PSD Vault - Extra Unique Adobe Photoshop Tutorials » intermediate

Design a Fantasy Style Mountain River Scene in Photoshop

James Qu — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 07:23:57 +0000

In this tutorial, I will show you the processes I took to create this Fantasy Style Mountain River Scene in Photoshop. This is an intermediate level tutorial so some step can be tricky, but why not have a try!

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

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OK let’s get started!

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

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!

Create a Transparent Text Effect with Fresh Grass Texture and Custom Brushset

James Qu — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:49:03 +0000

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In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to create this Trasparent Text Effect, mixing with Fresh Grass Texture and Cloud Brushset. You can use the text effect in a wide range of occasions – such as website header background, part of a natural themed design, etc.

Along the way, I would like to show you my use of brushsets and the way I use them to draw background textures, then mixing the background texture with real-world object.

Some steps of this tutorial require the use of features available on CS4, but I guess there is always alternative way you can use, although the end effect may differ slightly.

Have a try :)

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

PSD File Download

Ok let’s get started!

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

Grass Texture

Cloud Brushset

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1000 * 600px, leave the background colour as White and create a new layer on top of it named “background texture”. Now let’s paint some background on it.

I decided instead of getting some ground/soil texture, using pure the default Photoshop brushsets can be fun and good for practicing some painting skills.

So grab those brushes as shown below:

The painting secret here is to try set the flow and opacity of the brush to a reletively low level, and try to mix all three brushsetss together and adjust the size of the brush when necessary, for maximum effect.

Here is what I have after the painting (You can see

You can see I gave the centre of the image – where the grass and the text will sit, a dark colour then the rest of the image.

Step 2

This step is optional if you’re happy with result from previous step. Otherwise, we can do some lighting and colour adjustment for the background texture layer. Add the following two adjustment layers to the image:

Curves

Colour Balance

And we can add a new layer called “light top right” and grab this brushset below with white colour and paint some light rays from the top right: (remember also to set brush flow and opacity to low level)

And here is the effect I have after the painting:

If you find it difficult to paint the background, you can download a copy of the background image here. Then import it into Photoshop. However I would suggest you have a try at least, it doesn’t matter if it didn’t turn as good.

Step 3

Load the “Grass Texture” image into Photoshop, use the Lasso Tool with 20px feather to select a portion as shown below, copy and paste a patch of the grass texture onto our document, resize and distort it if necessary:

Use the Eraser Tool with soft brush to erase the edge of the grass texture, as shown below:

Apply the Smart Sharpen Filter on the grass texture layer:

Add the following three adjustment layers to the grass texture layer (tick the “use previous layer to create layer mask” option)

Levels

Vibrance

Curves

And here is the effect so far:

Step 4

Now let’s type some text onto it. I used the “Myriad Pro” font but you can pretty much choose any bold font you like, type one letter on the canvas, on top of all previous layers:

Apply the following blending optiono to this text layer:

General Blending

Drop Shadow

Inner Glow

Bevel and Emboss

And here is the effect after apply those blending options:

Duplicate this text layer and re-type each layer with a new letter, rotate and position them as shown below:

Optional: duplicate each text layer to make the text bolder:

Step 5

Now we’re pretty much done with the text, let’s add some lighting effect.

Firstly create a new layer called “text highlight” with “Overlay” blendng mode just under the first text layer, and grab a round soft brush with white colour, set the flow and opacity to both around 50%, and paint to the area as shown below:

Add another layer on top of the “text highlight” layer, and use the same brush as we used for the highlight layer, but with a dark colour, gently paint on the areas as shown below: (may have to adjust the brush size accordingly)

Add another layer just under the grass texture layer, and paint some shadow under it:

Add two more adjustment layer on top of all previous layers:

Vibrance

Curves

And here is the effect so far:

Step 6

Finally, we add the cloud on the top of the image by create a new layer on top of the new layer, and paint with the cloud brush set we downloaded:

And we add some shining dots around the text, by using a soft, round white brush:

OK that’s it for this tutorial! You can of course further enhance it by adding some more effect.

Here is my final result for this tutorial (Added some cracked texture under the grass, and some abstract lines)

Hope you enjoy this tutorial and find it useful. Have a great day!

Design a Surreal Ancient Ruin and Coastal Island Scenery in Photoshop

James Qu — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 14:16:11 +0000

In this tutorial, I will show you the processes involved in creating this beautiful, fantasy-styled surreal ancient ruin and coastal island scenary in Photoshop. Hope you enjoy it!

