to fill it.
Set the Opacity to 5%. That barely shows. Raise it to 25%. Now the ground darkens and the sky does not change.
Name this layer Darker, because it makes everything below it darker. You will borrow its mask in the next step.
The edge of the mask is too hard. Click the mask thumbnail, click Mask Edge in the Properties panel, and set Feather to about 5 pixels. Click OK.
Note: In the latest version, that button reads Select and Mask, and the Feather slider sits under Global Refinements. For a quick feather like this one, you can also drag the Feather slider in the Properties panel itself, with the mask selected, and never open a workspace.
Select the background layer, its two adjustment layers, and the Darker layer. Press CtrlG (Windows) or CommandG (macOS) and name the group Background.
Step 6: Blend the Sky with Multiply
Turn on the sky layer and press CtrlT (Windows) or CommandT (macOS). Move it up, scale it a little, and press Enter. You can always change this later.
Set the blending mode to Multiply. Multiply only darkens, so the sky sinks into the background instead of sitting on top of it.
Now it needs a mask that hides it over the mountains. You already drew that shape in the last step.
Hold Ctrl (Windows) or Command (macOS) and click the Darker layer’s mask thumbnail. The mountains load as a selection.
Click the sky layer and click the Add Layer Mask icon. The sky is now visible only over the mountains, which is the opposite of what you want.
Press CtrlI (Windows) or CommandI (macOS) to invert the mask. The sky shows in the sky and hides over the mountains.
It is too saturated. Add a Black and White adjustment layer, set the Opacity to 60%, and clip it to the sky with Alt (Windows) or Option (macOS) click.
Select the sky and its Black and White layer, press CtrlG (Windows) or CommandG (macOS), and name the group Sky. Drag it above the Background group.
Then select both groups and group them again. The video names this outer group Background too. Same name as the folder inside it, and that is fine.
Check the Lewis group now. If the Curves layers inside it are not clipped, they are darkening the background as well. Clip each one to the layer below, and the Lewis group stops affecting anything but the athlete.
Step 7: Replace the Medicine Ball with a Rock
The athlete is holding a medicine ball. The rock replaces it, so he looks like he is carrying a boulder.
Turn on the rock layer and press CtrlT (Windows) or CommandT (macOS). Drag it over the ball and scale it down a little. Try not to distort the rock too much.
Right click inside the transform box and choose Warp. A grid appears over the rock.
Drag the grid until the rock’s shape fits his hands, as if he were really holding it.
Look for a crack or a ledge on the rock and warp it toward his fingers. A grip point like that is what sells the pose. Press Enter to commit.
Click the Add Layer Mask icon. With black as the background color, press CtrlBackspace (Windows) or CommandDelete (macOS) to fill the mask with black. The rock disappears.
Pick the Brush Tool and set the foreground color to white. Set Opacity and Flow back to 100%, since they are still at 20% and 25% from the dodge and burn.
Start with a hard-edged brush and paint the rock back in, everywhere except over his fingers. The mask is what lets you paint the rock without covering his hand.
Hold Alt (Windows) or Option (macOS) and roll the mouse wheel to zoom in on the hand.
Switch to a soft brush for the edges around the fingers. The far side of the rock matters less. Spend your time on the side where the fingers wrap around it.
Zoom back out. It should look like he is actually carrying the rock.
Step 8: Shade the Poster Rock in Photoshop
The rock sits in his hands, but his fingers cast no shadow on it. Add a new layer above the rock and name it Shadow.
With a soft brush and black, paint shadows where the fingers press into the rock. It is fine to paint over the hand for now.
Hold Ctrl (Windows) or Command (macOS) and click the rock’s Layer Mask thumbnail to load it as a selection. Then, with the Shadow layer active, click the Add Layer Mask icon.
The shadow is now confined to the rock and disappears from the hand. It is too dark, so lower the Opacity to about 60%.
Next, the whole rock needs a shadow across its bottom half. Click the New Adjustment Layer icon and choose Gradient. That creates a Gradient fill layer. Click OK for now.
The gradient covers the entire image, which is not what you want. Drag it directly above the rock layer and clip it with Alt (Windows) or Option (macOS) click. Now it only affects the rock.
Double click the layer thumbnail to reopen the Gradient Fill dialog. While it is open, click and drag inside the canvas to move the gradient. Place it so the bottom of the rock goes darker. Click OK.
If you notice a gap in the rock mask at this point, click the mask and paint white over it. The video fixes one here.
Add a Curves adjustment layer, clip it, and pull a little more contrast into the rock. If it is too strong, lower the Opacity. The video leaves it at 100%.
Select the rock, the Shadow layer, the Gradient fill layer, and the Curves layer. Press CtrlG (Windows) or CommandG (macOS) and name the group Rock.
Step 9: Unify the Sports Poster Colors
The composition is almost done, but the pieces still do not belong together. There is a lot of blue in the sky, a lot of orange in the rock, and the athlete is grayish.
Four adjustment layers at the top of the stack pull everything into one color scheme.
Add a Photo Filter adjustment layer. Leave it on the Warming Filter at the default Density of 25%. A warm tint now runs across all four images.
Add a Gradient fill layer. Set the Style to Radial, raise the Scale to about 387%, and check Reverse. Click OK.
