Photoshop Up Your Own Money
In Photo Effects by Antonio Casolino
Ever feel like making your own money? Well you probably shouldn't actually make any, because I don't think the law would appreciate it very much. But if you feel like just making some Photoshopped money for a design, then read on to find out how to stick your own face on a dollar bill!
Step1
So I have chosen a US dollar banknote, but you can choose whatever you wish. Just grab a camera and take a photo of some money, or you can download a one-dollar note from Wikipedia. The image size I've used is about 2000 px wide and 900 px high.
Step2
The first step is to create a layer mask to erase Washington's face. So we add a new shape layer, and using the Ellipse Tool (U), draw an oval shape covering the area with the head. Set Fill to 0 to adjust shape.
Step3
Now with the Pen Tool (P), we going to draw a path as shown below, highlighted by red.
Step 4
Create a Layer Mask (Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All) on the banknote layer. Then, we'll do four operations:
- Ctrl-Click on First Shape Layer (oval) to load selection
- Press D to set Black/White as your background/foreground colors
- Click on the layer mask of the banknote layer
- Alt + Backspace to fill selection
If you work correctly, the result will look like this:
Step 5
Now Ctrl-Click on the other shape layer to load the selection of the part of the oval we wanted to keep. Select white as your foreground color ,and select the layer mask of the banknote layer by clicking on it. Fill selection by using the Alt + Backspace shortcut or just by using a brush (as shown below).
Step 6
Choose an image to insert. I've chosen my sister's photography :-) It's about 500px high. Something with contrast and white (or bright) background will be best. Now click Image > Mode > Grayscale
Step 7
The select Image > Mode > Bitmap. Then choose Halftone screen, keeping the Resolution the same as the original image (300 dpi in my case), then click OK. Then choose your Frequency (about 85 works well in this case, but you can try different values), 0 degrees and "Line" as Shape. Voilà!
Step 8
Now go to Image > Mode > Grayscale and set Size Ratio "1" as your value. Now using the Magic Wand Tool, select a black point (Contiguous deselected and Tolerance "0"). Then Ctrl + C to copy.
Step 8
Come back to our image of the banknote. Create a new layer, fill with white, and set as background. Still on the new layer, press Ctrl + V to paste. Put the photo in center of hole. See the image below.
Step 9
Next, go to Image > Adjustment > Hue/Saturation. Use the values shown below. Note that Colorize is ticked. Set the Transparency of the layer to 90%.
Step 10
Add a new layer between the white background and the photo. Then select the Clone Stamp Tool and choose a soft brush about 100 px.
Step 10
To use the Clone Tool, you need to Alt-Click to set a source cloning point. Choose a point to the left of the face where there is an open space of paper. Then start to paint around the face in the photo as shown.
Step 11
And there you have it, your own money!
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Akula
February 26th, 2008
Hmm, looks pretty good indeed. What I am wondering is how it would look if the person was blond with white clothing. This method really relies on the presence of black in the image. The halftone pattern would probably be visible if you kept it at a big size.
Nice effect nonetheless!
Luigi
February 26th, 2008
Not as good as usual… This is quite boring tutorial…
Walter Wimberly
February 26th, 2008
Be very careful with this design practice. I had a co-worker who got stopped at the border with “joke” money as he put it. The US authorities gave him issue even though he had edited Canadian money. I saw a copy - and no one in their right mind would have believed it to be real.
I think US law says the money has to be 50% different from the bill in size and/or design to not be considered counterfeit.
Pete
February 26th, 2008
Really cool tut guys!
Jessica Sykes
February 26th, 2008
Great tips! I’ve done this before for fun. But your way is better then what I was doing.
Stevi3
February 26th, 2008
haha - dont get into too much detail. you may get a letter from the FBI!
Appox
February 26th, 2008
Nice tutorial.
Sean
February 26th, 2008
Thats pretty neat. Now you should do one for British money. Slightly more complicated, maybe?
Zach
February 26th, 2008
i got to say, while having a better end result then some other photoshopped money out there, i really think this was a waste of a tutorial because of the fact, like others have said, that you could be in trouble for counter fitting, and also because it has absolutely no practical application to the real world designer. i hold a high standard for tutorials coming from this site, and im sorry, but this just doesn’t make the cut.
Markus
February 26th, 2008
Haha! Pretty cool!
But i have seen better 
Sorry to say ..
Brian
February 26th, 2008
Time well wasted. The tutorials from this site have been trend setting and extremely practical so far. This tutorial is something I’d expect from a high school Graphic Design 1 teacher that ran out of assignment ideas. Let’s come up with something good for the next tutorial guys.
mave
February 26th, 2008
I agree with others - a potential legal problem, and definitely not up to the standards of other psdtus articles.
brandon
February 26th, 2008
Fun, simple tutorial. Not as practical and usable as others have been, but fun none the less. Also, what the heck is wrong with you people claiming this could have legal ramifications? Doctoring money in photoshop is NOT illegal. PRINTING IT AND PASSING IT OFF AS REAL MONEY IS. Tards.
