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Photoshop 'Hidden Image' Guide
By Matt Kment

This is a step-by-step guide to making those hidden images you see all over OT. You know, the ones where you highlight the picture and see boobies.


Before we get started, there are 3 things you need.
1. Photoshop 7 (though if you have any sort of a brain at all, you should be able to figure it out for 6.x and 5.x as well)
2. This Picture
3. This Picture


Now that we have all that out of the way, let's get started.

Step 1
Open refpic.jpeg in Photoshop. If you can't figure this part out, you might as well stop reading now, but I'll tell you anyway. Go to the File menu and click Open.


Step 2
Rename the Background layer. By default, Photoshop names the first layer Background. We can't do things we need to do to this layer since it's locked, but this can be solved by simply renaming the layer.  Double-click the layer name. It will show Layer 0 by default. This works fine, so press OK.
























Step 3
Duplicate the layer. To do this, simply right click on the layer's name and click on Duplicate Layer. You now have 2 identical layers - one named Layer 0, and the other named Layer 0 Copy.


Step 4
Click on the original layer (Layer 0). Press Ctrl+I to invert the image. If you look at the large image you won't see a difference since there is a layer on top of it, but if you look at the thumbnail next to the layer name, you will see that the colors have been inverted.









Step 5
We will now create a halftone pattern. Click on the File menu and go to New. Enter the settings as shown here (be sure background is transparent). Since we're going to be working with very small objects, zoom in as far as Photoshop will let you.







Step 6
Select the Pencil tool. If the Brush tool is selected, right click on the Brush Tool and select Pencil tool.









Step 7
Set the brush size to 1 (the option for that is at the top of the screen with all the tool options, just below the File, Edit, etc menus). Make a single dot in the top left corner and a single dot in the bottom right corner.

















Step 8
While still on our new halftone pattern image, press Ctrl+A to select the entire image. Now go to the Edit menu and click on Define Pattern. Name the pattern anything you want. You can now close the halftone pattern image, it's no longer needed since you should now have a pattern defined.


Step 9
Now switch back to the original image with 2 layers. Layer 0, which should be the original image with inverted colors, and on top of that there should be Layer 0 Copy, which should be the original image with the original colors. Create a new layer on top of Layer 0 Copy by pressing Ctrl+Shift+N. Name the layer anything you want, I'm leaving it as the default Layer 1 for the sake of keeping this simple.


Step 10
Select the Flood Fill Tool. It may be set to the Gradient tool, you can use the same method as the Pencil/Paintbrush to switch the tool.








Step 11

These controls are at the top of your screen, just below File, Edit, etc. Set the Fill mode to Pattern, the Pattern to the pattern we just created, the mode to Normal, the Opacity to 100%, and be sure that All Layer is unchecked. The rest of the options don't matter. Now click anywhere on the image (Layer 1 should be selected) and it will be filled with the halftone pattern. If it looks funny, it's probably because you're zoomed out. Be sure you're zoomed in to 100% if you want everything to look right while you're working on it.


Step 12
Hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and click on Layer 1. This will select everything on Layer 1 - in this case, a bunch of dots. Now click on Layer 0 copy and press the Delete key on your keyboard. Press Ctrl+D to deselect everything.


Step 13
Turn off the halftone pattern layer (Layer 1). This is done by clicking the small "Eye" icon next to the layer's name.



Step 14
Open overlay.jpg. Press Ctrl+A to select the entire image, then press Ctrl+C to copy the image to your clipboard.


Step 15
Close overlay.jpg. You should now be back at the image we've been working on this whole time. Create a new layer on top of Layer 0 Copy by clicking on Layer 0 Copy and pressing Ctrl+Shift+N. I'll leave it with the default name of Layer 2. Press Ctrl+V to paste the overlay image into Layer 2. I was nice and made overlay.jpg and refpic.jpeg the same dimensions, so everything should line up properly.


Step 16
Set the opacity of Layer 2 to 50%. This can be easily accomplished by clicking on Layer 2 and pressing the number 5 on your keyboard. At this point we are nearly finished, but you can see that parts of the original image stick out like a sore thumb, namely her shirt and her thong.


Step 17
We need to fix the problems with certain parts of the original image standing out. To do this we will adjust the contrast of the original, but we must merge the layers first.  To do this, click on Layer 0 Copy, then click the little arrow inside the circle in the upper right corner of the Layers palette and select Merge Down.

Step 18
Now that we have the layers merged, we need to adjust the Contrast. To do this, first click on the merged layer (Layer 0). Now go to the Image menu, select adjustments, then click on Brightness/Contrast. Set the Contrast to -30.


Congratulations, you're finished! Save your JPG and start posting it everywhere to piss people off. The thong is still slightly visible, but with a better selection of pictures you can make it nearly transparent to the user until they highlight it. Your final image should look like this:


Highlight the image to see the magic!