Along the way, we will go through a variety of technqiues such as layer blending, image adjustments, a bit of matte painting skills and filter effects. This is an intermediate level tutorial so some steps can be a bit tricky. Practices always make thing easier for the future, so go ahead and have a try :)

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

PSD File Download

OK let’s get started!

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

Beautiful Sitting Lady

Step 1

Load the “Coastal Cliff Scene” stock image into Photoshop, we will use this as our starting point. Firstly I’d like to make the overall soften a bit, so I duplicate the background layer, and apply the following Gaussian Blur settings to the duplicated layer:

After apply the Gaussian Blur settings, duplicate this blurred layer once and change the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “Color Burn”, you will have the following effect:

On this colour burn layer, add a layer mask and on the layer mask, erase the area indicated above (within the selection), so that only the colour of the ocean darkened: (Hint: erase using a big, soft brush)

Now add the following adjustments layer on top of all previous layers:

Curves:

Colour Balance:

On top of the adjustment layers, add a gradient fill layer as shown below:

And you will have the following effect so far:

Step 2

Now we have a pretty nice grass on the lower part of our image, but the sky portion is simply a disaster right now. To fix this, simply load the Island Sky image into Photoshop, and drag the entire image onto our document, name this layer as “sky” and position, resize it as shown below:

Use a big soft brush to erase the bottom part of the “sky” layer, so we have the sky portion of the image left:

Add the following “Curves” adjustment layer to the “Sky” layer, make sure to tick “use previous layer as clipping mask” option:

Duplicate the “sky” layer and drag the duplicated layer to the top, apply the following Motion Blur settings to it:

Change the motion blur sky layer’s blending mode to “Screen” and opacity to 70%, you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Now we can work on adding some dynamic lighting effect to the edges of the cliff. Let’s grab the Lasso Tool (L) and set its feather to 30px, draw a selection around the bottom edge of the cliff, and render some cloud (choose a dark grey as background colour, and white as foreground colour) within it:

Name this layer as “light bottom” and drop its opacity to 70%.

Duplicate the “light bottom” layer once and change the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “overlay”.

And on the cliff edge to the right, we use the same method to render some cloud around it. (For quicker result, simply duplicate the original “light bottom” layer and position it as shown below:

and change the layer name to “lighting right”, duplicate it once and change the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “overlay”, you will have the following effect:

For more lighting variations, we can add a Brightness and Contrast adjustment layer with the following settings and mask:

and you will have the following effect:

Step 4

We can now add a far distance island to the ocean. Load the Rock Island image into Photoshop and drag it onto our document. Erase the surrounding and leave only the rock island and name this layer as “island”:

Add a colour balance adjustment layer to this “island” layer, make sure to tick “use previous layer as clipping mask” option:

Now duplicate the “island” layer three times and drag them all to the top, change their blending mode as shown below:

And your effect should be similar to the following:

Step 5

Now we can add some waterfall to the island (well, it supposes to be a surreal image!). I decide to add one to each side. So load the Waterfall 1 image into Photoshop and drag it onto our document. Erase all the unnecessary parts only leave the main waterfall scene, resize and position it as shown below:

Name this layer as “waterfall 1″ and duplicate it once to make it bolder. Add the following Colour Balance adjustment layer to the duplicated layer, make sure to tick “use previous layer as clipping mask” option:

and you will have the following effect:

Load the Waterfall 2 image into Photoshop and again drag it to our document. Name this layer as “waterfall 2″ and put it on top of all other layers.

Again we erase all unnecessary parts of the waterfall image, and position it as shown below:

Add the following image adjustment layer to the “waterfall 2″ layer, make sure to tick “use previous layer as clipping mask” option:

Curves

Colour Balance

To highlight the island a bit, we can add a new colour balance adjustment layer without ticking the clipping mask option on top of all other layers, with the following settings and mask:

Mask

and you will have the following effect so far:

Step 6

Now we’re onto add the Ancinet Ruin part. Simply load the Ancient Ruin image into Photoshop and drag it onto our document, resize and position it as shonw below:

Name this layer as “ruin” Erase the bottom part (use a small soft brush) and the sky portion off the image: (hint: use the magic wand tool to select the sky part, and go to Edit > Clear to get rid of it)

Optional: you can add a colour balance adjustment layer to this ruin layer, however I decide to leave it as it is for now, with the original lighting effect.

