In this tutorial, I will show you how you can utilise the amazing power of image adjustment layers to make colour, contrast and lighting change for any chosen image in Photoshop, by walking you through the design process of this man jumping scene.

The reason I put up this basic tutorial is that lately I have receive some requests from people wishing to learn some techniques involved in using adjustment layers.

Along the way, not only I will be using image adjustment layers techniques, but also I will show you some skills I use to create break-apart effects, pen tool and layer blendings. Have a try!

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

PSD File Download

You can download the PSD File for this tutorial via the VIP Members Area for only $6.95/Month (or less)! You will not only get this PSD File, but also 70+ 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 stock:

Jump

Step 1

Load the “Jump” stock image into Photoshop, double-click on the background layer inside the layer pallatte to unlock it. Then create a new layer called “bg” , fill it with black colour and put it under the background layer we just unlock.

Use whatever selection tool you perfer to clear out the surroundings, and leave just the jumping man on the canvas:

It doesn’t really matter if the selection isn’t perfect. The tutorial is not about teaching you how to make the perfect human selection (However if you do want to learn, here is a tutorial for you).

Step 2

Now let’s head straight to the image adjustment layers. You will find those options under Layer > New Adjustment Layer > … , as shown below:

In this tutorial, I will be using three adjustment layers to retouch this jumping man: colour balance, curves and brightness and contrast. In my opinion, these are probably the most frequent used adjustment layers you will be using for whatever design you’re doing.

Step 3

Let’s go ahead and apply those adjustment layers. From bottom to top,

Color Balance

Curves

Brightness and Contrast

And you will have the following effect:

You will see now the colour tone and the lightness of the image are completely changed, just by adding those three adjustment layers. And the good thing about them is that you can have more flexibility if you do want to make changes later on, because the original layer is not altered.

Also, because those adjustment layers are in fact layer, you can apply mask, or change the blending mode for them, to experience different result.

Step 4

Now I will show you a quick way I use to create this cool dis-integration effect. Firstly let’s create a custom brushset.

Select a 5px, soft round brush, and apply the following brush dynamics to it:

Shape Dynamics

Scattering

and tick Noise, Airbrush and Smoothing options.

Now load the selection of the jumping man layer by Ctrl + left click the thumbnail image of that layer, click the rectangular marquee tool, then right-click inside the selection and choose “Make work path”:

Then define the Feather as 2px, and you will have the following effect:

After you made the work path, create a new layer called “stroke” and put it just under the jumping man layer, then click on the Pen Tool icon, and right-click on the work path and choose “stroke path”:

Make sure the brushset you just created is still selected and choose “Brush” in the next window, leave “simulate pressure” option un-checked.

Change the layer blending mode of this stroke layer to be “Screen” and drop the opacity to 40%. You will now have this effect:

Step 5

To create some motion for the image, we can duplicate the “stroke” layer from the previous layer once, drag the duplicated layer to the top of the jumping man layer, and apply the following radial blur:

Change the blending mode to “Hard Light” for this duplicated layer, and duplicate it once again. You will now have this effect:

Step 6

To add some more effect to the image, we can grab this Debris brushset and create a new layer just below the “Brightness and Contrast” adjustment layer, and paint some debris on it:

And that’s pretty much it for this tutorial! I added some abstract lines stretching from his arm to make this image more vibrant. This require some basic use of the Pen Tool, if you’re interested, I have a pretty neat tutorial here showing you how to make this sort of effect.

Here is the final effect I have for this tutorial: (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.

Cheers and have a nice day!

In this tutorial, I will show you the processes I used to design this really cool, abstract style site header image in Photoshop, similar to the one I currently have on psdvault.com.

Personally I can see an increasing trend of having a big and eye-catching header image for website/blogs, especially since broadband has become a commodity amongst the majority of the population.

Along the way, we will practice the use of Pen Tool, various image adjustment options, free transformation tool,  layer blending styles and filter effects. Hope you enjoy it!

Here is a preview of my final results:

PSD File Download

You can download the PSD File for this tutorial via the VIP Members Area for only $6.95/Month (or less)! You will not only get this PSD File, but also 70+ 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!

Step 1

Create a document sized 1200 x 600 px (Please note that you may specify any size that you think suitable for your site design, this size can only be used for practice purpose only). Fill the background layer with Black.

Create a new layer called “Radial Gradient Fill” and grab the Gradient Tool (G), select the Radial Fill option and  fill the newly created layer as shown below: (you can specifiy any colour you like)

Then Create a new layer call “Angle Gradient Fill” on top of the “Radial Gradient Fill” layer, set its blending option to “overlay”

use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to select the centre portion of the layer, again use the Gradient Tool (Set the foreground colour to white, with transparent background), this time we select the Angle Gradient option, fill the selection as shown below:

Step 2

Duplicate the “Angle Gradient Fill” layer once and keep the blending option of the duplicated layer as “overlay”, go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal and flip the layer horizontally. Merge the twol layer together. Keep the blending mode as “overlay” after the merge.

