Here is a preview of the final image for this tutorial: (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:

Ground

City

Cloud Right

Cloud Left

Cloud Overlay

Girl

Watercolor Brushes

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1200px * 1200px, fill the background layer with Black colour. Load the Ground stock image into Photoshop, select the lower half of the image with the Rectangular Marquee Tool, as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection onto our canvas, as shown below:

Erase the top edges of the texture, as shown below:

Name this layer as “Ground”, apply the following Black and White adjustment layer to it:

and here is the effect so far:

Step 2

Load the City texture into Photoshop, select the building portion of the image as shown below:

Don’t worry if the selection is not precise, this is not important in this tutorial.

Copy and paste the selection onto our canvas, resize and position the new layer as shown below:

Now we want to hide certain portion of the city building. So we can add the following mask to this city building layer:

As you can see, here we not only used a soft round brush, but also the Watercolor Brushes we downloaded before for the edges of the building, plus a feathered rectangular marquee tool:

and here is the effect after the masking:

Name this layer as “City”, apply the following Black and White adjustment layer to it: (make sure to tick the “use previous layer as clipping mask” option)

and here is the effect so far:

Step 3

Load the Cloud Right stock image into Photoshop, copy the entire image, and paste it onto our canvas.

Put the new layer below the “City” layer, resize and position the new layer as shown below:

Add the following layer mask to this cloud layer:

Name this layer as “Cloud Right”, apply the following Black and White adjustment layer to it: (make sure to tick the “use previous layer as clipping mask” option)

Duplicate this cloud right layer once, apply the following motion blur to the duplicated layer:

This will smoothen the cloud and add a bit more motion into the image.

Apply the same black and white adjustment layer as depicted in the original cloud right layer to the duplicated layer, reduce the opacity of the duplicate to around 40%, you will have the following effect:

Step 4

Load the Cloud Left texture image into Photoshop. Select a portion of texture with Lasso Tool (50px feather) as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection onto our canvas, put the layer above the “Cloud Right” layer, but below the “City” layer, resize it as shown below:

Erase the excessive portion with a soft brush as shown below:

Name this layer as “Cloud Left”, apply the following Black and White adjustment layer to it: (make sure to tick the “use previous layer as clipping mask” option)

here is the effect so far:

Step 5

Load the Girl texture image into Photoshop. Use the Lasso Tool to make a selection around the girl and the snake, as shown below: (set feather to 40px)

Copy and paste the selection onto our canvas, put the new layer above all other layers, resize and position it as shown below:

Name this layer as “Girl”, apply the following Black and White adjustment layer to it: (make sure to tick the “use previous layer as clipping mask” option)

and here is the effect so far:

Step 6

Load the Cloud Overlay texture image into Photoshop, copy and paste the entire image onto our canvas, as shown below:

Name this layer as “Cloud overlay”, apply the following Black and White adjustment layer to it: (make sure to tick the “use previous layer as clipping mask” option)

Change the blending mode of this layer to “Screen” and opacity to 30%, you will have the following effect:

Cloud overlay is a perfect way to add lighting dynamics and increase the depth for your image. Experiment with it and you will find it very useful when it comes to add extra flavor to your design.

Step 7

Now we pretty much set the overall layout for this city scene. Now we add some more contrast and colour onto it to make it look sci-fi.

Add the following adjustment layers (and their relevant masks) on top of all layers:

Curves

Mask

Attention: for the following 2 colour balance adjustment layer, use the watercolour brushset on the mask for more painting and realistic effect.

Colour Balance Right (set blending mode to “soft light”)

Mask

Colour Balance Rest of the image

Mask

Levels

Mask

and here is the effect so far:

Step 8

We’re nearly finished! I decided to add more contrast to the left side of the image, especially on the left edge of the high-rise in the centre. So I further added the following two adjustment layers:

Hue and Saturation

Mask

Brightness and Contrast

Mask

and here is the effect so far:

You can see now the building is highlighted and as a result, the image has more lighting depth.

Step 9

I feel the right side of the image is a bit boring compare with the left. So I create a new layer on top the background layer, and use the water colour brush to paint some textures on the centre right portion, beneath the buildings:

And you will have the following effect as a result:

That’s it for this tutorial! I sharpen the image with the “Reduce Noise” filter and add some abstract lines on the girl, and here is my final result: (click to enlarge)

Lastly, I would like to stress that you will find the “Black and White” filter and the “Water Colour” style brushsets will be extremely useful when it comes to photo manipulation. Experiment with them :)

Till next time, have a great day!

Here is a preview of the final effect I have for this tutorial: (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:

Beach

Mountain

Girl

Planet

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1400px * 800px, leave the background layer as white, load the “Beach” image into Photoshop. Copy and paste the entire image onto our document, resize it as shown below:

The reason we do is that we only want the sand portion of the image to show at this stage, and we will manipluate the cloud portion later on in the tutorial.

Name this layer as “beach”, add the following mask to hide the sky/cloud portion on this layer:

and here is the effect after applying this layer mask:

Add the following three adjustment layers on top of this “beach” layer:

Black and white

Set blending mode to “Soft Light” for this black and white adjustment layer.

Curves

Colour Balance

Here is the effect so far:

Step 2

Now we can tackle the sky/cloud portion of the image. We use the same texture as in the previous step, but this time we select a portion of the sky and paste it onto our canvas.

To add variartion to the image, I copy and paste two different portion of the sky onto our canvas: (One to the left, the other one to the right)

Use a soft brush to erase the edge of the sky to blending them together:

Add the following adjustmnet layer to the sky to the left:

I know when I add the mountain texture later on, the right side of the skpe will probably be covered be the mountain, the left side will therefore become a light source, so the adjustment layer is to emphasise this portion.

and here is the effect so far:

Step 3

Load the “Girl” texture into Photoshop, cut out the girl using whatever selection method you prefer (don’t worry about the edge) and paste it onto the canvas as shown below:

Create a new layer on top of the girl layer called “shadow”, set the blending mode to “Soft Light” and opacity to around 60%, use a soft brush with black colour  to paint some shadow under the girl and to the right, as shown below:

Add another layer on top of the shadow layer called “light”,set the blending mode to “soft light” and opacity to 60%, this time use a soft round brush with White Colour and do a single click in the position as shown below:

and here is the overall effect so far:

Step 4

Load the “Mountain” texture into Photoshop, select the mountain portion of the image as shown below: (I used the Quick Selction Tool)

Copy the selection and paste it onto our canvas, name this new layer as “mountain right”, erase the edges with a soft eraser, as shown below:

Add the following two adjustment layers to this mountain right layer, make sure to tick “use previous layer as clipping mask” option:

Curves

Colour Balance

add the following layer mask to the colour balance adjustment layer: (this will hide the rest the layer, and leave only the river portion)

Duplicate the “mountain right” layer once and drag it to the top, flip it horizontally and drag it to the left hand side of the canvas, erase the right and top edges as shown below:

Add the following two adjustment layers to this mountain right layer, make sure to tick “use previous layer as clipping mask” option:

Curves

here is the effect so far:

Step 5

Now we can do some tweaks so each of the objects blend together with each other. Add the following adjustment layers (and their relevant layers masks) on top of all layers:

Vibrance

Colour Balance

Mask:

Curves

Mask

Of course with the colour balance layer, you can try out your own colour combination and see what result that brings you.