Duplicate this “ruin” layer once, flip it horizontally and rezise a bit, fit it on top of our island as shown below:

Step 7

We can now spice up the image a bit by adding the beautiful lady image outlooking the distant sea to our scene. So load the “beautiful sitting lady” image into Photoshop. Cut the lady from the rest of the image and paste it onto our document, name this layer as “lady”:

Resize and position it as shown below:

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

Curves

Colour Balance

Brightness and Contrast

Duplicate the original “lady” layer once, and put it on top of all other layers, change the blending mode to “multiply”, you will have the following effect:

And now we can painting a bit of shadow for the lady. So create a new layer just below the orginal lady layer, use a soft round brush with black colour, set the brush flow and opacity to 50%, and paint in the area as shown below:

Step 8

For some final touchups, we can add two more adjustment layers with the following settings and mask:

Colour Balance

Brightness and Contrast

And you will have the following final effect:

Step 9

To further enhance the image effect, I flatten the image and apply the following smart sharpen settings to the flattened image:

And to add some sunlight, I simply duplicated the background layer, and apply the following radial blur settings:

Change the blending mode to “Screen” for this duplicated layer and drop its opacity to around 40%.

I further alter the colour balance and saturation of the image, and here is my final image result 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!

Create a Distant Desert City Scene with Energy Ray Blast in Photoshop

James Qu — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:00:41 +0000

In this tutorial, I will show you the processes I use to create this fantasy style, really cool distant desert city scene with an awesome energy ray blasting through the sky in Photoshop.

Along the way, we will be using tons of layer blending techniques, and I will show you how to merge the images together effectively and efficiently. We will also explore skills such as masking, filter effects and various custom brushsets.

This is an intermediate-level tutorial, have a try!

Here is a preview of my final effect for this tutorial: (Click to enlarge)

Alternative version

PSD File Download

OK Let’s get started!

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

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1280px * 800px, leave the background colour as White. Load the “Desert” stock image into Photoshop, copy and paste the entire image onto our document, position it as shown below:

Name the new layer as “Desert”, add a layer mask onto it. On the layer mask, use the “Mist Brushset” we have just download (any brush in the set), erase the top part of the image as shown below:

This will form a nice misty effect for the image and make it easier for the layer blending later on:

Now duplicate this “Desert” layer once and on the duplicated layer, go to filter > blur > gaussian blur and apply the following settings:

Change the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “Screen” and drop its opacity to 70%, you will have the following effect:

Now we have a very nice, dusty and misty desert scene with a lot of room to expand our imagination.

Step 2

To further adjust the colour balance and contrast of the desert, I add the following three adjustment layers on top of the previous two layers: (from bottom to top)

Color Balance

Curves

Levels

and you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Now I feel that only the desert is a bit boring, so I decided to add some object into it so to create some depth for the image. So let’s load the “misty rock” image into Photoshop, copy and paste the entire image onto our document and name the new layer as “rock”, apply the following mask on the rock layer:

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

Add a Black and White adjustment layer on top of this rock layer, make sure to tick “use previous layer as clipping mask” option:

Then duplicate the “rock” layer once and drag it to the top, change the blending option of the duplicate layer to “overlay”, you will have the following effect so far:

Step 4

Load the “Sunset Sky” image into Photoshop, copy and paste it onto our document and name this new layer as “sky”, resize and position it as shown below:

Add a layer mask to this sky layer, on the mask, use a soft round brush to gently erase the bottom part of the sky layer, as shown below:

and you will have the following effect:

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

Color Balance

Curves

Then duplicate the original Sky layer once and drag it to the top. On the first duplicated sky layer, apply the following motion blur setting to it:

After applying the motion blur filter, duplicate this layer once and change the duplicate layer’s blending mode to “Hard light”, you will have the following effect:

You can see now we have a very nice sky on top of the desert, which makes the image more vibrant.

Step 5

Load the Distant City stock into Photoshop, cut out the city bit with any selection tool you like to use, copy and paste the selection on our document, name the new layer as “city” and use a big, soft brush to erase the surrounding, and leave only the centre of the city selection as shown below:

Duplicate this city layer twice, change the first duplicated layer’s blending mode to “Soft light”, and leave the second layer’s blending mode as “Normal”, but drop the opacity to 45%.

You will have the following effect:

Step 6

Now we’re onto creating the energy blast. Firsty we can make some background highlight for the blast. To do this, create a new layer called “highlight” and grab a soft round brush with white colour, gently paint over the centre area above the city.

