In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to create this Awesome Freestyle Artwork via Mixing Shapes and Dirt Texture in Photoshop. This is an intermediate level tutorial and some steps can be tricky, but why not have a go :) ?

Alogn the way, I will show some retouch techniques, the use custom brush and the make of some nice abstract lines and shapes, plus lighting effect skills.

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

Dirt Brush

Step 1

Create a new doucment sized 880px * 1200px, leave the background color as White. Create a new layer called “texture”, load the dirt brush into Photoshop and use it to paint some texture on it: (set the brush opacity to around 40%)

One thing you need to remember is when you paint this texture layer, try to use a combination of different brushes in the set, and experiement with different brush sizes as you go:

Once you finish the painting, duplicate this texture layer once and use the free transform tool to perspective it as shown below:

Reduce the layer opacity of this layer to around 50%, you will have the following effect:

Step 2

Load the model image into Photoshop, cut out the girl and paste it onto our canvas, name this new layer as “Model”:

Add the following two adjustment layer to the model layer: (make sure to tick the “use previous layer as clipping mask” option when adding them)

Levels:

Layer mask on levels adjustment layer:

Curves:

Layer mask on Curves adjustment layer:

Add a new clipping mask layer for the model layer, grab a soft white brush and paint to the areas as shown below:

Change the blending mode of this new clipping mask layer to “Soft Light”, and you will have the following effect:

I feel the hair of the model need to brighten up a bit, so I created aonther clipping mask layer and used a small white brush with 60% – 70% hardness to paint some white lines on the hair:

Change the blending mode to “Overlay” for this hair painting layer, reduce the layer opacity to around 80%, you will have the following effect:

and here is the overall effect so far:

Step 3

Create a new layer called “Curvy Line” and use the Pen Tool to draw a path as shown below:

Choose a 13px, 100% hardness brush:

Stroke the Path with this brush:

Make sure you tick the “Simulate Pressure” setting:

and you will have the following effect:

Duplicate the curvy line layer a few times, resize and rotate those layers, and position them as shown below:

Step 4

Now let’s get on with the curvy line creation. For tutorial purpose, I made a new document in Photoshop.

Create a new layer and use the Rectangular Marquee tool to draw a seletion as shown below:

Fill the selection with a colour of your choice:

hit Ctrl + T and right-click on the rectangle, choose “Distort”:

Then Hold the Alt key and Drag the bottm right corner of the rectangle to distort it as shown below:

Then duplicate this layer a few times, rotate and resize each layer as shown below: (use colour balance and hue adjustment tool for colour variation)

Then merge the duplicated layer together:

Hit Ctrl + T and right-click on the shapes, choose “Warp” option:

Warp the shapes as shown below:

That’s it, you can use those warped shapes in your image. You can choose you own colour and size, no need to following the exact colour in my image:

Apply the shapes in different location will add depths and variety for your image:

Step 5

This step is optional. I personally feel like adding a bit more depth and variety to the image by have a “shadow” copy of the girl on the canvas somewhere.

Create a new layer called “Girl Shadow” just below the model layer, then load the selection of the model layer and fill the selection with Gray colour:

Resize this layer to a very small scale, flip it horizontally and position it as shown below: (erase the top right part of the girl so it blends into the background)

I added a new layer called “shadow” with “Soft light” blending mode, and use a soft black brush to paint some shadow on the foot area:

Optional: add some more abstract lines around the canvas with Pen Tool Strokes for more variety:

Now we can add some overall shadows and highlights on the image by create a new layer on top of all previous layers, use a soft brush with black or white colour, painting on the new layer as shown below:

and here is the effect so far:

Step 6

Now we can apply some final touches to the image. Flatten the image (save a layered copy before you do so), then duplicate the background layer once, apply the following Smart Sharpen filter to the duplicated layer:

We can also add some lighting effect to the image by duplicate the background layer once more, and apply the Angled Strokes filter to it, with the settings below:

Reduce the layer opacity of this angled strokes layer to around 40%, you will see now we have some really nice lighting effect as shown below:

On left leg:

Around the chest area:

I also add a color balance adjustment layer to image with the following settings:

and you will have the following final effect:

OK that’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy it and find it useful and inspirational. If you have any question, drop a comment below and I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!

Welcome to the 25th volume of “Creativity Fine-Tuning: Best of PSD Vault Flickr Group”, which is a showcase I run regularly here on psdvault.com featuring some fantastic, highly-creative design works in the PSD Vault Flickr Group.

Hope you enjoy those works as much as I did and find them inspirational! Meanwhile, if you have some cool designs and would like to be featured here on PSD Vault, you can simply join the PSD Vault Flickr group.

If you like those works, then show those awesome designers some support! Click on the image to visit the author’s flickr page and drop them a comment :)

Here goes the list, enjoy!

That’s it for this post! Hope you enjoy it and find it inspirational! Remember, if you have some cool designs and would like to be featured here, you can simply join the PSD Vault Flickr group and sumbit your work there.