Jin
February 26th, 2008
the end result doesn’t look very real. mainly because the president’s portrait are more of a “vector” graphic. study george’s face closely. probably if you converted the woman’s face to vector like first, then it’d look better. the end result still looks like a photo dropped on a cut out bill.
Nikolaus
February 26th, 2008
Definitely the worst tutorial since the launch of PSDTuts.
(And I never thought I’d ever use the word “worst” in a comment on PSDTuts)
Terry
February 26th, 2008
Maybe turning down the halftone frequency would have brought the lines in the face out more in the final result. also, couldn’t the patch tool have been used to extend the wrinkles over, and then overlayed the pic instead? or cut out george, clone an area of the wrinkles with just the paper and no other details, then cut, alter and paste the new image in a separate layer? set it to multply, and fill to , i dunno, 90 percent?
this is fun to be sure, but i usually expect more practical effects, non-potentially illegal tuts. the fundamentals are sound, and i think most poeple forget that there are halftone options in ps.
also, this bill isn’t altered enough. anyone printing this and getting caught is gonna have a cellmate to practice these tuts with for 5-20.
Niall Doherty
February 26th, 2008
I can’t believe people have the nerve to complain if a tutorial isn’t one million percent mind-blowingly fantastic. This site is a god-send. Instead of criticizing the tutorial, why not spend time thinking of creative ways to put the techniques to better use.
SnakeJake
February 26th, 2008
I can’t actually open files with money in Photoshop. I tried to open a downloaded 50 euro bill and Photoshop told me it was illegal and refused to open it.
Paulo Sales
February 26th, 2008
not so nice as usual…but still a good tut…
Colin
February 26th, 2008
wow all these comments seem negative….but i agree with them, not too smart of a thing to ps. but at least your tutorial got published! mine….hasn’t….i blame my lack of html knowledge
but good job
kinda
Aaron Shupp
February 26th, 2008
Yeah I’ve got to say, I’m extremely disappointed with this tutorial. I just got my fellow designers at the studio I work for to add this site to their RSS homepages and now I’m getting burned for how lame it is. A huge amount of credibility this site commanded from its usually 5-star lessons just dropped a few pegs.
Lindsey
February 26th, 2008
SnakeJake - did you try to scan it? Sometimes if you try to scan money it will not let you. I was under the impression that photoshop wouldn’t open any close up scanned/photographed pictures of money?
james
February 26th, 2008
I agree, this tut is not up to your usual standards.
A18Nukem
February 26th, 2008
Man this is so cool Lol! awesome tut. Stop with the hatin peeps, you can’t have huge tuts all the time, sometimes its nice to have little tuts now and then, its not like PSDTuts hasn’t delivered the goods on countless occasions. Good job guyz
Drew
February 26th, 2008
I would remove this post and its comments to prevent further shame and embarrassment.
Jeii
February 26th, 2008
I don’t like it at all. This is not as good as usual.
Aaron Shupp
February 26th, 2008
You’re actually going to censor my comment? Just wow…
Collis
February 26th, 2008
oo lots of commentary here,
I thought this was pretty cool actually! Although it is a little risky on the infringement side of things
With respect to the standard of the site, I personally think it’s in keeping with the rest of the site, nonetheless I’ve been thinking of adding a Basic | Complex tab to the site, that way anyone interested in simpler tutorials can still get them, and if you’re here for the more elaborate ones, then you can just read those. Maybe that will solve the problem?
Collis
February 26th, 2008
Hey Aaron, sorry it takes a while each day before I approve comments (I do them in batches), I only censor comments that are **really** offensive and the person hasn’t left their name to (since that presumably means they are ashamed of what they’ve said
)
Anyhow sorry to hear you got flamed at your work, that sucks! What studio do you work at? I’ll make a special tutorial on how to not flame your colleagues for things they don’t have control over hehe
Arik
February 26th, 2008
Hey Collis, this might be a bit off topic but when are the forums coming?
You mentioned that in that January.
liam
February 26th, 2008
@ People who are saying this isn’t as good as usual.
You people need to open your minds, not everything on this site has to be amazingly great looking, with shiny effects and glowing lights. When something like this comes along - its not here to make you go WOW it looks stunning, its hear to make you think - WOW I never knew how to make an image look like that. Its simple, but its something which you could find useful in the future, helps build up your knowledgebase.
@ Collis - I think you’d be trying to please too many arrogant people by introducing a “Basic | Complex” tag to each. I think all of the tutorials you approve are of a level where people will actually learn usable skills from the tutorials, so in that sence all of your tutorials are complex. The way I see it, you might as well have these 2 tags “People who want to learn something | People who don’t have the time to learn and just want some shiny effects without figuring it out themselves” - I think you should carry on as you are, and just focus on pleasing people who are actually trying to build up their skills.
I think this is a nice tutorial, and you won’t get in trouble if your not printing it. So this could come in handy to use on a project as a bit of fun, and I’ve learnt a new effect (granted its not as IN YOUR FACE as other tutorials) but it’s a well thought out and presented tut.
BogDinamita
February 26th, 2008
oh antonio get serious man!
kev
February 26th, 2008
i disagree with the comments dat this tut isint up to the usual standard!!! the techniques used in this tut can be used for a bit of fun so all u complainers should lighten up!!
keep em comin collis
Katalog Stron
February 26th, 2008
Don’t agree with some comments. Your tuts Collins are always good.
