Using a bold single or combination brush stroke across a page that runs behind a featured person is a treatment used to draw the viewer’s eye and give focus to the visual story being told. If the person in the photograph is in action or working on something, the stroke can be used to follow their gesture and lead the viewer’s eye to what they are working on (see below). This graphic treatment is intended for use in brochure spreads and web or social graphics. It should not be used in advertising.
Example of a brush stroke behind a silhouetted figure.
To create the silhouetted figure with brush strokes, organize your layers in the following order:
- Bottom Layer–duotone image (see page 22 for instructions on creating duotones using a gradient map.)
- Middle Layer–bold brush stroke
- Top Layer–same image as the bottom layer, but leave it full color and mask the featured person, creating a silhouette of just that person in full color
Example of combination brush stroke silhouetted behind a figure used on a website