Until next time, have a  nice day!

Welcome to the 24th volume of “Creativity Fine-Tuning: Best of PSD Vault Flickr Group”, which is a showcase I run regularly here on psdvault.com featuring some fantastic, highly-creative design works in the PSD Vault Flickr Group.

Hope you enjoy those works as much as I did and find them inspirational! Meanwhile, if you have some cool designs and would like to be featured here on PSD Vault, you can simply join the PSD Vault Flickr group.

If you like those works, then show those awesome designers some support! Click on the image to visit the author’s flickr page and drop them a comment :)

Here goes the list, enjoy!

That’s it for this post! Hope you enjoy it and find it inspirational! Remember, if you have some cool designs and would like to be featured here, you can simply join the PSD Vault Flickr group and sumbit your work there.

Until next time, have a  nice day!

We all know Photoshop is a tool that can produce practically any effect you want with images. However in order to produce the effect you want, you will need lots of practices and the right guidance. Luckily in this information age, there are lots of free Photoshop tutorial around to teach you how to achieve some amazing effect via Photoshop.

In this post, I will showcase you 15 Fantastic (fresh) Photoshop Tutorials from the Design Community. Hopefully they will be of use to you and inspire you in whatever you’re trying to make.

Here goes the list, enjoy!

Create A Dynamic Shattering Text Effect

Floral 3D Text Effect

Colorful Plexi Text Effect using Photoshop

Create Stylish Pinky Portrait in Photoshop

Photoshop & Illustrator Tutorial: Add vector flair to model shots

Create an Explosive Abstract in Cinema 4D and Photoshop

Create an Awesome Funky Text Effect

How to create retro sunflower poster in Photoshop

Creation of “Get Digitised” – Photoshop CS tutorial

Photoshop Tutorial: Create gorgeous photomontages

How to create Fantacy Woman in Amazing Photo Manipulation

Create a Falling Fantasy Photomanipulation using Painting Techniques

Making of ‘City Of Angels’

Photoshop Tutorial: Create fashion-inspired photo illustrations

Create Jungle Text  in Photoshop

That’s it for this post! Hope you find it useful and inspirational. Remember if you like those tutorial, drop a comment to the authors and let them know :)

Until next time, have a nice day!

Welcome to the 23rd volume of “Creativity Fine-Tuning: Best of PSD Vault Flickr Group”, which is a showcase I run regularly here on psdvault.com featuring some fantastic, highly-creative design works in the PSD Vault Flickr Group.

Hope you enjoy those works as much as I did and find them inspirational! Meanwhile, if you have some cool designs and would like to be featured here on PSD Vault, you can simply join the PSD Vault Flickr group.

If you like those works, then show those awesome designers some support! Click on the image to visit the author’s flickr page and drop them a comment :)

Here goes the list, enjoy!

That’s it for this post! Hope you enjoy it and find it inspirational! Remember, if you have some cool designs and would like to be featured here, you can simply join the PSD Vault Flickr group and sumbit your work there.

Until next time, have a  nice day!

Hi there, welcome to the 1st volume of the “Inspirational and Creative Web Links From PSD Vault Facebook Fan Page” series! In this post, I hand-picked 15 Inspirational and Creative Web Links From PSD Vault Facebook Fan Page, out of hundreds of links I collected in the past few months.

Due to time limitation I can only select 15 best, and most popular links from the fanpage. So if you wish to get more, simply join the PSD Vault Facebook Fan Page now. Fresh Photoshop and design links are added every day.

For your convenience, I have put those links into three categories: Photoshop tutorials, Design inspirations and other Photoshop resources.

Here goes the list, hope you enjoy them and find them useful.

Photoshop Tutorials

Create a Realistic Landscape from Scratch with a Graphic Tablet

Combine 3D Shapes and Vectors for a Dynamic Composition

Sci-fi Environment Concept

Create a Dark Steampunk Digital Painting

How To Create A Grungy And “Sticky” Icon With Photoshop

Design Inspirations

Spectacular Photos of Crepuscular Rays

90 Creative Advertisements You Will Listen To

High Speed Photography : Frozen in Time

Examples of Amazing Animal PhotoManipulation

50 Beautiful Print Advertisements for Inspiration

Other Photoshop Resources

100+ Photography Enhancing Photoshop Actions

45 breathtakingly realistic CG Portraits of women + Tutorials

40 Best Photoshop Tutorials for Creating Fantasy Scenes

40 Outstanding Photo Manipulation Tutorials

30+ Free High Quality Gadget PSD Files

That’s it for this post! Hope you enjoy this collection and find those links useful. Cheers and have a great day!

Welcome to the 21st volume of “Creativity Fine-Tuning: Best of PSD Vault Flickr Group”, which is a showcase I run regularly here on psdvault.com featuring some fantastic, highly-creative design works in the PSD Vault Flickr Group.