Ben Jacob
February 26th, 2008
How about A print with my image
Laine
February 27th, 2008
There is nothing wrong with this tutorial.
people are complaining as if they paid for this information!
its fine. everyone backup and just click on another tut!
Nothingsuspicoushere
February 27th, 2008
Cool I Wanna Try It When I Get Home
Jesus
February 27th, 2008
That’s awesome. I was looking for a tutorial like this for some weeks, finally I found it here. Pretty cool idea for the future - mind controlled tutorial search.
Quite the best tutorial to this topic. Keep rollin’
Ronald
February 27th, 2008
muyy buneo este efecto elegante… jaja
Terry
February 27th, 2008
@collis: the idead of complex/simple tuts is cool. tutorials like this use fundamentally sound techniques, but seem to get flamed for a lack of practicality (i’m no exception, see my earlier comment). maybe that would also allow people who don’t do professional level work submit tutorials if they have a technique or process that’s helpful and fun/unique?
that and a tutorial on not flaming folks for the occassional … “odd man out” tutorial” would be funny at least. i’m catching a little heat myself
Jin
February 27th, 2008
my problem with this tutorial isn’t the “legal matter” others have raised. honestly.. putting your face on a dollar bill isn’t breaking any laws. it’s not like you’re making counterfits.
the tutorial is well written, can benefit new users with the techniques used.
the problem is the end result doesn’t look as good as the other ones posted on this site. as i pointed out earlier, the photo should have undergone some vector/line art treatment first. also the portrait section is missing the green tint a dollar bill has.
we as commenters need to keep our criticisms constructive. it’s perfect fine to criticize, but not as fruitful if we just flame.
authors take their own personal time to write up tutorials, we shouldn’t discourage them by adding unwanted pressures.
/cheers.
Shane
February 27th, 2008
Another nice tutorial. Thanks.
Ben
February 27th, 2008
I thought the tutorial was okay, but I think the face should have been on a darker background to make it look more natural. Not too bad though.
jhend
February 27th, 2008
nice tutorials sir, any website design tutorials ? about design idea, macthing colour and trick to slicing and import into html editor. thx
mave
February 27th, 2008
Jin - great point. I think those of us who found this tutorial disappointing should have been more specific about what bothered us.
For me it wasn’t the level of complexity. I like seeing beginner level tutorials as much as I like seeing the advanced effects. If nothing else it’s just fun to look at the before and afters. But the problem with this one is that the final result isn’t convincing, and there are simple things that could have been done with color and texture to make the final result more realistic.
And others may get pissed that some of us are trying to hold PSDTUTS to a standard despite the fact that it’s a “free” site and we should just shut up blah blah blah, but the fact that we care about the quality of what’s here shows that we respect and appreciate the site - rather than showing disrespect and lack of appreciation as many here have claimed. It speaks to the level of quality the content here has exhibited, that when something slightly “off” is posted here many people notice and speak up.
Regarding the legal issue - it’s scanning and copying 101, people. The image used in this tutorial is not in compliance with the rules outlined by the US government for reproducing images of currency:
http://www.treas.gov/usss/money_illustrations.shtml
Of course that only applies if you are going to print it out, but I think it’s fair to say that many people will want to print a project like this out. After all, the concept of having “play” money is half the fun.
Alberto
February 27th, 2008
You must be crazy to falsify a 1$ banknote
I think this “legal matter” is ridiculous!
@ all those that are complaining:
…yes, the tutorial is quite basic and the end result is not smashing, but hey, writing a tutorial takes time, you shouldn’t be so harsh with Antonio’s work. If you think you are a much more advanced photoshop user, you should either write a tutorial or just skip this one.
Andrew D
February 28th, 2008
Pretty good tutorial, plus I agree with what Alberto said.
PS: When are the forums coming?
Mark Abucayon
February 29th, 2008
nice job Ill try this one later.
bweb
February 29th, 2008
I’m totally agree with @Alberto.
Some tuts are better then others, so what? - still all of them takes a lot of author’s time, so we should be glad that someone doing this job for all of us. I am.
And BTW, @Antonio - can’t wait next ones.
Aaron
March 15th, 2008
For all those looking for paractical uses of this tutorial how about asking a music video direcotor? Because this tut could be used to create a scene with yourself maybe rapping or singing on a dollar bill.
I do agree however, that the image should have been a little darker and vectorised to complete the look.
what
March 18th, 2008
stop complaining about the tutorial. Maybe there is no use for this very often, but it´s never a waste of time, doing a tutorial. at least you may learn a technique you never used before.
Bob
March 24th, 2008
Actually, this tutorial was very helpful to me. The result is not perfect, it could have been better, but it gives an idea.
And who said it isn’t practical? Computer Arts published such a tutorial once. I am customizing money bills in my current project, so this tutorial came handy. I wasn’t aware of the halftone pattern.
Thanks for the tip Antonio! And by the way guys, this is not some sort of competition or tutorial review.
Take it or leave it!