Episode 6: Photoshopping Obama ‘Hope’ Posters
20. Sep, 2009 
28 Comments
Ash Davies.
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I’ve heard rumors that the podcast version is a lot more excellent.
President Obama’s ‘Hope’ poster is one of the most recognisable pieces of street art of all time, and is being called a cultural phenomenon. Created by Shepard Fairey, this poster became instantly viral and played a huge part in the success of Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign. In this tutorial you’ll learn how to apply the same effect to your own photo using nothing but Photoshop.
This certainly is the most complicated tutorial I’ve produced to date, and that’s largely because this effect (as far as I’m aware) has never been replicated on only photoshop. Through my research the only tutorials I found incorporated Adobe Illustrator. As a result, I had to experiment and create my own method.
Download the original photo.
This is the original photo I’ve used in the tutorial.
Download the Obama Pattern (right click > Save as)
In order to create your own ‘Hope’ poster, you’ll need to download this pattern by right clicking the link and selecting save as. You can easily install this by simply double clicking the file. The pattern should then appear in photoshop.
Download the Nevis Font (Link)
You might also like to download the ‘Nevis’ font, which you can find over at Ten by Twenty. The original uses the font ‘Gotham’, but this is a font you have to purchase. Nevis is the closest free font I could find.
This is the ‘Hope’ poster I created in the tutorial:
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Good luck!
By publishing this tutorial, PhotoGuides is in no way endorsing any political party or belief. The tutorial is simply to demonstrate the method used to create this artistic piece.
This is really cool
And i like the new little intro
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Thanx Alot. It was really helpful, and amusing. Thnx
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Thanks for this great tutorial, will be featuring it on http://designrfix.com this week
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Ash Davies Reply:
September 24th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Thanks. I look forward to seeing it on your website
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do you know what photoshop version is used?
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Ash Davies Reply:
September 27th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Yeah I do. I used Photoshop CS3 for mac.
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I’ts amazing, Where to find that patterns?
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Ash Davies Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Glad you like it Lukk
You can download the obama pattern file here
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Lukk Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Thnx a lot
I will try now if a could make my photo looks like Obama’s xD
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can be drawn from an action for photoshop? The photographs used are not suitable and I have to do several tests, an action would help me a lot
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When I try to click on the “download the Obama pattern” i just get lots of code.
i don’t have the right click because i’m using a mac. how do it do that? sorry, i guess i’m not an expert. but i’m almost there. i just need the pattern.
help please?
this is a great tutorial. i’m learning! thanks!
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Ash Davies Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 12:45 am
Hi Anne
You should be able to right click on your mac by pressing control and clicking. If you’re using a laptop you could also place two fingers on your trackpad and click. There should be a download option then.
Hope that helps
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Anne Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
ooohhh… that worked! thanks!
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Thanks a lot!! Appreciate this tutorial!
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Hello
can we get the tutorial in text also. thanks
peter
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Very nice and complex tutorial. usefull indeed! thanks for sharing!
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Great tutorial! Thanks!!!
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The file is not working anymore
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Ash Davies Reply:
May 2nd, 2010 at 4:02 pm
It’s working for me. Have you right clicked it? If it still doesn’t work maybe try a different browser.
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I dont know if people know this here or not but the original Obama Poster was not created by Obama nor his campaign peeps, but it was a graffiti artist named Shepard Fairey. The posters were posted up in towns most of the time illegally… Look him up he is a really great artist…
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when i choose layer 1 copy after magic tools and pattern knife the skin color didn’t appear with me behind the copy
this appear as it white color…..
what can i do to appear the skin and after that appear background color ?
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i always wanna make this effect in Ai,
but in photoguides, i can do it in Ps!
thk u!
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Hi everybody! Well Im pretty new with Photoshop and I really don´t know how to use it very well…so my question may be kind of stupid:
When the guy finishes explaining the part of how to apply the palette knife filter he choose the “magic wand tool” and he selects the white part and then he says “click delete” but he only use a command…. when I try to do it in my PC nothing happens… ¿What am I doing wrong?
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