Make sure to set the blending mode of this layer to “Hard Light” with an opacity of around 35%:

Now on top of this layer, create a new layer called “laser”, grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool with a 10px feather, make a selection and fill it with white colour as shown below:

Apply the following layer blending option to this layer:

Outer glow

Inner glow

and you will now have this effect:

Step 7

Create a new layer called “Sparkle” on top of all previous layers, set its blending mode to “overlay”. Load the “Star Brushset” we download in and use it to paint around the laser line to create some sparkling effect:

Duplicate the “Sparkle” layer once, and apply the following Radial Blur setting to the duplicated layer:

Name this layer “Radial” and maintain its blending mode to “overlay” and duplicate it twice more, you will have the following effect:

Then duplicate those three layers together once, use the Free Transform Tool to transfrom them to the left side, as shown below:

Step 8

Now we want to work on to the top part (sky) of the laser energy ray. Create a new layer named “sky highlight” and again use a soft brush with white colour to paint over the top centre of the sky, and set the layer blending mode to “overlay”, with opacity around 40%:

Then create a new layer on top of all previous layer and name it as “light top”, fill the layer with black colour and go to Filter > Render > Lens Flare and apply the following settings:

Change this blending mode of this layer to “Screen”, use a soft brush to erase all areas expect the centre portion, as shown below:

Duplicate this layer once, and move it the bottom of the city and change the blending mode to “overlay”, you will have the following effect:

Step 9

Now we can add some lightning effec to the top for further effect. Load the “Lightning” stock image into Photoshop, copy and paste the entire image onto our document and use a soft brush to erase the outer portion of the image.

Change the blending mode of the new layer to “screen” and you will have the following effect:

Duplicate this layer once and free transform (Ctrl + T) the duplicated layer as shown below:

To futher touchup the image, we can add the following adjustment layers:

Curves

Color Balance

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

That’s it for this tutorial! Of course you can further enhance the image effect by mixing lighting effect, change hue/saturation settings, etc.

Here is an alternative version I have after I change a few things: (click to enlarge)

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

Design a Horror Style Text Effect with Dirt and Splatter Texture in Photoshop

James Qu — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 08:59:01 +0000

In this tutorial, I will show you the processes I used in creating this horror style text effect with Dirt and Splatter Texture in Photoshop. I’ve got the inspiration from the game “Prototype” title typography and decided to have a bit experiment with it myself.

Along the way, we will be using a lot of layer blending options, image adjustments, selection techniques, custom brushsets painting and filter effects. This is an intermediate level tutorial and beginners may find it a bit tricky to complete, but why not have a try :)

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

PSD File Download

Let’s get started!

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

Font

Dirty Spray Brushset

Stroke and Splatter

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1200 * 800 px (in fact size doesn’t really matter here, choose one you feel comfortable with), use White as background colour.

In order to maxmise the effect, the choice of font is quite important here. For me I tend to use a Bold, Clean Font from at the start, simply because they are easy to manipulate and stylise. So go head and use the font we have just downloaded and type some text onto the canvas: (Hint: you can use Ctrl + T free transform tool to adjust the size of the text)

Step 2

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

General Blending

Drop Shadow

Inner Shadow

Bevel and Emboss

Contour

Gradient Overlay

Stroke

and you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Load the selection of the text layer by holding down the Ctrl key and left click the thumbnail image of the text layer on the layer palette:

Hit Ctrl + Alt + R and bring up the Refine Edge Tool, apply the following settings:

and your selection will become like this:

Step 4

Maintaining the selection, create a new layer on top of the text layer and name it “Dirt Spray”, load the Dirt Spray brushset into Photoshop, and use the different brushes in this set, paint on the new layer.

You will see because we have the selection enable, the dirt appears within the selection:

and here is the effect I have after a bit painting with the dirt brush:

Step 5

Now we can add some background textures to make the effect a bit richer. Load the “Stroke and Splatter” brushset into Photoshop, create a new layer called “texture” just above the background layer, select the brushes from this set to paint over the new layer: (I chose the red colour)

Also you can use the splatter brushset for additional effect.