Optionally, you can add one more colour balance layer on top and add some warm colours on the bottom. Here are my settings for the second colour adjustment layer:

Mask:

and here is the overall effect so far:

Step 6

Load the planet stock image into Photoshop, cut out the plaent and paste it onto our canvas in the position as shown below:

Apply the following mask to this planet layer:

Change the blending mode to “Soft Light” and reduce the opacity to 50%, you will have the following effect:

Step 7

We can add some misty/fog effect on the image – instead of using textures, we use this fractal brushset to paint some texture around the image, as shown below: (paint on a new layer, with soft light blending mode and a 30-50% opacity)

Hint: try to mix the Warp Tool (Ctrl + T and right-click to choose warp) and the fractal brushset for better effect:

Of course you’re free to experiement and paint those fogs in a different position :)

Step 8

Now we’re pretty much done! However we can add some final adjustments to the image.

We simply flatten the image, duplicate the background layer, and apply the following High Pass filter to the duplicated layer:

Change the blending mode to “Hard light”, you will find your effect become sharpened and clearer:

That’s it! I also tried to add some colour to the image by having one more Colour Balance adjustment layer, with the following settings:

Mask

You can also try out adding more adjustment layers such as Curves or Levels to add more lighting contrast.

and here is the final effect I have for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

That’s it for this tutorial! Hopefully you learn something out of it and find it inspirational!

Cheers and have a great day!

Along the way, we will be using lots of textures, image adjustments, blending options and various filters. The purpose is to show you how you can use multiple texture images and combine them to create dramatic effect.

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

To complete this tutorial, you will need to the follwing stocks:

Wave 1

Wave 2

Font

Lightning

Ok let’s get started!

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.

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1280px * 800px, fill the background layer with black colour and use font we downloaded (in fact you don’t have to use that font, any bold, thick font would be in this occasion) and type some text onto the canvas as shown below: (lower half of the canvas)

Apply the following layer blending options to this text layer:

Drop shadow

Outer Glow

Bevel and Emboss

Gradient Overlay

Stroke

and you will have the following effect:

Step 2

Now we want to add a bit more lighting contrast to the text so that later on when we add the waves and splashes, the effect would mix it with the surrounding environment.

So load the selection of the text layer by clicking on the thumbnail of the text layer on the layer pallette, as shown below:

Craete a new layar on top of the text layer, go to Filter > Rander > Cloud and render some cloud inside it (set foreground colour as white, background colour as black before you render), set the blending mode of this new cloud layer as “Hard Light”.

You will have the following effect:

Create another new layer on top of the cloud layer, name it as “fibre texture”, maintain the selection of the text layer and fill the selection with black colour on this “fibre texture” layer.

Go to Filter > Render > Fibre and apply the following settings:

Change the blending mode of this fibre layer to “Hard Light”, and reduce the opacity of around 25%, you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Load the Wave 1 stock image into Photoshop, use the lasso tool with a 20px – 30 feature, make a selection to the area shown below:

Copy and paste the selection onto our document, name this new layer as “wave 1″ and put it below the original text layer and just above the background layer. Desaturate this layer, resize it and erase (using a soft round brush) the outer portion of the wave, as shown below:

and you should have the following effect:

Duplicate this “wave 1″ layer once and drag it on top of all previous layers, reduce the opacity to around 85%, you will have the following effect:

You will see now the bottom of the texts are now submerged under the water, and this make the effect look more realistic.

Step 4

No we’re on the splashing effect. Load the Wave 2 stock image into Photoshop, use the lasso tool again with a 25px feather, make a selection as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection onto our canvas, name this new layer as “wave 2″ and put it on top of all previous layers, desaturate the layer and use a big soft brush to erase the edges off.  Then change the layer blending mode of this layer to “hard light”, and reduce the opacity to around 60%.

The effect you aim to achieve is shown below:

Make two duplicates of the “wave 2″ layer, resize it to a small scale, flip both of them vertically and drag them to the positions as shown below:

As you can see this adds a bit more varirations to the wave and make the effect look more interesting:

Nwe we add the ocean portion on our document and blending it in with our text. Go back to the “Wave 1″ stock image, use the rectangular marquee tool to selection and portion of the ocean as shown below:

Copy and paste this selection onto our document, name this layer as “ocean” and put it below the original text layer, but on top of the “wave 1″ layer:  (use the free transform tool to resize it a bit, as shown below)

Reduce the layer opacity of this “ocean” layer to around 90%.

Step 5

Now we’re on to the cloud bit. Go back to the “wave 1″ texture image and selection a portion of the cloud as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection on to our document, name the new layer as “cloud”, desaturate it and position the layer on top centre of the canvas as shown:

Use a big soft brush to erase the edges of this cloud layer so it blends in with the background:

Add the following two adjustment layers on top of the cloud layer, make sure to tick “use previous layer as clipping mask” option:

Levels

Curves

and you will have the following effect for the cloud:

and this overall effect for the image:

Step 6

Now we can tackle the lightning part of the text effect. Load the Lightning stock image into Photoshop, Ctrl + A to select the entire image and copy paste it onto our document. Name the new layer as “Lightning” and put it just below the “cloud” layer.

Desaturate this lightning layer, resize and position the lightning texture as shown below:

Duplicate this lightning layer a few times, resize them and scatter them around the text, so to make the overall effect look more dramatic:

Add the following Curves adjustment layer on top of all previous layers:

You will have the following effect:

Now we can paint some colour over the it: to do this, basically create a new layer and set its blending mode as “soft light”, grab the colour of your choice and paint over the layer with a big soft brush:

As you can see, I focus on the bottom of the text (with light blue), the lightning (with red), and the cloud (with dark brown). I leave the choice of the colour to you, experiment with different schemes and you may find the feel will be totally different.