Apply the “Drop Shadow” blending option to the merge layer as shown below:

Then reduce the previous “Radial Gradient Fill” layer opacity to 60% and you will have the following effect:

Then create a new layer in between the previous two layers, name it as “centre light”. Grab a big soft round brush (600px in my case), set the foreground colour to white, and paint a single dot in the centre of the layer:

Set the layer blending mode to “overlay” and you will have the following effect:

Step 3

I decided to give this image a bit more depth and a bit 3D feeling. So on the “Angle gradient fill” layer, hit Ctrl + T and bring up the free transformation tool, choose the “perspective” option and transform this layer as shown below: (reduce the top width)

Here is the result after perspective the layer:

Step 4

Create a new layer called “shineline”, use the Pen Tool to create the a work path as shown below: (For those who are yet to be familiar with pen tool, I have a post here with some useful links to pen tool tutorials)

Then right-click and choose “stroke path” and select “brush” (make sure you select a small soft round brush). Make sure you have “simulate pressure” option enabled as well.

Here is effect so far:

Step 5

Duplicate the “Shineline” layer a few times, use the Free Transformation Tool to rotate, distort, resize the duplicated layer and mixing those lines together:

Merge those dupcliated layers together and duplicate the merged layer a few more times, again use the free transformation tool to add a few more lines on the image:

Duplicate the merged layer, apply Gaussian Blur with the following setting on the duplicated layer:

You should have the following effect so far:

Step 6

Create a new layer called “shining dots”, load the selection of the “shineline” layer, then right-click and select “Make Work Path”:

Select 0.5 pixel tolerance for the work path. Now let’s grab a 3px soft round brush with the following dynamic brush settings:

Also make sure you tick the “Smoothing” option.

On the “shining dots” layer, stroke the path with this brush and you will see the following effect:

Step 7

Now we can add a bit of cloud/smoke at the bottom of those lines. To do this, we simply create a new layer and use the Lasso Tool with 40px feather to select the bottom portion of those shining lines, and go to Filter > Render > Cloud and render some cloud: (set foreground colour as white, background layer as black)

You may notice I also use the Len Flare with following settings to highlight the centre portion of the cloud:

Change the layer blending option to “overlay” and you will have the following effect:

Lastly we place the site name and the navigation on the image:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! Of course you can further enhance it by adding some other filter effects, change the colour scheme, etc.

Here are my final image for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

Alternative versions:

Hope you enjoy this tutorial, 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 be using techniques such as layer blending options, image adjustments tool and some simple selection tools. You will see how easy it is to transform an average texture image into something unique by using Photoshop. Have a go!

Here is my final result of this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1200 x 600 px, fill the background layer with Black colour. Choose a font you like (I used this font from urbanfonts.com) and type some texts onto the background layer.

This will automatically create a new layer on top of the background layer, name it “text” and position it in the centre of the canvas as shown below:

Rasterise the text once you’re satisfy with its size and position.

Step 2

On “text” layer, apply the following Layer Blending options:

Inner Shadow

Outer Glow

Bevel and Emboss

Contour

Please note there is no need for applying the Gradient Overlay.

The effect so far will look like this:

Step 3

Still on the “Text” layer, load the selection of the text by holding down the Ctrl key and left-click the thumbnail image of “Text” layer on the layer palette:

Then go to Select > Modify > Expand and expand the image by 15px, then go to Select > Modify > Feather and apply a 15px feather to the selection.

The selection should now look like this:

Step 4

Download a copy of this grass texture and load it into Photoshop. This image is of my own stock and you can use it wherever you want.

Go back to our own document and drag the selection onto our the grass texture:

Copy and paste the selection back to the our document and name the newly-created layer “Grass”. The effect so far will look like this:

Step 5

Change the layer blending option to “Grass” layer to “Hard Light”, hit Ctrl + L and apply the following level adjustments:

The effect so far will look like this:

Optional: if you would like to add more leaves and grass onto it, you may duplicate this grass layer a couple of times, and keep its blending option to “Hard Light”.

Once you’re happy with the grass texture, grab the Eraser Toll with a soft round brush (set the opacity and flow to 50%), gently erase the area where the text sits beneath so the texts can be revealed and become clearer:

Step 6

Ok now we can add some wooden texture for text so it look a bit more natural.

Download a copy of this wooden texture and load it into Photoshop. Go back to our own document and use the Lasso Tool (40px feather) and draw a selection underneath the text as shown below:

Again we drag the selection onto the wooden texture, copy a random portion and paste back to our text document and name the newly created layer “Wood”. Drag this layer below all previous layer and just above the background layer.