Now we can add some more decorations onto the text. I decided to add some curvy lines . To do this, create a new layer called “lines” and grab the Pen Tool, create the following working path on this “lines” layer:

And right0-click and choose the “Stroke Path” option, as shown below:

Then select the option “Brush” and tick the “Simulate Pressure” option (Make sure set the brush size to 16px, with 100% hardness). Use the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl + T) and free transform it as shown below:

Duplicate this “lines” layer a few times, on each duplicated layer, free tranform it to different sizes. Here is what I have after the duplication and free transformation:

Optional: You can further enhance this effect by duplicating some more layers of the “lines” layer, and drag them on top of the text layer. Here is what I have after moving them above the text layer:

Step 6

To create some uneven light effect, we can add a new layer on top of all previous layer, grab a soft round brush (I chose 150px) and select the White colour, do some single-clicks on the spot you would like to highlight:

Change the layer blending mode to “Overlay” and you will have the following effect:

I further added some more background textures by using the splatter brushsets and here is what I have after the paintings:

Step 7

For some final adjustments, I decided to flatten the image (make sure before you do so, save a copy of the non-flattened one first), and duplicate the background layer once and desaturate the duplicated layer, go to filter > sharpen > smart sharpen and apply the following settings:

And add a new layer on top of the duplicated layer, grab a big soft brush and paint some colour onto it:

Change the layer blending mode to “Color” and you will have the following effect

Add the following two adjustment layers on top of all previous layers by going into “Layer > Adjustment Layer >…”:

Curves

Colour Balance

and you will have the following final effect: (click to enlarge)

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

Cheers and have a nice day!

Design a Horror Looking, Extreme Grungy Style Poster in Photoshop

James Qu — Sun, 17 May 2009 08:41:05 +0000

In this tutorial, I will show you the processes involved in creating this Horror Looking, Extreme Grungy Style Poster in Photoshop.

Along the way, we will be using Photoshop techniques such as the Extract filter, layer blending effects, masking, a variety of photo filtering tools and image adjustment tools. I would like to put emphasis towards the Extract Filter and show you what you can do with the tool when it comes to complex selection (e.g. hair selection).

This is an intermediate tutorial and can be a bit tricky, but why not have a try :)

Here is a preview of my final effect:

Alternative version:

PSD File Download

OK let’s get started!

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

Wedding Skirt Stock

Grungy brushset

Step 1

Load the “Wedding skirt stock” image into Photoshop. Now what we need to achieve is to take the model out and seperate it from the rest of the image.

You may use any selection tools you like (Pen Tool, Lasso Tool, Magic Wand) to do this, however I feel the most convenient tool here is in fact the Extract Filter (located under Filter > Extract or shortcut Ctrl + Alt + X). The reason is because with Extract Filter, you can easily make a selection around the model’s hair – which would be difficulty if you use any other selection tools.

So Go to Filter > Extract and click on the marker on the top left corner: (I used a brush size of 40px)

Mark around the model as shown below:

Then click on the Paint bucket under the marker:

Fill the inside area as shown below:

Click on the “OK” button and you will see the background around the model disappears. Now create a new document sized 2400px * 3600px with 200 dpi resolution, use the Movel Tool (V) and drag the model onto the new document.

Now you may see under the model’s right arm there is a portion of the texture isn’t removed. We can easily fix this by using Magic Wand tool to make a selection:

Go to Edit > Clear and you will see it’s now removed:

Here is the overall effect so far – you may see the edge of the model appears to be torned. I was going to the correct this, but in the end decided to leave it as it is for the final effect. Be aware this was created from the Extract Filter and because the brush size I used. You can avoid this by changing the brush size to a smaller one in Extract Filter.

Name this layer as “Model” and prepare for some Photo Retouching fun!

Step 2

Duplicate this model layer Once. Apply the following blending mode to the duplicated layer:

Blending Mode: Multiply

Opacity: 100%

Go to Filter > Brush strokes > sumi -e and apply the following settings:

Then apply the following Layer Mask to this duplicated layer: (Tip: use the Gradient Tool to achieve this effect)

Duplicate this layer twice, keep the blending mode of those two layers as “Muliply”, but drop their opacity to 60%. You will have the following effect:

Step 3

Duplicate the original “Model” layer once again and drag this duplicated layers on top of all other layers.

On the first (bottom) duplicated layer, apply the following Gaussian Blur settings:

Change the blending mode of this layer to “Screen” and add a layer mask to it. On the mask, use the Eraser Tool to ereser some random areas on the shirt so to create some lighting depth:

After erasing, duplicate this layer once and change the blending mode to “Soft light”, here is th effect so far:

Step 4

Duplicate the original “Model” layer one more time and drag it on top of all other layers, apply the following High Pass filter (Filter > other > high pass) to it:

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

Optional Step: to add some extra smoothness and lighting contrast to the image, you can duplicate the original “Model” layer one more time, apply the following Gaussian Blur settings:

Change the blending mode to “Screen” and add a layer mask to the layer, erase the following parts on the mask:

Here is the effect so far:

Step 5

On top of all previous layers, add the following two adjustment layers (Layer > new adjustment layer > …)