Step 7

For final touch-ups, I decided to do two things:

1. Add lights coming down from the sky
2. Add text reflection on ocean water
3. Add radial blur to the lightning bit

Sounds interesting? The steps are quite simple in fact.

So we flatten the image, duplcate the background layer three times. On the first duplicated layer, desaturate the whole layer, apply the following radial blur settings to it:

Change the layer blending mode to “Screen”, drop the layer opacity to around 60%, you will have the following effect:

On the second duplicated layer, filp the layer vertically and resize it to a very thin level, change the blending mode to “Screen” and drop its opacity to 40%:

Erase the edges with a soft brush, you will have the following effect:

On the third duplicated layer, apply the following Radial Blur settings to it:

Drag the layer a bit lower, and you will have the following effect:

Apply the following layer mask on this third duplcated layer:

and you will have the following effect:

OK that’s about it! You can further adjust the contrast, lighting and perhaps apply more textures onto it. Choices are yours :)

Here is my final effect for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

Hope you enjoy this tutorial! Drop me a comment if you have any question. Cheers and have a great day!

I made this tutorial fin order to show you how you can use dynamic brush settings, motion blur filter and cloud filter to create great looking effect, which can be used widely in all sorts of occasion to spice up your design :)

Here is a preview of the final effect:

No stock image is required for this tutorial.

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!

Step 1

Firstly let’s make a really simple Photoshop Brush to use later on in the tutorial. Create a new document sized 70px *25px (actually the dimension is not important here, as long as you keep the width roughly 3 times to the height and make it a rectangle shape).

Press Shift + F5 to fill the background layer with any color you like:

and go to Edit > Define Brush to create a custom Photoshop brushset:

Press “Ok” to proceed, you will see the new brushset appearing in the brush list:

Step 2

Now let’s create a new document (size doesn’t matter here) in Photoshop, fill the background layer with Black color. Create a new layer called “on top of the background layer (always a good practice because if something goes wrong you can simply delete this layer) and, let’s now apply some brush dynamics to the brush we just created.

Brush Tip Shape (Make sure to reduce the brush size to a smaller one around 20px)

Shape Dynamics

Scattering

And use this dynamic brush to paint some patterns of the new layer, as shown below:

Step 3

Hit Ctrl + T then right-click on this layer, choose “perspective” and alter the shape of this layer into the one shown below:

This step can be a bit tricky, you might want to try a few times ( to get the right feeling. Ultimately what you want is a kind of splashing/exploding effect. I adjusted a few times myself and this is what I have after the adjustmet:

Use a soft brush eraser to erase the left edge of the dynamic shape, so it blending into the background, therefore creating more depth:

Step 4

Duplicate this “Particle” layer once, apply the following motion blur setting to the duplicated layer:

Make sure the Angle of the motion blur match the angle of the previous particle layer.

Here is the effect you should have after applying the motion blur filter:

Reduce the opacity of the duplcated layer to around 80%, you will have the following effect:

Step 5

To tune-up the effect a bit, we use the cloud filter to add a bit of smoke around the laser particle. To do this, create a new layer called “smoke effect”,  use the Lasso Tool with 30-40px feather to draw a selection around the particle, go to Filter > Render > Cloud and fill some cloud inside the selection:

Hit Ctrl + L and apply the following levels adjustment to this layer:

Resize this layer to a very small size, change its blending mode to “Screen”, positon it to the location as shown below:

Make a few duplication of it and scatter them around the particle, you will have the following effect:

Add some color over it by creating a new layer on top of all previous layer, set the blending mode to either “color dodge” or “overlay”, paint some colour over it: (Hint: use color balance adjustment layer for more control)

Step 6

To finishing up the image, we can flatten the layers, then apply the following “Smart Sharpen” Filter on the flattened layer – this will make the image look more crisp:

and you will have the following effect:

That’s it for this tutorial! Here is a final image I made afterwards:

You can apply this effect to tons of occasions – photo retouch, web headers/footers, manipulations, etc. Just to add extra flavour to your design :)

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

Along the way, we will cover creating shattered/disintegration effect, lighting effect, how to generate more depth to your image, as well as using Pen Tool to create awesome abstract lines. This tutorial is also a great opportunity to practice your brush painting skills.

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

Alternatvie version with different colour scheme: (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 to the following stocks:

Female Model

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1000px * 1000px, fill the background with black colour. Create a new layer on top of the background called “grunge texture”, download a choice of your grungy brushset from sites such as qbrushes.net or brusheezy.com, load it into Photoshop, and use them to paint a light-grey background on this texture layer, as shown below: (make sure you set the flow and opacity of the brush to a low level, around 20-30%)

Once you’re happy with the texture, duplicate this layer once, and resize the duplicated layer as shown below:

Now here is a trick you can use to quickly add some depth to the image – after resizing the image, don’t cancel the selection, straight-away right-click and choose “perspective”, as shown below:

Perspective your selection as shown below:

Erase the upper edge this layer as shown below, so the two layers can sort of blend together:

And you can by doing so, we add depth to the background texture so making it easier to add the model onto the canvas later on:

Step 2

Load the Female Model stock image into Photoshop, use whatever method you like to extract the gril out, copy and paste her onto our canvas, resize and position it as shown below:

Name this layer as “model”.

Apply the following Smart Sharpen filter on this model layer:

Add the following three adjustment layers on to this layer, make sure to tick the “use preivew layer as clipping mask” option:

Black and white

Make sure to change the blending mode of this Black and White layer to “Vivid Light”

Curves

Vibrance

and you will have the following effect:

duplicate the orginal model and drag the duplicated layer to the top, apply the following Spatter filter to it: (Filter > Brush Stroke > Spatter)

You will now see the whole girl image is covered by the shattered piece – of course we don’t want that. So add the following layer mask to hide those parts we don’t wish to see:

By doing so, we only leave the shoulder and the upper legs part to have shattered effect.

Change the layer blending mode of this layer to “Hard Light”, and you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Duplicate the original model layer once more and drag it on top of all previous layers. Apply the following motion blur settings to it:

Add the following mask to the motion blur layer:

Change the layer blending mode this layer to “Screen”, you will have the following effect:

Optionally, you can duplicate this motion blur layer a few more times, and drag them around the model’s body for more effect.

Step 4

Now let’s create some abstract lines. Firstly turn off all previous layers (except the background grungy texture layer) we made so that we have more space to use our creativity. Create a new layer above the grungy texture layer, grab the Pen Tool and draw a path as shown below:

Stroke the path as shown below with a 3-5px soft brush: (You can choose any colour you like)

You will have the following effect or similar:

After stroking the path, duplicate it once and apply the following Gaussian Blur settings to it:

You will have the following effect:

You can see by doing so we add a glowing effect to the abstract line we created.