The effect is shown below:

Step 7

On the “Wood” layer, apply the following Black and White image adjustments (Ctrl + Alt + Shift + B) and apply the following settings:

Duplicate the “Wood” layer once and go to Filter > Brush Strokes > Accented Edges, apply the following settings on the duplicated layer:

Change the layer blending option of the duplicated wood layer to “Overlay” and duplicate it a couple of times more, you will see this adds a glowing effect to the wood texture:

Here is the effect so far:

Step 8

To add some depth the text effect, we can do a multi-select of all layers (hold down Shift key and left-click the top and bottom once respectively)

Then hit Ctrl + T and use the free transform tool and distort the text until you reach the effect shown below:

For final touchup, you can create a new layer called “cloud” and again use the Lasso Tool to draw a selection, fill the selection with Black and render some cloud in there:

And apply the following Level Adjustments (Ctrl + L) to the “Cloud” layer:

Then apply the following Curve Adjustments (Ctrl + M) settings:

Then put the “Cloud” layer just above the “Wood Copy 2″ layer, change the blending option to “Screen” and you will have the following resulting effect:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy it and find it useful and inspirational!

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

If you have any questions, simply drop me a line below.

Cheers and have a nice day!

Along the way I will be using various image adjustment tools, a bunch of filters, layer blending options and some basic selection techniques. Have a try!

Below is a before and after preview:

Before

After

Alternative version

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Download a copy of this paper image from CG Texture and load it into Photoshop.

Duplicate the Background Layer Once, hit Ctrl + M and apply the following Curve Adjustment to the duplicated layer:

Apply applying Curve Adjustments, go to Image > Adjustment > Channel Mixer and apply the following settings:

The effect will now look like this:

Step 2

Now we are onto making some rocky feeling for the image. Duplicate the “Background Copy” layer once, go to Filter > Sharpen > Unsharpen Mask and apply the following settings:

Then change the blending mode of this layer to “overlay”. Your image should look like this now:

Optionally, if you feel like to get rid of some noise on the image, you can duplicate this layer once more and set the blending mode to “Soft Light”, then go to Filter > Noise > Despeckle and apply this filter a couple of times.

You can also use the Blur Tool (R Key) with a big soft brush to brush over this layer after applying despeckle filter.

Combining Despeckle and Blur Tool will make your image look more smooth:

You can the image has turned from a piece of paper into a rock mountain scene.

Step 3

Duplicate the “Backgourd Copy 2″ once and apply the Surface Blur filter with the following settings:

Apply the Surface Blur Settings 2-3 times on the duplicated layer, then change the layer blending mode to “Soft Light” and you will have the following effect:

Step 4

Duplicate the “Background Copy 2″ layer once more and drag it on top of all other layers, go to Filter > Artistic > Smudge Stick and apply the following settings. Through this we will be able to bring in more lighting contrast into image while giving the image a more stone-like feeling.

You image will now look like this:

Step 5

Create a new layer called “Darken Area” on top of all other layers, set its blending mode to “Multiple”.

Set the Foreground Colour to Black and grab a big soft round brush (300px, 0% hardness, flow and opacity to 80%), paint over the area you would like to make it a bit darker then the others.

I chose to paint over the edges of the image. The effect is shown below:

Step 6

Now we can see the mountain sort of turning into a maze, and I thought I could make an exit sign for it. Create a new layer and call it “exit”, use the Lasso Tool with a 40px feather to drew a selection anywhere you want on the image, I chose this spot:

Fill the selection with Black Colour and render some cloud:

Then go to Filter > Render > Lens Flare and apply the following settings:

After applying the Lens Flare, duplicate this layer a couple of times to make it brighter:

Then merge those duplicated layer together and use the Liquify Filter to make it look like this:

Step 7

Now to add more effect to the image, we can create a new layer call “Cloud”, again use the Lasso Tool with a 40px feather, draw a few large selection around the image (Hold down Shift Key to drea multiple selection at once).

Fill the selection with Black and render some cloud inside it, then drop the layer opacity down to about 80%.

Your image will now look like this:

Step 8

We can add a bit of colour onto image. To do this, we can simply create a new layer on top of the existing ones and set its blending mode to “Color”, then use a big soft brush with colour of your choice and paint over it.

Here is my image after adding colours:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! I also added some snow particle effect, which is rendered by using this star brush and applying motion blur.

Below is my final image for this tutorial: (Click to Enlarge)

Alternative version

As usual, if you have any questions, just drop me a comment :)

Thanks very much and have a nice day!

The first part – “The Power of Colours”, will take you into a world of colours and see how they will impact on the images you are creating. Hope you enjoy it!

As a web and graphic designer I constantly seek design inspiration from all sort of mediums. I always find it interesting to take a look at other people’s work and see how they construct their designs and how they form their ideas.

Unfortunetely I lost track of the URLs of the original authors for those work. If you happen to be one of the designers whose work is posted here, please leave me a comment and I will add your URL on immediately.

This concludes Part I of the “Seeking Inspiration” series! I hope you enjoyed them and you’re more than welcome to leave some comments and tell me what you think of those works.

Cheers and have a great day!