Reverse puts the dark end of the gradient on the outside. You have just built a vignette.
Set its blending mode to Soft Light. Soft Light darkens the edges without turning them into black, which is what makes this vignette feel natural.
Add one more Black and White adjustment layer and set the Opacity to 25%. The color is still there, but it is muted.
Add one last Curves adjustment layer and pull an S curve for contrast. Toggle it off and on to see the before and after.
Select the top layer, Shift click the Photo Filter, and press CtrlG (Windows) or CommandG (macOS). Name the group Final Adjustments.
The Layers panel now reads Final Adjustments, Rock, Lewis, and Background from top to bottom. Every one of them is still editable.
Note: The latest version of Photoshop has a Harmonize tool that matches the color and lighting of a placed subject to its background in one click. It is a fast starting point, and the adjustment layer stack above is still how you steer the final look. See how to use the Harmonize tool for the details.
Step 10: Add the Sports Poster Text with an Outer Glow
The last piece is the quote. Pick the Type Tool and drag out a text box.
Type your quote, or paste it with CtrlV (Windows) or CommandV (macOS) if you copied it earlier. The video uses white letters.
The quote in the video is from Tommy Lasorda, a former baseball player: “The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a man’s determination.”
If the text does not fit, drag the handles of the text box to make it larger. You can move the box up or down the same way.
Press CtrlEnter (Windows) or CommandReturn (macOS) to commit the text. Then press V (Windows) or V (macOS) for the Move Tool and place it where you want it.
The font is Trajan Pro Bold, at 75 points for the quote and 35 points for the name. Any bold serif display font works if you do not have it.
White text on a bright patch of sky can get lost. Double click the text layer to open Layer Style and choose Outer Glow.
Set the glow color to black and the Blend Mode to Multiply. Click OK and zoom in. There is now a thin dark outline around every letter.
Double click the layer again, raise the Size a little, and bring the Opacity down to about 50%. Click OK and zoom back out.
Tip: Set the font, size, and color once, then copy the finished text before you paste it into the poster. The video does this off camera, so the quote lands already formatted and saves a round of adjustments.
Frequently Asked Questions
It is a desaturated, high-contrast style where the athlete is dark and the color is muted. In this tutorial, the contrast comes from Curves adjustment layers. Black and White adjustment layers at partial Opacity handle the desaturation, and a Photo Filter plus a vignette unify the color.
Open the Channels panel and find the channel with the most contrast, which is often Blue. Hold Ctrl on Windows or Command on macOS and click its thumbnail to load the bright pixels as a selection. Add a Curves layer while the selection is active to target the highlights, then duplicate it and invert the mask to target the shadows.
A 50% gray layer painted with the Dodge Tool and Burn Tool is hard to adjust after the fact. Two Curves adjustment layers with black masks let you paint the effect in with a brush at low Opacity. You can then lower the layer Opacity or reshape the curve at any time. It takes longer to set up and gives you far more control.
On the Normal blending mode, a steep Curves adjustment blows out the saturation. Yellows and oranges on skin turn neon. The Luminosity blending mode limits the curve to brightness, so the image gets lighter or darker and the colors stay where they were.
Yes. The video was recorded in Photoshop CS6, before Select Subject and Remove Background existed. In the latest version, either one makes the cutout in a click. Refine the edge in Select and Mask, which replaced the Mask Edge dialog the video uses, and the rest of the tutorial is unchanged.
A Clipping Mask limits an adjustment layer to the one layer directly below it. Hold Alt on Windows or Option on macOS and click the line between the two layers. Without it, a Black and White layer meant for the sky would desaturate the athlete and the rock too. Every adjustment in this poster is clipped so each image gets its own treatment.
Add a Gradient fill layer, set the Style to Radial, raise the Scale to around 387%, and check Reverse so the dark end sits on the outside. Set the layer to Soft Light. Soft Light darkens the edges without turning them black, which keeps the vignette from looking like a hole punched in the image.
The quote is set in Trajan Pro Bold at 75 points, and the name under it at 35 points, both in white. A black Outer Glow on Multiply at about 50% Opacity gives the letters a thin dark edge so they read against the sky. Any bold serif display font works if you do not have Trajan Pro.
Your Sports Poster in Photoshop
Nothing in this poster is a preset. It is four Smart Objects, a stack of clipped adjustment layers, and a few masks, and every one of them can still be changed.
The video ends before the finishing touches. The skin texture, the extra sweat, and the last round of stylizing were left for a second video, so this article stops where the video stops.
Watch the full tutorial above to see every curve pulled in real time, then comment on the video if a step does not behave the way you expect.
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Next, build the Man of Steel poster in Photoshop, a poster made from channel selections and Layer Styles.
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Final Image
Drag the slider to see before and after
very useful
Thank You!!
Thanks for this wonderful tut. I have a question: which font did you use. I love that fond, so far I have not been able to find it on the internet. Please, advise.
Sincerely,
Paul
(The Netherlands)
The font is “Trajan Pro”
You are so cool! I don’t think I have read through a single thing like this before. So nice to discover another person with some original thoughts on this topic. Really.. thank you for starting this up. This web site is something that is needed on the web, someone with a little originality!