Levels

Black and White

Create a new layer called “colour” on top of those two adjustment layers, set its blending mode to “overlay” and opacity to 40% and use a dark brown brush to paint over the following area:

Add another Curves Adjustment layer on top of the “colour” layer, apply the following settings:

Here is the effect so far:

Step 6

Now let add some background textre to it. Create a new layer just above the background layer, use the Grungy brushset to over it (try out different brush flow and opacity settings), here is my effect so far:

To add a bit more texture effect, we can create a new layer fill with Black colour, go to Filter > Render > Fiber and apply the following settings:

Change the blending mode to “Soft light” and drop the opacity to 55%, you will have the following effect:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! You can of course add some of your own texture or filter effect and see what the end results are!

Here is my final image for this tutorial: (I slightly adjusted the colour contrast and add some motion blur effect) – Click to enlarge:

Alternative version:

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!

How to Drastically Change the Mood and Colour Tone of Your Image in Photoshop

James Qu — Sun, 10 May 2009 12:40:12 +0000

In this tutorial, I will show you the method I use to drastically change the Mood and Colour Tones for your photo via Adobe Photoshop . Along the way, I will also demonstrate an interesting method of adding misty effect to your image.

This mood/colour tones changing method can be particularly useful for images that are reletively dark and lack of colour depth. We will be using a lof image adjustment tool, masking techniques and layer blending options. Have a go!

Here is a previous of the before and after effect:

Before

After

And alternative version with reduced colour saturation:

Ok let’s get started!

To complete this tutorial, you will the following stock:

Mountain

Cloud Brush

Step 1

Load the “Mountain” image into Photoshop, duplicate the background layer once.

Now we can see there are some hard rock/stone on the left bottom corner. Because the overall effect we would like to achieve for the final image is a soft, misty mountain scene, we should first tackle this particular area of the photo.

So on the duplicated layer, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, apply the following settings:

Stay on the duplicated layer, add a layer mask onto it and on the mask, grab the Eraser Tool with a soft round brush setting, gently eraser the following area:

Drop the layer opacity of this duplicated layer to 55%, you can see the left bottom cornor because softer:

Step 2

Duplicate the background layer three times and drag all three duplicated layers above the previous blurred layer.

From bottom to top, change the blending mode of the first duplicated layer to “Color Dodge” and you will have the following effect:

Change the blending mode the second duplicate layer to “Multiply” and you will have the following effect:

On the third duplicated layer, change the blending mode to “Screen” and apply the following Gaussian Blur settings:

Again we add a layer mask to it, and use the Eraser Tool with a soft round brushset to erase the following area:

Drop the layer opacity to 75% and you will have the following effect so far:

You can see now the overall image is much softer than the original and this is exactly what we want.

Step 3

Now we’re onto the interesting part of this tutorial – adding the Mist! The method I use here is simply the Gradient Fill tool :)

So we go to Layer > New Fill layer > Gradient Fill and add a new gradient fill layer with the following settings on top of all other layers:

Duplicate this Gradient Fill layer Three Times.

On the first duplicated layer, apply the following layer mask:

Change the blending mode of this layer to “Screen” and drop its opacity to 35%, you will have the following effect:

On the second duplicated layer, apply the following layer mask:

Change its blending mode to “Color Dodge” and opacity to 60%, you will have the following effect:

On the third duplicated layer, apply the following layer mask: (Use the Cloud Brush we downloaded for some fine-tuning and create uneven effect)

Change the layer blending mode to “Screen” and drop the opacity to around 70%, you will have the following effect:

You will see now we have created some very realstic misty effect for our image.

Step 4

To add more depths to the image, we can add a new Curve Adjusment layer by going to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves and apply the following settings:

Here is the effect after applying the Curves adjustment:

Optional: I feel the bottom part of the image is a bit dark, so I apply the following mask to this Curves adjustment layer:

And here is the effect so far:

Step 5

You may now think: umm, the top left part of the sky looks a bit empty! No problem, we can easily fix this by using the Cloud Brushes we download and add some cloud over there.

Use the Eyedropper Tool (I) and left-click the following spot:

And grab any of those cloud brushsets you like and drop its opacity to 50% and flow to 50%, create a new layer and simply paint over the empty portion of the sky:

We can further adjust the colour balance of the image a bit. So go ahead and add a new Color Balance adjustment layer (Layer > Adjustment layer > Color balance) and apply the following settings:

Shadows

Midtones

Highlights

And here is the final effect:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! You can of course add some of your own texture or filter effect and see what the end results are!

