Creating a Sci-Fi Movie Poster – Part 2

Creating a Movie Poster, Part 2: Painted Eyes and Type

With the coloring and shadow work from Part 1 in place, this second part focuses on the two details that really sell a stylized movie poster: hand-painted eyes and a properly typeset title. Both are built from scratch, layer by layer, right on top of the photo.

Selecting and Feathering the Eye Areas

A soft-edged selection around each eye is the starting point for painting new eye detail without a hard, obvious boundary.

1. Select Both Eyes With the Elliptical Marquee

   Grab the Elliptical Marquee tool and draw a selection around one eye, then hold Shift and draw a second selection around the other eye to add it to the selection.

2. Feather the Selection With Quick Mask

   Press Q to enter Quick Mask mode, apply a Gaussian Blur to soften the selection’s edges, then press Q again to return to a normal, now-feathered selection.

Why Quick Mask Is a Fast Way to Feather a Selection

Quick Mask turns an active selection into a paintable, blurrable image temporarily, so a filter like Gaussian Blur can soften its edges directly. Converting back out of Quick Mask afterward carries that same softened edge back into the selection itself, without needing a separate Feather dialog.

Painting Base Eye Color From Sampled Tones

Building the new eye color from colors already present in the image keeps everything grounded in the same overall palette.

3. Sample Color From the Existing Eye

   On a new layer, sample a color already present in the eye area to use as a starting point.

4. Paint the General Shapes With a Soft Round Brush

   Using a soft round brush, paint in the general color shapes of the eye, working from larger areas down to progressively smaller brushes for finer detail, and press Cmd/Ctrl+H to hide the selection edges while you work.

Masking In Eyelash and Eyebrow Detail

A layer mask is what makes the painted eye color look like it’s sitting behind real lashes and brows rather than floating on top of them.

5. Deselect and Add a Layer Mask

   Deselect, then add a layer mask to the painted eye layer.

6. Paint Black Over Lash and Brow Areas

   Using a very small brush, paint black on the mask over areas where lashes or eyebrows should show through, hiding the painted color there so it reads as sitting behind that hair.

Using the Transparency Lock to Add Shading Without Reselecting

Adding a shadow from the eyelid onto the newly painted eye needs to stay confined to exactly the area already painted, without redoing the original selection.

7. Enable the Transparency Lock

   Click the transparency lock icon on the painted eye layer, which restricts any new painting to only the pixels that already exist on that layer.

8. Paint a Darker Shadow Near the Top of the Eye

   Choose a slightly darker color and paint it in near the top of the eye to suggest a shadow cast by the eyelid.

Why the Transparency Lock Avoids Reselecting the Eye

Without the transparency lock, painting on the layer would show up everywhere the brush touches, including areas outside the eye shape that were never meant to be painted. Locking transparency confines new paint strokes to only the pixels already on that layer, so the original selection never needs to be redrawn.

Building Up Small, Bright Highlights

A final pass of very bright, very small highlight spots gives the painted eyes their last bit of realism.

9. Paint Small White Highlights With a Smaller Brush

   Using a small brush, paint pure white or near-white highlights at the very brightest points of the eye, keeping these highlights small and specific rather than broad.

Grouping the Eyes and Adding a Curves Glow

Grouping the painted layers together and adding one more color adjustment on top gives the eyes a final, unified glow.

10. Group All the Eye Layers

    Shift-click all the eye-painting layers and press Cmd/Ctrl+G to group them together.

11. Add a Curves Layer and Boost Blue, Green, and RGB

    Add a Curves adjustment layer, increase the Blue channel slightly, increase the Green channel slightly, then increase the overall RGB curve as well to give the eyes a glowing quality.

12. Mask Down Any Eye That’s Too Bright

    If one eye ends up brighter than the other, group the layers, add a layer mask to the group, and paint black over the area that needs to be toned down.

Why Boosting Blue, Green, and RGB Together Creates a Glow

Lifting the Blue and Green channels shifts the eye color toward a cooler, more luminous tone, while raising the overall RGB curve brightens everything together. Combining both is what produces the sense that the eyes are actually glowing rather than simply being a brighter, flatter color.

Adding the Movie Poster Title Text

With the eyes finished, the poster’s title is the next piece that ties the whole composition together.

13. Add the Title With the Text Tool

    Press T for the Text tool and type out the title, then open Window > Character to choose a clean, sans-serif font that fits a movie poster look.

14. Resize the Title

    Press Cmd/Ctrl+T to scale the title text to the size you want within the composition.

Adjusting Letter Spacing for the Byline Text

Smaller text, like a byline or tagline, often benefits from extra spacing between letters to keep it feeling substantial at a reduced size.

15. Duplicate the Title Layer for a Byline

    Press Cmd/Ctrl+J to duplicate the title layer, then retype it as a smaller line of text such as a name or tagline.

16. Increase Tracking in the Character Panel

    In the Character panel, increase the tracking value to add spacing between each letter without making the letters themselves any wider.

17. Lower Opacity on the Text Layers

    Shift-click the text layers and lower their opacity slightly so the type sits into the image rather than looking pasted starkly on top.

Why This Approach Works

Painting the eyes from scratch works because each step isolates a different visual cue that reads as realistic: a feathered selection avoids a hard edge, a layer mask reintroduces lashes and brows on top of the paint, and a transparency lock keeps shading confined to exactly the right area without repeated reselecting. Small, carefully placed highlights and a final Curves-based glow are what push the result from flat paint to something that actually looks like it’s catching and emitting light. The title and byline work the same way in miniature — increasing tracking rather than just shrinking the font keeps smaller text feeling deliberate and well-composed instead of cramped.

Final Thoughts

Painting convincing eyes from scratch takes practice and a bit of patience — it’s genuinely one of the harder details to get right, so don’t expect it to look perfect on the first pass. The combination of sampled color, a feathered selection, a transparency lock for controlled shading, and a small glow at the end is a repeatable process worth returning to any time a composite calls for eyes that don’t already exist in the source photo.

Quick Reference: Keys, Menus and Settings

• Select both eyesElliptical Marquee, Shift to add the second eye
• Feather itQ for Quick Mask, Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, Q again
• Paint the eyesNew layer, sampled colors, soft round brush; Cmd/Ctrl + H hides the selection edges
• Lashes and shadingLayer mask, small black brush; transparency lock for the eyelid shadow
• Eye glowCmd/Ctrl + G, then Curves: Blue, Green and RGB up
• TitleT, Window > Character, Cmd/Ctrl + T to size
• BylineCmd/Ctrl + J, retype, raise tracking; lower the text opacity

No AI, no generative credits.