How to Create and Use Silhouettes

Take a picture of a person. Get rid of the background (optional). Fill the image of the person with a solid color or pattern. Instant silhouette, right. Those are the basics. But there's more to creating good silhouette images.

Why or How to Use Silhouettes

• Using Silhouettes as Abstract Symbols and Metaphors is a gallery of images that utilize silhouettes of people or objects and describes how the silhouette works in the image.

• Using Silhouettes Expressively is a brief description of the function of silhouettes in art, in advertising.

• Explore the many traditional and new definitions for silhouette as well as how silhouettes have been and are currently used in design, art, advertising, and visual communications.

How to Create Silhouettes

• Famous Silhouette Logos and How to Create Them in Photoshop shows how to create those silhouettes like you see in logos like for the NBA.

• How to Create Silhouette Portraits describes how to photograph someone and use Photoshop to turn it into a traditional profile silhouette.

• Fun With Silhouettes in Photoshop shows you step-by-step how to take a photograph and fill it with color or a pattern. There's PDF version for download as well.

• Creating Silhouettes in Adobe Illustrator starts with a photograph in Photoshop then moves into Illustrator to complete the silhouette.

• 3 Easy Ways to Create Silhouette Characters shows how to use Microsoft Office Clip Art, your own clip art, or photos to create silhouettes.

• Create a Simple Clip Art Silhouette doesn't start with a photo. It shows how to use basic shapes to draw a simple silhouette figure.

• Pattern Silhouette Using a Layer Mask is really more like taking a photograph and turning it into a drawing or single color image. But nice effect.