Here is my final image for this tutorial: (I slightly adjusted the colour contrast and add some more cloudy effect ) – Click to enlarge:

And alternative version with reduced colour saturation:

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!

Create an Ancient Typography with Dry Soil Texture and Floral Brushset in Photoshop

James Qu — Sun, 03 May 2009 18:34:34 +0000

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to create this cool, ancient-style typography using dry soil texture and floral brushset in Photoshop. I will also share with you the technique I learnt for creating some really cool light strips for your image.

Along the way, we will be using a lot of layer blending technqiues, musking, image adjustment tools and adjustment layers, plus the gradient tool and blur tool. This is an intermediate tutorial so beginners may find it a bit tricky. Well, never hurt to have a try!

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

PSD File Download

Let’s get started!

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

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1000 * 800 px with white background. Create a new layer called “radial gradient” and grab the Gradient Tool (G) and select the radial gradient fill option, fill this layer as shown below:

Step 2

On top of the “Radial Gradient” layer, use the font we have just downloaded, type some text onto it. ( I only typed a letter “A” however you may type whatever text you want)

Apply the following layer blending option to this layer:

Drop Shadow

Inner Glow

Bevel and Emboss

Color Overlay

Gradient Overlay

And you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Load the selection of the text layer by holding down the Ctrl key and left-click the layer thumbnail image on the layer palette:

Hit Ctrl + Alt + R and bring up the Refine Edge Tool, apply the following settings:

Load the “Dry Soil” texture into Photoshop and drag the selection of the text layer (To do this, select the Rectangular Marquee Tool, move your mouse over the selection, left-click and hold to drag):

Copy and paste the selection back to our document, you will have the following effect:

Name this newly-created layer as “dry soil texture” and change its blending mode to “Hard Light” and you will have the following effect:

Step 4

On top of the “dry soil texture” layer, add the following adjustment layers with the respective settings (make sure you tick the “use previous layer as clipping mask” option for all adjustment layers)

Curves

Levels

Color Balance

Bright and Contrast

Black and white

And you will have the following effect:

Step 5

Now I would like to show you an interesting method to add light stripes to the text. Create a new layer on top of all previous layers, grab the rectangular marquee tool to draw a selection as below:

Then grab a big soft brush with white colour (I used 800px) and do a few clicks in the following postition, while maintaining the selection:

Then resize, rotate the selection until it reaches the effect as shown below:

Name this layer as “light strips” and duplicate it a couple of times, move the duplicated layers as shown below:

Merge the duplicated layers and again make several duplication of the merged layer, move them around to the desired position:

When you’re happy with the position, merge all those light strips layers and use the Eraser Tool with a soft round brush to erase the bit where covers the text:

Step 6

To add some more decoration to the text, we can use the two brushsets we downloaded and simply do some painting :)

Create a new layer just above the “Radial Light” layer, use the Cloud Brushes to paint some clouds on the bottom part of the canvas:

Create another layer on top of the cloud layer, use the Floral Brushes to add some nice floral swirls around the text:

Step 7

To add some final touches, add two more adjustment layers on top of all other layers: (Don’t tick “use previous layer as clipping mask” this time)

Curves

Use the following vector musk on Curves Adjusment layer:

Levels

Use the following vector musk on Levels Adjusment layer:

Colour Balance

Use the following vector musk on Color Balance Adjusment layer:

And you will have the following final effect:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! Of course you can further enhance this image by adding some more effect, textures and filters.

Here is my final version for this tutorial: (Added some radial blur, adjusted contrast) – 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!

Create a Realistic Break-Apart Effect with Debris Brushset in Photoshop

James Qu — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 08:53:39 +0000

In this tutorial, I will show you an interesting technique I use to produce realistic break-apart/disintegration effect in Photoshop by using debris brushes, with a watercolour background attached. There are many tutorials on the web showing techniques about break-aparts but, it never hurts to learn more :)

It will be a bit boring if the whole tut is just to break something apart, so I also combined a bit of photo retouch techniques along side and hopefully they can be useful to you as well. Together we will be using layer blending options, masking, the pen tool, adjustment layers and of course, brushsets. Have a try!

Here is a preview of the final effect:

Alternative version:

OK let’s get started!

