The technique I would like to emphasise in this tutorial is how you can use the cloud filter to add contrast to object, and the important of using the correct blending mode for layers to maximise the effect.

You will also see by choosing a great quality texture, you can easily add extra effect to your design with mimimum effort.

Here is a preview of the final image: (click to enlarge)

PSD File for this Tutorial

You can have this PSD File for only $2.00 via Paypal! Click the link below and you will be taken to the Paypal checkout page, after payment you will be redirect to the download page automatically.

Ok let’s get started!

To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stock:

Sword

Crack Texture

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1000px * 1300px, fill the background layer with black color. Load the “Sword” texture into Photoshop and cut out the sword using whatever method you prefer (I used the magic wand here, set tolerance to 32px), then paste it onto our canvas, as shown below:

You can choose a different angle for the sword if you like, totally up to you. The steps below will still apply.

Name this layer as “sword”. On this layer, apply the following “Reduce Noise” settings to it:

and you will see by doing so, we managed to get a few more details out of the sword image, as shown below:

Load the selection of the sword layer by holding down Ctrl key + left-click the thumbnail image of the sword layer on the layer palette. Then hit Ctrl + Alt + R to bring up the Refine Edge tool, apply the following settings:

and you will have the following effect for the selection:

Now we’re ready for the cloud rendering in the next step.

Step 2

Create a new layer called “cloud 1″ on top of the “sword” layer, maintain the selection we did in previous step, render some cloud within the selection, as shown below: (set back and foreground colour to be black and white)

Now hit Ctrl + L and bring up the Levels adjustment tool, apply the following settings to it:

Now the settings for Levels might differ slightly depending on the cloud render outcome, however the ultimate goal is to bring more contrast to the cloud so it gives us more lighting variation, as shown below:

Change the blending mode of the cloud layer to “Color Dodge”, you will have the following effect:

Now here is the interest part of the tutorial – we’re going to max-out the effect by playing with the cloud layer.

Duplicate the cloud layer a few times, apply following layer blending mode, opacity and layer mask to each layer:

and you will have the following effect:

You can see now we have some very dynamic contrast placed on the sword. They will look good when we apply the crack texture later on in the tutorial.

Step 3

Go back to the background layer, grab a big soft round brush with a 30% flow and opacity settings, do a few single clicks as shown below:

You will see now we light up the background a bit – however not too much. This effect will reflect when we add the crack texture later on in the tutorial.

I decide to add some effect on the bottom of the sword. So I duplicate the original cloud layer once, change the blending mode to “Normal” and drag it below the sword layer and above the background layer, use the Free Transform tool to resize it to a small size, position it as shown below:

Name this layer as “light”, duplicate it a few times, and position them as shown below:

and here is the effect so far:

Step 4

We can now add the crack texture onto the sword. Load the Crack Texture into Photoshop, select a portion of it with the Lasso tool (40px feather), copy and paste it onto the canvas and put it on top of all previous layers, name the layer as “crack”:

Make sure you resize the layer to roughly the size of the sword, as shown below:

Change the blending mode of the crack layer to be “color dodge”. Duplicate the crack layer a few times, position each duplicated layer as shown below:

Maintain the blending mode for all crack texture layers to be “color dodge”, apply layer mask according to the screenshot above.

For the top crack texture layer, add the following levels adjustment layer to it (with clipping mask optin enabled):

You will have the following effect:

Step 5

Now we can add some image adjustments layers to fine-tune the effect. I have the following two adjustment layers on top of all layers:

Color Balance

Curves

and you will have the following effect:

That’s it pretty much it! For the final effect I added some brushwork on the top, here is my end result: (click to enlarge)

That’s all for this tutorial! I hope this can give you more ideas about the use of layer blending, cloud filter and applying textures in Photoshop. Hopefully you will find those steps in the tutorial useful and the end result inspiratinal :)

Till next time, have a great day!

We will be using some drawing techniques, plus customer brushsets and filter effects along the way, plus I will show you a clever use of Photoshop brush to create special effect around the sphere.

Here is a preview of the final effect: (click to enlarge)

PSD File for this Tutorial

You can have this PSD File for only $2.00 via Paypal! Click the link below and you will be taken to the Paypal checkout page, after payment you will be redirect to the download page automatically.

Ok let’s get started!

To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stocks:

Abstract Brushset 1

Abstract Brushset 2

Step 1

Create a new document sized 800 * 800px, fill the background with black colour. Create a new layer called “bottom light” and use a 250px soft round brush with white colour, do a single click in the centre of the canvas, then resize it  (Ctrl + T) to a very thin shape as shown below:

Grab the eclipse tool (U key) from the toolbox, create a new layer called “sphere” and draw a circle on top of the light, as shown below:

Apply the following layer blending options to this sphere layer:

Drop Shadow

Inner Shadow

Gradient Overlay

and you will have the following effect:

Step 2

Create a new layer on top of the “sphere” layer and use the eclipse tool to draw another oval shape to the top of the sphere. Name this layer as “highlight top” and change the blending mode to “overlay”, drop the opacity to around 40%.

You will have the following effect:

Duplicate this highlight layer once and apply the following Gaussian Blur settings to the duplicated layer:

change the blending mode of this duplicated layer to “soft light”, you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Now let’s add some irregular lighting effect to the sphere. Create a new layer just above the sphere layer, use a soft white round brush to so a few single click around the sphere, set the blending mode to “soft light”.

Hint: make sure to paint some light on the bottom of the sphere, this will help adding more depth into the image.

The following effect is what I have so far: (the light strip on the right was done using the free tranform tool + a soft white round brush on a new layer with “normal” blending mode:)

Create a new “Shadow” layer on top of the “bottom light” (first layer) and use the same method as described in step 1 except using black colour instead of white, do a single click and resize it into the thin shape.

Change the blending mode of the shadow layer to “overlay”, you will have the following effect:

Step 4

Now we can add some effect around the sphere to make it look mysterious. Use the abstract brushset 1 we downloaded, choose any one of them and reduce its brush size to a smaller size, paint around the sphere as shown below:

Create another new layer and use the Abstract brushset 2 to paint some patterns on top of the sphere, as shown below:

(Hint: use the Free Tranform tool to distort, warp the new layer to create variations)

Here is what I have so far:

Add a new texture layer just above the background layer, and use the same brushset as we used just now, but this time with its orginal size, paint some patterns on the lower half of the canvas, as shown below:

Make sure you mix different brushset and set the opacity and flow to both around 50%.

Step 5

Now let’s add the golden colour on the sphere. The trick here to add a Color Balance adjustment layer just above the original “Sphere” layer, with the following settings:

and you will have the following effect:

add the following Curves adjustment layer on top of all layers:

and you will have the following effect:

Step 6

Now we can do some final touches to the image. Firstly let’s flatten the image, duplicate the background layer once and apply the following Radial Blur settings to the duplicated layer:

Change the blending mode to “Screen” and you will have the following effect:

Now we don’t really want to the whole image to be blurred, so we can add a layer mask as shown below to hide some parts:

Also apply the following Smart Sharpen settings to the background layer:

and you will have the following final effect: (click to enlarge)

That’s it for this tutorial! Of course you can further enhance the effect and try out more colour schemes and filter effects, but that’s totally up to you.

Hope you enjoy it and find it useful! Until next time, have a great day!