To futher enhance this layer, we merge this two layers, duplicate the merge layer once, and change the blending mode to “Vivid Light”, you will have the following effect: (I resized this line a bit):

That’s all for create the abstract line. Then we can simply duplicate, position those lines around the model, as shown below:

Step 5

Now we can add a bit of shadow for the model because I intend to have light coming from the top. So we simply create a new layer called “shadow” just below the original model layer, grab a soft black brush, paint some shadow on the bottom:

Create a new layer, use the grungy brushset you donwloaded or choose a different brushset, paint some grungy texture around the model’s body, as shown below:

This step can be a bit tricky to complete – try mixing different brushes in the set, set the opacity and flow to a low level around 30-40%, and use the tip mentioned in the screenshot. It’s all about getting used to the brushset and find the feeling :)

Once you finish the painting, duplicate this layer once, apply the following Motion Blur setting to it:

and you will have the following effect:

Add the following three adjustment layer on top of it, with respective layer masks:

Curves

Curves Mask (Use Eraser with Grungy Brushset, along with soft round brush to create this effect)

Levels

Levels Mask

Color Balance

You will have the following effect so far:

Step 6

Now let’s add some final touch-up for the image. To do this, I decided to use Len Flare + Cloud Filter to add some highlight to the model’s body.

The trick is really simple: Create a new layer on top of all previous layers, use the Lasso Tool (with 25px feather) to create a selection, render some cloud inside it then apply the following Lens Flare settings:

and you will have the following effect:

We then change the layer blending mode to “overlay”, “color dodge” or “vivid light”, totally up to you. Make sure you duplicate this layer a few times, and move them around the model’s body for more highlights.

Below image shows the areas I chose to highlight: (I turn off color so you can see the arrows a bit better)

Important: experiment with layer blending mode with this cloud filter + lens flare layer, you will be amazed how interesting this combination would bring you :)

Here is the effect so far:

Final Step

For this final step, I flatten the image, smart sharpen it a bit, changed the color scheme and adjusted the brightness and contrast as well. I will leave those settings up to you so you can experiment with them :)

Here is the final effect for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

Alternative version: (click to enlarge)

That’s it! Hope you enjoy this tutorial! Drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out!

The key points I would like to address in this tutorial are:

1. How we can achieve great lighting effect by simply mixing custom brushset and various Photoshop filters
2. Explore different layer blending effects and the use of Pen Tool to create abstract lines
3. How to quickly and effectively render realistic star field effect in Photoshop.

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

Alternative Version with different color scheme (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 to the following stocks:

Model

Planet 1

Planet 2

Abstract Brushset

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1400px * 800px (actually size doesn’t really matter here, you can try out other resolution if you like), fill the background layer with black color.

Load the “Model” stock image into Photoshop, use whatever method you perfer to cut the man out, and paste it onto our document:

Hint: I used a combination of Lasso Tool (set tolerence to 7-10px) and Quick Selection Tool to cut him out.

Name this layer as “model”, add the following two adjustment layer onto it: (tick the “use previous layer as clipping mask” option)

Curves

Vibrance

and you will have the following effect:

You can see now we increase the contrast a bit and reduce the colour saturation of the model. This way it’s easier to refine the color and add more effect onto it later on.

Step 2

Download a copy of this Abstract Brushset, load it into photoshop, create a new layer on top the of all previous layers, use this brushset to paint over the model’s body.

I can’t go into much detail about this painting step, however one important thing is to try out different brush blending mode – I used overlay, soft light, hard light, and Multiply). Also make sure you try out different opacity and flow settings as you go.

You can also try out Scale, Distort and Warp this paint layer to maximise its effect.

You can find those settings on the top option bar:

and here is the effect I have after the painting: (You can see I emphaise on the legs and arms)

Step 3

Create a new layer above the background layer, however below the “model” layer, use the same brushset and paint some abstract effect on the bottom.

If the effect doesn’t feel right,  try using the free tranform tool to scale, warp this layer:

also make sure you paint some shadow under the model to add more depth – to do this, simply create a new layer named “shadow” and paint over the area as show below, with a black brushset:

here is the effect I have so far:

Step 4

Load the “planet 1″ image into Photoshop, drag it onto our document and put it just below the “Model” layer, but above the “shadow” layer. Resize and position  it as shown below:

Name this layer as “model”, add the following two adjustment layer onto it:  (tick the “use previous layer as clipping mask” option)

Black and White

Curves

You will have the following effect:

Optionally, you can make a duplication of the this planet layer and resize the duplicated layer to a smaller size, and position it as shown below:

Step 5

This is an optinal step. I personally like to add some abstract lines extending from the model’s arm :)

To do this, simply create a new layer below the model layer, then use the Pen Tool to draw a path as shown below on the newly created layer:

Stroke the path with a 5px soft round brush with White color:

and here is the effect after the stroke:

Once you’re happy with shape, you can duplicate this line layer a few times and adjust their position and size, as shown below:

Step 6

Load the “planet 2″ image into Photoshop and drag it on our document. Resize and position the layer as shown below:

Name this layer as “planet 2″ and duplicate it once, resize it as shown below:

Desaturate and apply the following Gaussian Blur settings to the duplicated layer:

Reduce the layer opacity to around 90%, you will have the following effect:

Then add the following two adjustment layers to it:

Curves

Levels

and you will have the following effect so far:

Step 7

Let’s render the star field now :) To do this, go and add a new layer on top of all other layers and name it “star field”, then go to Filter > Noise > Add noise and apply the following settings:

Apply the following Levels settings to this layer:

To reduce the density of the star a bit, we can apply the following Curves adjustments:

You should have the following effect so far:

Change the blending mode of the layer to “Screen”, you should have the following effect:

Step 8

To wrap up this design, we can add some color onto the image by adding some more layers (with “soft light” blending mode) on top of all layers, make sure to try out different color combinations.

Here are two versions I have for this tutorial:

Version 1

Version 2

I decided to go with version 2 and the final step I took is to apply a smart sharpen filter to the flattened image:

and here is the final effect for this tutorial (click to enlarge):

Alternative Version with different color scheme (click to enlarge)

Hope you enjoy this tutorial! Drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out!

This is an intermediate level tutorial so some steps can be a bit tricky :)

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!

