Create Cyborg Human Face Photo Manipulation in Photoshop

In this tutorial, I will show you the process of creating a cyborg human face photo manipulation in Photoshop. We will use a number of photo manipulation techniques to merge several objects into one piece, and apply image adjustments to fine-tune each of the objects to achieve the desired effect.

The PSD file of this tutorial is available via the PSD Vault VIP members area.

This is an immediate level tutorial and some steps can be a little tricky, have a try!

Note: The Photoshop tutorial is done in CS6 – therefore some screenshot may have slighting different layout as in the earlier version. Some brushes are exclusive to Photoshop CS6.

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

Old factory stock 1

Old factory stock 2

Abstract Brushset (pick a few sets from the list)

Note: This tutorial utilises heavily on layer mask techiques – if you have any difficulty with layer mask, please check out this video tutorial below:

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1400px * 800px with white background. Load the model stock into Photoshop and select the facial area as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection over to our document, reduce its size and place it at the center of the canvas:

Apply the following Unsharp Mask filtter settings to sharpen this face layer a little:

Use the eraser tool to fade the edges of the face as shown below:

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

Black and White

Set the layer blending mode of this black and white adjustment layer to “Hard Light”:

Then add the following layer mask on this black and white adjustment layer:

Curves

and here is the effect so far:

Step 2

We will starting the mechanical parts into the image in the step. Load the “Factory stock 1” image into Photoshop and select the pipe on the top:

Copy and paste the selection over to our image and adjust its size as shown below:

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

Black and White

Levels

and here is your effect so far:

Repeat the above steps and add another pipe on top: (with a different angle)

Step 3

We will keep adding more mechanical parts to the image. Select this round piece from the “Factory stock 1” image:

Copy and paste the selection over to our document, resize and place it onto the following position:

Add the following 2 adjustment layers as clipping mask to it:

Black and White

Levels

and here is the effect you will have so far:

Repeat the above step and add more of these mechanical pieces to our image – use free transform tool to rotate and resize the pieces as you see fit.

You will aim to achieve the following effect:

Step 4

We will add more mechanical piece into the image. Load the “Factory stock 2” image into Photoshop and select the bottom one as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection over to our image, place the new layer below the face layer and use a cloud or smoke brush (you should find lots of them on Google) as eraser, remove portions of it as shown below:

Optionally, you can a few low visibility meters to the image (set layer opacity to around 20%):

Step 5

We’re almost done! For final touches, we can add a few brush patterns below the face with the abstract brush sets you downloaded:

The strokes on the right were added with a 20px Round Point Stiff brush:

and erase parts of it with the eraser tool:

I further added the colour balance of this image with a few colour balance and curves adjustment layers, and here is my final effect: (click to enlarge)

You can check out the following video tutorial on how to add colours with adjustment layers:

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!