Thermoptic Camouflage in Photoshop

Thermoptic camouflage, commonly known as the technology which allows the 'Predator' to become virtually transparent in the eponymous series of films, has been a popular component of sci-fi ever since it was first shown off in 1987. Whilst modern interpretations of this camouflage usually involve lots of computing power (or tricky editing) for moving video, it is remarkably simple to duplicate this effect for single-frame images using only Photoshop and a little filtering know-how. Interested? Read on...

Step 1: Before we can begin, you need to obtain a simple background image of any size and/or resolution showing a suitable location. I chose this one of the New York subway:

Step 2: After opening your source picture in Photoshop, find another image, this time of the character that will be camouflaged. I chose the 'Alien'. Pop the images side-by-side so you can work with them more conveniently. You now have two choices - you can either select the outline of the character witrh the polygonal Lasso Tool (L) or you can use (as I did) the extraction filter (via Filter -> Extract). If you choose the latter method, pick the edge highlighter tool (B) with a relative small brush size and draw a line following the edges of your character. Zoom in and pan as needed. Don’t be afraid if you have blank spaces inside the character, and if you make a mistake use theThe Eraser tool erases pixels and restores parts of an image to a previously saved state.'); Activate();" onmouseout="deActivate()" alt=""> Eraser Tool (E). After you have circled your character, switch to the Fill Tool (G) and click inside the character outline that you have just drawn. This will make your outline fill up with color. Now press OK and you should only have the alien image over a transparent background. Step 3: Click on the Move Tool (V) and make sure you have the alien layer selected. Now drag and drop the alien from the second photo onto the first photo with the background. Move it around and/or resize it so it looks good on the background. Select your first layer (i.e. the background) & press Ctrl + A to select it all and Ctrl + C to clipboard it. Duplicate your alien layer by right clicking in the layer tab and choosing Duplicate layer from the dropdown menu. Select the second layer (i.e the alien layer), CTRL + Click this layer, and press D on your keyboard so that the color swatches revert to the default black/white. Choose Filter > Render > Clouds from the main menu to render a simple cloud effect in the shape of your selection. You won't see this effect at first, of course, because the top layer is covering it, so click on the eye check box next to the topmost layer to make it dissapear and the layer become invisible. Step 4: Making sure you have the second layer selected, take the Rectangular Marquee TooThe marquee tools make rectangular, elliptical, single row, and single column selections.'); Activate();" onmouseout="deActivate()" alt="">l (M) and create a rectanglar selection around the entire picture. Now make a new work area by going to File > New, and set the resolution to the exact same settings as your background image (if you don’t know these settings, you can right click it in windows explorer and choose properties > summary tab and click on the ADVANCED button). No matter what the background of the new image you need to fill it with black. Go to Edit > Fill and choose black as the fill color. Press OK. Step 5: Now select the other work area in which you’ve made the rectangular selection. Leave it as it is and choose the Move Tool (V). Drag and drop the rectangular selection on to the second work area and position it so it matches the first work area.

Now on the second work area (the one with black and the silhouette of the alien in rendered clouds), Ctrl + Click the second layer's thumbnail in the layer palette to select the alien. Choose Filter > Sketch > Bas Relief. Change the detail setting to 13 and the smoothness to 6. Press OK to render the effect and merge all layers together via Layer > Flatten Image. Save the file anywhere you see fit, but ensure that you save it as a .PSD file. I called mine displace.psd. You can now close this document. Step 6: Now back to the first work area. Select the second layer and delete it by right clicking it in the layer palette and choosing (guess??) Delete Layer. Now you wshould only have the background layer and the hidden layer of the alien. Select the background layer and run Filter > Distort > Glass. On the dialog that pops up, set the distortion to 8, the smoothness to 9. and load our displace.psd file as the texture, like this:

Step 7: It’s now time to unhide the alien layer. Click on the checkbox where the eye icon was previously showing to make the layer reappear. With this layer selected in the layer palette, set the blending mode to Overlay and the opacity to 50%. Of course these settings can differ from picture to picture, so feel free to experiment with them. And there we go... all finished! This is the final result of all my Photoshop wizardry, clearly showing a camouflaged alien. Scary, eh? You can also see it HERE at a higher resolution. Have fun! :)