Step 1

Create a new document sized  1400px * 650px, fill the background layer with the following gradients:

Step 2

Create a new layer on top of the background called “light top”, grab a big soft round brush with a white color, do a single click on the top centre region of the canvas:

Create another create called “light bottom” and use a similar brush as mentioned above, do a single click on the centre of the canvas, resize and perspective it with free transform tool (Ctrl + T) to produce more depth for it:

Here is the effect so far:

Step 3

Type some texts on top of all previous layers we created. You can use any font you like but I preferred a big, bold font (download it here):

On the text layer, apply the following layer blending options:

Drop Shadow

Bevel and Emboss

Gradient Overlay

Stroke

Here is the effect so far:

Optional: to add a bit more depth to the text, make a duplicate this text layer, drop the opacity of the duplicated layer to around 20% and move it to the left of the original text layer a bit:

Step 4

Now let’s start make a simple brushset. Create a new document with a size of 200px * 200px, leave the background layer as white, and grab the polygon tool and draw a shape as shown below (use the distort option from the free-transform tool to adjust the shape):

The Polygon Tool:

Polygon Tool Settings:

Draw the shape:

Tip: use the trim tool to get rid of the extra height and width of the canvas.

Important: after drawing the shape, make sure you rastersize this shape layer. and make the background layer tranparent.

Once you finish the aboves, go to Edit > DefineBrush Preset:

In the box popped up, type a name for this brushset and hit “OK”, you will see the newly created brush appearing in the brush list:

Step 5

Select this newly created brush, apply the following brush dynamics to it:

Shape dynamics

Scattering

And tick the “Airbrushing” and “Smoothing” options.

Create a new layer underneath the orginal text layer, draw some random patterns as shown below with this dynamic brush, as shown below: (try adjusting the brush size)

Step 6

Now let’s spice up the effect a bit by adding some cloud over the text. So create a new layer called  “cloud”, render some cloud inside it with the cloud filter (set foreground color to a dark grey, and black background colour).

Before you render the cloud, you have to make a selection with the Lasso Tool around the text (with around 20px feather settting), then render the cloud inside the seletion.

You will have the following effect:

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

You can also duplicate, resize this cloud layer and move those duplicated layer around for more effects, as show below:

Resize

Duplicate

Step 7

To produce even more depth for the text, here is a quick way to do it: create a new layer just above the original text layer, set the blending mode of this layer to “Vivid Light”, grab a soft brush to paint some color onto it:

Add a black and white adjustment layer on top of all layers, adjust the settings accordingly, until you see there is a shadow appearing on the bottom of the text:

Here is the effect you’re aiming to achieve: (you can see now because we have a shadow under the text, the overall effect looks deeper and more attractive)

Add another color layer on top of the black and white adjustment layer, set the blending mode to “color” and paint some color on it, you will have the following effect:

Step 8

Now we’re on the best part of this tut – apply the filter effects! Firstly we flatten the image, then duplicate the background layer once and apply the following Reduce Noise filter to the duplicated layer:

and you will see the text look much clearer and the overall image looks sharper:

Duplicate this sharpened layer once, and apply the following motion blur settings to it:

You will have the following effect:

Change the blending mode of this motion blur layer to “Hard Light” and erase the portion shown blow with a big soft brush (we don’t want the whole text to be blurred)

Step 9

Go back to the sharpened text layer and make another duplication of it, drag it to the top and apply the reticulation filter to it (Filter > Sketch > Reticulation):

You will see the following effect:

Change the blending mode to “color dodge” and erase the edge of the layer off, you will have the following effect:

Optional: go to site5 such as qbrushes.net and find some grungy brushsets, and create a new layer with the blending mode set to “overlay”, paint on it with your choice of grungy brush.

Here is my effect so far:

Step 10

We’re almost done! To add some final touches, we can create a new layer on top of all other layers, render some cloud inside it and set the blending mode to “soft light”, you will have the following effect:

I also added a colour balance adjustment layer on top of all layer to finish the effect off:

and here is my final effect for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! Just one last word: always try out different layer blending modes and see what effect that bring you! Sometimes you will be surprised to see some real cool effects :)

I hope you enjoy it and find it useful and inspirational!

Until next time, have a nice day!

Along the way, we will be using tons of layer blending techniques, filter effects, image adjustments, and various tools from the toolbox. You will learn how to combine those techniques into one and make awesome looking artwork in Photoshop.

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

Alternative version which I adjusted the color saturation: (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.

Before we begin, I’d like to introduce a bit of concept behind this artwork:

1. our hero arrives in hell, in front of him is a flaming river filled wit lava
2. he must somehow get across the river and reach the island in the far distance, guarded by fearsome monsters,
3. he then has to get inside the castle on top of the island to rescue his lover.

Ok once you understand the concept, let’’s get started!

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

Foggy Plain

Cloud

Cliff

Castle

Dragon

Skull

Warrior

Step 1

Create a new document size 1400px * 800px, fill the background layer with black. Load the “Foggy Plain” image into Photoshop, then copy and paste the entire image onto our document, resize it to fix the canvas size.

Name this layer as “plain”, apply the following “Reduce Noise” settings to it to get rid of the noisy bits and add some gloomy effect to it:

And you will have the following effect:

Use the Spot Healing tool to remove the dots on the image:

And you will have the following effect:

Duplicate this plain layer once, change the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “Multiply”, this way will darken the image. Add a layer mask to the duplicate layer to hide the top sky portion so it remains bright:

And here is the effect so far:

Step 2

Now let’s load the “cliff” iamge into Photoshop, then drag the entire image onto our canvas, resize and position it as shown below:

Here comes the interesting bit: grab a really soft (0% hardness), big round brush, erase the ocean part and the edges of the cliff off – the ulimate goal is to try and blend the cliff into our image as seamless as possible:

Now we have the cliff texture here, however it looks quite boring to me with just a single bit sort of sticking out. So I decided to extend it a bit to cover the entire lower portion of the canvas.

This is probably the most tricky part of the tutorial – The goal we got to achieve is to take this cliff texture and somehow make it longer to cover the lower portion.

To do this, following the following steps:

1. make serveral duplicates of the original cliff layer
2. use the same method as described in the previous step to erase the edge portion
3. on each duplicated layer, use Ctrl + T to free transform them so they look different.
4. Then drag them to across the canvas to form a joint cliff

You can make as many duplicated layers as you want.

Also try to experiment layer blending mode with each layer, you will discover how powerful those layer blending modes are.

