Artistic Photo Manipulation with Cracked Face Effect in Photoshop

In this Photoshop tutorial, I will show you the process of creating this Artistic Photo Manipulation with Cracked Face Effect in Photoshop. We will practice a number of layer masking techniques and image adjustment tricks along the way, as well as applying some interesting filter effect to our image.

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Here is a preview of the final effect I have for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

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

Model by faestock

Painted Wall with Crack

Rock Texture

Grunge Brushset

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1280px * 700px with white background. Grab the gradient fill tool and fill the background layer as shown below:

Load the model image into Photoshop and copy and paste its facial area into our document:

Select the eraser tool with a grunge brush set:

Add the following 2 adjustment layers as clipping mask to this face layer:

Levels

Curves

and here is the effect so far:

Step 2

We can apply the crack texture to the facial area. Load the wall stock image into Photoshop and select a portion of the image as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection over to our image and place it above all previous layers. Adjust its size slightly with the free transform tool, and set it as a clipping mask to the layer below:

Apply the following layer mask on this crack texture layer to reveal the eyes, nose and lips area:

and you will have the following effect:

Add another 2 adjustment layers as clipping mask to this crack layer:

Curves

and here is the effect so far:

Step 3

Let’s add the abstract pattern into the image with the help of the rock stock image we downloaded at the beginning of this tutorial. Load the image into Photoshop and select a piece as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection behind the face as shown below:

Apply the following layer mask over the rock texture layer:

You will have the following effect:

Add the following 2 adjustment layers to this rock layer as clipping masks:

Black and White

Levels

Let’s add another piece of rock texture on top of the face as shown below:

Slightly adjust the contrast of this new piece of rock with the following settings:

Optionally, we can add some small particles by selecting a few small pieces from the wall stock image:

And copy and paste them over to our image:

Step 4

We will draw a few curvy lines onto our image to spice up the effect a bit. Grab the Line Tool from the toolbox:

Set its fill color to light blue with no stroke:

and draw a thin line as shown below:

Then go to Filter > Distort > Wave:

You will have the following dialog window pop up, just click on “OK” to proceed:

Use the following settings for the wave filter:

and here is effect for the line:

We will add a small piece of flyer rock to the end of the line:

Repeat the process above to add a few more of the lines and rock to our image, as shown below:

Step 5

We’re almost done! For final touches, we can add some cloud effect behind the facial area:

We can also paint some extra abstract patterns onto the canvas:

Once you’re happy with the overall effect, flatten the image and duplicate the background layer, apply the following Wave filter to the duplicated layer:

Add the following layer mask to the duplicate layer to reveal the background layer:

and here is the effect so far:

I further enhanced the image by adding some color effect with the color balance layer, and here is the final effect: (click to enlarge)

That’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy going through it and find it useful. Drop me a comment below if you have any question.

Till next time, have a great day!