Hope you enjoy those works as much as I did and find them inspirational! Meanwhile, if you have some cool designs and would like to be featured here on PSD Vault, you can simply join the PSD Vault Flickr group.

If you like those works, then show those awesome designers some support! Click on the image to visit the author’s flickr page and drop them a comment :)

Here goes the list, enjoy!

That’s it for this post! Hope you enjoy it and find it inspirational! Remember, if you have some cool designs and would like to be featured here, you can simply join the PSD Vault Flickr group and sumbit your work there.

Until next time, have a  nice day!

Welcome to the 20th volume of “Creativity Fine-Tuning: Best of PSD Vault Flickr Group”, which is a showcase I run regularly here on psdvault.com featuring some fantastic, highly-creative design works in the PSD Vault Flickr Group.

Hope you enjoy those works as much as I did and find them inspirational! Meanwhile, if you have some cool designs and would like to be featured here on PSD Vault, you can simply join the PSD Vault Flickr group.

If you like those works, then show those awesome designers some support! Click on the image to visit the author’s flickr page and drop them a comment :)

Here goes the list, enjoy!

That’s it for this post! Hope you enjoy it and find it inspirational! Remember, if you have some cool designs and would like to be featured here, you can simply join the PSD Vault Flickr group and sumbit your work there.

Until next time, have a  nice day!

Personally speaking, I love vintage textures – although we’re living in a high-tech society where everything is shining and glossy, sometimes we need a bit of old, ancient feeling to get a balance and taste the history. Not to mention if you’re working on a design project requiring the vintage touches, you will find those textures and Photoshop brushes extremely useful.

In this post, I will share my collection of 100+ Great Vintage Textures and Photoshop Brushsets to Decorate Your Design. Hopefully they will be of use to you and expand your own vintage collection.

Here goes the list, enjoy!

Textures

Pretty Things – icon texture 1 by ~manila-craze

Vintage III Texture Pack by =cloaks

vintage texture 1 by ~H-D-STOCK

15 textures: art + vintage by =jocosity

vintage diamonds by *DyingBeautyStock

Textures02 – Vintage Floral by ~crazymegan

Vintage Textures Pk1 by =inspyretash-stock

Cracked Wallpaper by ~AboveVintage

Vintage Grunge Texture Pack by =powerpuffjazz

Vintage Musk by ~AsunderStock

Photoshop Brushes

Old Postage Stamp Brushes

vintage grunge brushes by ~alex16

Vintage Images + Ephmera by ~akw04

11 brushes of vintage Harley-Davidson’s

1940 Cosmopolitan Brushes

Vintage Fractal Grunge Brushes by ~WebTreatsETC

Vintage Paper Brushes by ~fiftyfivepixels

Vintage Toys Photoshop Brushes by ~FidgetResources

Vintage Clocks-PS Brushes by ~fiftyfivepixels

Wanted Poster

Old Paper Brushes V by ~lailomeiel

That’s it for this post! Hopefully you will find those textures and brushes useful for your vintage design.

Until next time, have a great day!

Welcome to the 19th volume of “Creativity Fine-Tuning: Best of PSD Vault Flickr Group”, which is a showcase I run regularly here on psdvault.com featuring some fantastic, highly-creative design works in the PSD Vault Flickr Group.

Hope you enjoy those works as much as I did and find them inspirational! Meanwhile, if you have some cool designs and would like to share them here, you can simply join the PSD Vault Flickr group.

If you like those works, then show those awesome designers some support! Click on the image to visit the author’s flickr page and drop them a comment :)

Here goes the list, enjoy!

That’s it for this post! Hope you enjoy it and find it inspirational!

Until next time, have a  nice day!

If you have been following PSD Vault for a while, you will find a lot of my tuts and inspirational contents are grungy or abstract. As a result, I have collected tons of resources based on those two styles in my resource library and I thought I would share some of those with you :)

In this post, I included 25 Excellent Grunge Style Fonts Perfect for Abstract Design out of my collections of fonts, hope you like them and find them useful.

Inked God

28 Days Later

Rough Linen

Pulse Sans Virgin

Trashco

Broken Ghost

Gridlock’d

Times New Yorker

Soul Mission

Neo print

Laundromat

Jamai Stevie

Karabine

Grutch Shaded

Everyday Ghost

Desperado

Extravaganza

F-Rotten

Killed DJ

Rusted Plastic

That’s it for this post! Hope you enjoy it and find it useful!

Till next time, have a nice day!

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to create this really cool, Mystical Golden Sphere in Photoshop. The steps are in fact pretty simple and the outcome looks great in my opinion, have a try :)

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 Download

You can download the PSD File for this tutorial via the VIP Members Area for only $4.95/Month (or less)! You will not only get this PSD File, but also 40+ other PSD Files + Extra Goodies + Exclusive Photoshop tutorial there. Signup now and get exclusive :) Find out more about the VIP Members Areas

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!