Here is my effect after the blending and duplicating: (This effect is made by around 10 duplicated cliff layer texture)

Add the following three image adjustment layer and their respective layer mask to it:

Color Balance (Drop opacity to 70%)

Levels

Brightness and Contrast

and here is the effect so far:

You can see I delibrately produce those color and lighting dynamics through layer masking and blending options – they will be used in future steps.

Step 3

Now let’s load the “cloud” image into Photoshop and drag it onto our document, name the new layer as “cloud”. Desaturate this cloud layer and use a big soft brush to erase the outer portion of the cloud, leave the bits as show below:

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

Duplicate this cloud layer a few more times, position the duplicated layer around the edge of the cliff, adjust their blending mode as shown below:

add a curves adjustment layer to it with mask as shown below:

You will have the following effect:

Step 4

Now let’s produce some Lave and Flaming effect to the image. Create a new layer called “lava” and fill it with Black, render some cloud using the cloud filter, as shown below:

Then render some difference cloud afterwards: (try press Ctrl + F a few more times for different result)

Apply the following colour balance settings to it:

Then resize this layer “lava” to a very small size and position it into the centre of the canvas, erase the edges with a small soft brush, you will have the following effect:

change its blending mode to “color dodge”, you will have the following effect:

Again we duplicate this lava layer, rotate and resize the duplicated layer, until it covers the center area:

Step 5

Now load the “castle” image into Photoshop and select the upper portion of the image without the lake, copy and paste it onto our document. Desaturate it and change its layer blending mode to “hard light”, you will have the following effect:

erase the edges off with a soft brush:

add following three image adjustment layer with relevant mask attached to them, to the castle layer as clipping mask:

Curves

Levels

Brightness and Contrast

Go back to the orignal “lava” layer and make a few more duplcations, drag those duplicated lava layer on top of the castle layer, change their layer blending mode to “soft light”, apart from the one on the bottom – set it to “screen”:

Now we can add some smoke effect to the image. To do this, create a new layer called “smoke” and render some cloud on it,  add a lens flare in the centre top:

Add the following mask to this cloud layer:

Change the blending mode of this cloud layer to “color burn”, you will have the following effect:

Step 6

Now let’s add some skulls to the scene. Load the “Skull” image into Photoshop, drag it onto our document, resize and position it as shown below: (I have already erased the edge off and desaturate it)

Add the following two adjustment layer to it as clipping mask:

Curves

Color Balance

Create a new layer called “skull shadow” below the skull layer, use a black brush with 30% flow and opacity, gently paint some shadow for the skull:

Put those skulls stuff into a folder, then duplicate the folder and scatter the skull around the canvas (make sure to adjust the shadow position accordingly)

You can duplicate as many as you want, I only did it once for demonstrate purpose here:

Step 7

Now let’s add some flying monster to the image. Load the “Dragon” image into photoshop, drag it onto our document on name the layer “dragon”. Desaturate the layer and change its blending mode to “Hard Light”, you will have the following effect:

Add the following two adjustment layers as clipping mask to the dragon layer:

Colour Balance

Curves

You will have the following effect:

To add some motion to the monster, we can dupliate the dragon layer once and put it on top of the adjustment layers, apply the following motion blur settings to the duplicated layer:

change the blending mode to “color dodge” and duplicate it a few more times:

Make a folder and put all dragon layers into it, duplicate the folder and resize and rotate it, postion it to the left, as show below: (don’t forget reduce the opacity of the dragon a bit, because it’s a bit further away)

Step 8

Now let’s add our hero onto the image. Load the “Warrior” image into Photoshop, drag it onto our canvas and name the layer “hero”, resize it and put it to the position as shown below: (erase and desaturate as usual, set blending mode to “Vivid Light”)

Duplicate this layer twice, keep the blending mode as “vivid light”. You wll have the following effect:

Use the same method as used for the skull, paint some shadow under the hero by make a new layer called “hero shadow”:

Step 9

That’s pretty much it! To spice up the image a bit, I added a few more lighting layers by simply creating a new layer with the overlay blending mode, grab a white big soft brush, and paint over the following areas:

Finally I flatten the image, reduce the noise of the image a bit with the following settings:

and here is my final effect for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

Alternative version which I adjusted the color saturation: (click to enlarge)

That’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy it and find it useful! Drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out!

Cheers and have a great day!

The purpose of this tutorial is to show you the use of the cloud filter to create various effect, such as light and shadow, as a result bringing more depth to your text effect.

I personally love the cloud filter and I think it’s so versatile and you can use it to generate amazing effect and spice up your design. The trick is how you apply it and what other options do you use to combine it with (such as selection tools, other filter effects, or layer blending mode).

Here is a preview of the final effect:

Alternative darker version: (I adjust the brightness and contrast of the final effect, and some abstract texture to it)

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!

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1400px * 600px (in fact size doesn’t really matter much in this tutorial), fill the background with the following gradients:

Personally I like to start with a gradient background with light grey, as it helps setting the mood for the text effect later on we will be created.

On the canvas, type a letter on the centre with a big bold font (I chose this font) as shown below:

On the text layer, apply the following blending options:

Inner Shadow

Gradient Overlay

Pattern Overlay

and you will have the following effect so far:

Step 2

Duplicate the text layer three times, disable the layer effects for those duplicated layers and put them below the original text layer. Alter the font color a bit and adjust the position of the text to the left and right of the original text layer a bit.

Your result should be looking similar to the following screenshot:

Then on each duplicated layer, add a layer mask respectively and erase a portion of the text with a soft brush on the spots as shown below:

The ulimiate goal of this step is to blend the edge of the text with the surrounding, so we can get ready for the next step.

To further increase the depth of the text, we can make a copy of any one of the duplicated text layer, replace the font color with a dark one, apply the following Gaussian Blur to the text layer: (Make sure this layer is beneath the original text layer)

You will have followin effect:

Step 3

Create a new layer on top of all previous layers called “cloud” and grab the Lasso Tool and draw a selection with 25px feather around the text, as shown below:

Go to Filter > Render > Cloud and render some cloud inside it (with white as foreground colour and dark grey as background colour)

Hint: try experimenting with different feather settings for the Lasso Tool, you will see by changing the feather, the cloud with become either thinner or thicker.

Once you finish with the rendering, resize the cloud and position it as shown below:

Duplcate the cloud layer once and position it to the lower position as shown below:

Change the blending mode of both cloud layer to “Hard Light”, you will have the following effect:

Step 4

Duplicate the cloud once more and name the duplicated layer as “shadow”, put it just above the background layer,  hit Ctrl + I to invert the colour and position it on the bottom of the text.

Change the blending mode of the shadow layer to “Normal” and opacity to 40%, you will have the following effect:

Duplicate the Cloud layer once and put it above all previous layer, rotate it to around 60 degree and apply the following motion blur setting to the duplicated layer:

Name this layer as “Light”.

Change the blending mode of  this light layer to be “overlay”, duplicate it a few times and drag them around the text, and you will have the following effect:

Step 5

OK now we can do some fine tuning to the text by adding a Curves adjustment layer to it:

and add some colour over the text by adding another layer on top of the curves adjustment layer with the “overlay” blending mode. Here is my final effect for this tutorial:

Alternative darker version: (I adjust the brightness and contrast of the final effect, and some abstract texture to it)

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! Hopefully I gave you some ideas about the cloud filter and how you can use it for creating light, shadows and adding more depth to text effect.

Till next time, have a great day!

For those who haven’t yet came across the idea of “Call-to-Action” button – basically they’re buttons that you would want all your users to click on when they land on your page. Usually they’ll be a link to a download, signup or sale. By making those buttons easy to easy and click on, you increase the likelyhood that user will notice the button, then follow up with relevant actions.

As for embossing text, they’re everywhere now on the web, and I personally quite like this particular effect :)

Here is a preview of the final effect for this tutorial: (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!

Step 1

Create a new document size 750px * 400px (size doesn’t really matter here) and fill this background layer with White. Create a new layer on top of the background layer called “gradient”, grab the Gradient Tool from the toolbox and fill it as shown below:

I decide to use this light gradient because it’s easier to demonstrate several important points in the next few steps. You can of course try out darker ones.

Step 2

Let’s type some text on the canvas. I used this font because I personally feel it’s a very clean and bold font, which you can use for a wide range of headings, or descriptive text.

So type some sample text on the canvas as shown below: (use a slightly darker colour for font colour)

Appy the following layer blending option to the text layer:

Inner Shadow

Stroke

And you will have the following effect to the text layer:

See, that’s our embossing text effect done. Very simple, yet effective.

Step 3

Ok let’s get on with creating the call-to-action button. Use the Rounded Rectangular Tool with a 7px radius, draw a button on the canvas as shown below: (Make shape you select “shape layers” on top option bar)

Apply the following layer blending effect to this button:

Bevel and Emboss

Gradient Overlay

With the Gradient Colour, apply the following settings:

Location 0% – Color: #0083be

Location 99% – Color: #31c8fa

Location 100% – Color: #FFFFFF

Stroke

And you will have the following effect:

Step 4

Now we have a button background, let’s add some symbol onto it so it provides some kinds of graphical meaning. In this case, I decided to make this button a download button. So naturally I thought of a down arrow would mean something to the user.

So grab the Custom shape tool from the toolbox:

and choose the bold arrow from the library as shown below:

Draw an arrow on the position as shown below, rotate it clockwise 90 degree when you done the drawing:

Apply the following layer blending options to the arrow layer:

Drop Shadow

Gradient Overlay

Location 0% – Color: #09c228

Location 100% – Color: #b4ff97

Stroke

You will have the following effect so far:

Step 5

Now we can type some text onto the button:

Apply the following layer blending options to the text layer:

Inner Glow

Gradient Overlay

Stroke

and you will have the following effect:

Step 6

Ok we’re almost done. To spice up the final effect, we can add some light and shadow to the button and text to increase their depth. To do this, create a new layer underneath the button background layer, grab a big soft brush with a dark colour, do a single click on the centre of the canvas:

Use free transform tool to resize it and position it as shown below:

To create a light divider between the text and the button, simply create a new layer on top of the shadow layer, use a big soft brush with white colour, do a single click to the position as shown below:

Again we resize it and fit it to the postion under the text:

and here is the final effect for this tutorial:

Final Thoughts

There are several things I think we need to pay attention to when it comes to making call-to-action buttons:

1. Always try to use fresh, vibrant colour as button background, and make sure the color differs significantly from the rest.
2. Apply gradient to the background creating more depth and make the button stand out
3. Use graphic element and symbol on the button to make it more meaningful to visitors
4. Use Light and shadows to draw user attentions.

Further Readings

1. Web Design Trends: Call To Action Buttons

That’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy it!

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to create this work. We will take several real world objects and seamlessly blend them together to form this artwork. We will also use a number of Photoshop brushes to spice up the effect. The techniquses involved in this tutorial include layer blending, image adjustments, filter effects, custom brush tools, adding layer mask, etc.

This is a 10 steps tutorial, very simple, yet the effect is good. Have a try!

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

Please click here to view this tutorial on My Ink Blog.

If you have any problem, drop me a comment and I will try my best to help you out. Cheers and have a great day!

We will take a random image and apply those 5 techniques to enhance the overall effect of the photo. Here is a summary of the five topics we will cover in this tutorial:

1. Remove Black Spots with Spot Healing Brush
2. Make Your Eyes Look More Obvious
3. Use Surface Blur to Smooth Skin, instead of Gaussian Blur
4. Make Her Lips Look Even More Delicious
5. Add Colour Depth and Lighting Contrast to Hair

This is a before and after preview of the final result:

Before

After

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!

In this tutorial, I use the following stock for demonstration purpose – Self 16. by ~The1stGrape-stock

The reason I chose this particular image is that it doesn’t look too bad from the beginning, however there are still things can be improved, perfect for beginners to get some practices on.

Remove Black Spots with Spot Healing Brush

Firstly if we take a look at the photo, we can see there are several black dots on her skin, as shown below:

To fix these, we can use the Spot Healing Brush tool, as shown below in the toolbox:

Simply grab the Spot Healing Brush, adjust the size of the brush to be slightly large than the black spot, and do a single-click on it:

You can see after the single-click, the black spot disappers:

Basically, what happen is that with the Spot Healing Brush tool, it takes samples of the surrounding skin colour pixels and use them to replace the black spot colour pixel. Magical, isn’t it?

Let’s use the same method to remove all black spots on her face, here is the effect so far:

Make Your Eyes Look More Obvious

Now let’s pay attention to her eyes, which are beautiful even without any retouching :) but, we can give them a bit more depth, here is how:

Duplicate the background layer once, set the blending mode as “Soft Light” for the duplicated layer, you will have the following effect:

You can see by doing so we in fact darken the whole image. However here we only want to add depth the eyes, so we need to hide the rest of the layer. To do so, go to layer > layer mask > hide all, then on the layer mask, use a White Brush to paint inside the eyes, as shown below:

By doing so we reveal the eyes portion of the layer only. Here is the effect after the painting:

Use Surface Blur to Smooth Skin, instead of Gaussian Blur

Now let’s make her skin go smoother a bit. To do so, we use Surface Blur. The reason I chose Surface Blur is because unlike Gaussian Blur (which blurs the whole image), Surface Blur retains the edge details. This eliminate the needs of adding a layer mask on the duplicated layer to reveal the edges.

So let’s duplicate the orginal background layer once, and apply the following Surface Blur settings to it:

Drop the opacity of the duplicated layer to around 70%, and you will have the following effect:

Make Her Lips Look Even More Delicious

To do so, we use the Lasso Tool to make a rough selection of the lips as shown below:

Hit Ctrl + J twice to make two duplicates of the selection, change the blending mode of the first copy to “Multiply“, with 100% opacity. Change the blending mode of the second duplicated layer to “Linear Light“, with 55% opacity.

Use a soft, round eraser to gently erase the edge of the lips, you will have the following effect:

Add another layer on top of all other layers, grab a soft round brush with White colour, gently paint around the lower lip to add some extra light:

Hint: set brush flow and opacity to both around 40%, this way we can gradually apply the brush effect.

Add Colour Depth and Lighting Contrast to Hair

Lastly, we can add some more depth to this girl’s hair. To do this, we can simply add a Curves Adjustment layer with the following settings:

Add the following layer mask to the Curves adjustment layer:

Here is our final effect: (You can see by adding the layer mask, we leave only the hair portion highlighted)

Optionally we add duplicate the orginal background layer and set the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “overlay”, reduce the opacity to 45%, you will have the following final effect: (click to enlarge)

That’s for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy it and find it useful, drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!

Along the way, we will go through some photo retouch techniques, make a brush then tweak with the Photoshop brush engine, also we will use the cloud filter to create some awesome lighting effect.

This is an intermediate level tutorial so some steps can be a bit tricky, if you get stuck, just drop a comment below and I will try my best to help you out.

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

Alternative Version:

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:

Rainbow Girl

Step 1

Create a new document sized  800px * 1200px and fill the background layer with Black colour. Load the Rainbow Girl image into Photoshop and cut the girl out by using whatever selection method you like to use. (I used Channel Mask technique here, if you’re interested, here is a tutorial for it)

Copy and paste the girl image onto our document, as shown below:

Name this layer as “girl”.

Step 2

Now we’re into the interesting part of retouching. As you may have noticed, we have some facial impection here as shown below:

To clean them up, simply grab the Spot Healing Brush Tool and the Healing Brush Tool, apply the following settings:

Spot Healing Brush Tool

Healing Brush Tool

With the Spot Healing Brush Tool, simply do a single click on the black spot you like to get rid of. If you found it’s not quite working, you the healing brush tool to sample a good piece of skin, then heal the black spot with it.

Here is my effect after the clean up:

Step 3

Now we can smooth her skin a bit. To do this, simply duplicate the girl layer, go to Filter > Blur > Surface Blur and apply the following settings:

Because we only want her face and the should skin to be blurred, so we can hide the rest of the layer by adding a layer mask to it, as shown below:

Reduce the layer opacity of this duplicated layer to around 50%.

And here is the effect so far, you can see now we have a much better girl image:

Step 4

Let’s add some lighting effect on the image. Create a new layer called light on top of the “girl copy” layer and grab a soft white brush, paint over the area as shown below:

Set the blendng mode of this light layer to “Overlay”, drop the opacity to around 50%. Add the following two adjustment layers on top of the light layer:

Curves

Brightness and Contrast

And here is the effect so far:

Step 5

Now let’s make a simple custom brush, which we will then use to create the background of this image.

Create a new document (size doesn’t matter here) and fill the background with Black. Grab the Rectangular Tool as shown below:

Create a new layer on top of the background layer, draw a rectangular shape on the canvas, then right-click it and choose “Stroke Path”, choose the option “Pencil” (Make sure you set the pencil size to be 1px, with a light grey colour)

And here is the effect after you stroke the path:

Now we want to get rid of the part outside the square. To do so, go to Image > Trim and apply the following settings:

You will see the black part outside the square is now gone. Now hide the background layer, go to Edit > Define Brush Preset and save the brushset as “square”:

And you will see the brush appears in the brush panel:

Step 6

Let apply this brushset to our image. Create a new layer named “square brush texture” under the original girl layer, click on the brush we just made, apply the following brush dynamic to it:

Shape Dynamics

Scattering

Tick “Smoothing” option.

And paint away with this brushset on the texture layer around the girl edge, adjust the brush size for variations:

Optionally, you can cancel the dynamics and just use the original brush, for different effect:

Step 7

Now we can add some cloud on top of the shapes texture layer. Create a new layer on top of the square shape texture layer called “cloud”, use the Lasso Tool with a 20px feather, draw a selection and render some cloud inside it, change the blending mode of this layer to “Colour Dodge”:

Duplicate the cloud layer once and drag it onto the feet position, so to create some highlight on her feet: (Resize it a bit with the free transform tool)

Now duplicate the cloud layer a few more times and change the blending mode of those layers to “Normal”. On each duplcated layer, hit Ctrl + T and right-click to choose the “Warp” option, warp the cloud to different shapes around the girl’s body:

This step is entirely up to you want kind of the shapes you like, here is my effect:

And here is the effect so far:

Step 8

Ok we’re almost there! Now let’s do some final adjustment for the image. On top of all previous layers, add a Black and White adjustment layer on the top:

Change the blending mode of this black and white layer to “Overlay”, apply the following layer mask to it:

You can see by adding the mask, we created some depth to the image:

Duplicate this black and white layer twice, maintain the blending mode as “Overlay”. Add aonther Vibrance adjustment layer on top of the duplicated layer:

Create a new layer on top of every other layer and set the blending mode of it to “color”, grab a big soft brush with colour of your choice and simply paint on desired area. You will have the following effect:

Step 9

OK we can do some fine-tuning of the final image by adding some light strips. To do this, simply flatten the image, duplicate the background layer once, and apply the following motion blur setting to the duplicated layer:

Change the blending mode of this motion blur layer to “Screen”. Here we don’t really want to the whole image to be covered by blur, so we add a layer mask to the motion blur layer to hide a portion of it:

And here is the effect so far:

Optional: you can duplicate this motion blur layer a few times and try out different blending mode. The result will amaze you :)

Here is my final effect for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

Alternative version: (I added some abstract brushset on the girl feet)

Further Reading

Just an interesting article I found on the net about Photoshop Brush Engine, great for beginners:

An Introduction to Photoshop Brush Engine

That’s for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy it and find it useful, drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!