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

Female stock

Debris Brush

Watercolor Brush

Step 1

Create a new document sized 3100px * 3600px with White background. Open the “Female Stock” image in Photoshop, use Pen Tool (or whatever selection method you prefer) to make a working path around the model:

If you chose to use Pen Tool, make sure to make a selection after you close the path (by right-click inside the path with Pen Tool selected):

After clicking “Make Selection …”, keep the Feather radius to 0px and tick the “Anti-aliased” checkbox as shown below:

If your selection isn’t perfact, you can hit Ctrl + Alt + R and bring up the refine edge option and apply the following settings:

Then copy and paste the selection on our document and name this newly-created layer as “model”, resize and position it as shown below:

Step 2

Duplicate the “model” layer twice. Then on the first duplicated layer, change the blending option to “linear burn”:

Add a vector mask and grab a soft round brush, gently erase the portion as shown below:

This is the effect after apply the layer mask, you can see the dask parts are now gone:

Then on the second duplicated layer, change its blending mode to “Screen”, then also grab a soft round brush and apply the following mask onto it:

Here is the effect so far:

Step 3

I decided to add some black and white adjustment to the model however preserve the yellow and orange parts of the image.

So we can go to Layer > New adjustment Layer > Black and White and apply the followng options:

On the mask of this adjustment layer, use the Eraser tool with a soft brush to erase the following part of the image:

I also feel like to preserve the lip colour for the model, so I used the Eraser Tool (with a opacity of 40%) to gently erase the lip part on the mask of this adjustment layer:

And you will have the following effect:

We can adjust the lighting contrast a bit for the model. So go to Layer > New adjustment layer > Curves and apply the following settings:

And here is the effect so far:

Step 4

Now we’re on the break-apart bit of the tutorial! Firstly load the “Debris Brush” into Photoshop, then create a new layer called “break apart” on top of all other layers:

Grab one of the brush in the “Debris Brush” set, use a colour match the background colour (in this case it’s white), then use the lasso tool with 100px feather to draw a selection in the area you would like to break apart, simply paint over it:

Duplicate this “break apart” layer, hit Ctrl + I and invert the colour on the duplicated layer:

Add a layer mask on the duplicated layer, this time use the Eraser tool with the Debris Brush, eraser the area and reduce the density of the black part:

Also use the Warp Tool (Ctrl + T and right-click choose Warp) to add a bit of motion:

Also tidy up the bits and pieces arund the hair with a soft eraser:

Here is the effect I have after apply the above steps:

Step 5

Now we can use the watercolour brush to add some background for this image. Create a new layer just above the background layer, load the “Watercolor Brush” into Photoshop and simply paint over it (great chance to use your creativity!)

Here is what I have after the painting:

We can futher add some colour onto our image. To do this, simple create a new layer on top of all other layers, set its blending option to “overlay”, use a big soft brush and paint over it.

Here is my effect so far:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! You can of course add some of your own texture or filter effect and see what the end results are!

Here is my final image for this tutorial: (I slightly adjusted the colour balance and curves ) – Click to enlarge:

Alternative version:

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!

Seamlessly Combine Multiple Objects and Create Awesome Lighting Effect in Photoshop

James Qu — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 13:38:50 +0000

In this tutorial, I will show you the methods I use to seamlessly combine multiple objects and create some truly awesome lighting effect for your image through the making of this “spiritually connected” abstract style design in Photoshop.

I have been asked many times in this past about making one of this type of tutorial that contains both of the above techniques so here it is :)

Along the way, we will be practicing a lot of Photoshop skills relevant to them, including selection, masking, and layer blending options. We will also be using a lot of layer adjustments and Photoshop Filters. Have a try!

Also I would love to know what other method you use to achieve the same effect, drop me a line below!

Here is a preview of my final image result for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

Black and white version:

PSD File Download

Ok let’s get started!

To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stock images: (I’m non-religious, but I do love temples ^^)

Step 1

Let’s prepare some background to work on first. Load the “Grungy Texture” image into Photoshop, make a duplicate of the background layer. (Personally I think this is a good habit because in case you mess up something, you always revert back to the original image quickly.)

Set the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “Darken” and you will have the following image:

Duplicate the background layer once more and drag the duplicated layer to the top, apply the following the following vector mask to the layer:

Set the blending mode of this layer to “Overlay” and you will have the following effect:

Add a new Curves Adjustment Layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves) and apply the following settings:

And you will have the following effect:

Step 2

Now we have a very grungy-looking background to work on. We can now add our objects onto it.

Load the “Temple Stock 1″ into Photoshop. Use any selection tool you prefer to make a selection around the temple (I would recommand you have a practice with Pen Tool, it’s a good tool and in the future you may use it a lot for a variety of purpose ^^)

If you did use Pen Tool to draw the Path, make sure after you close the path, right-click and choose the option called “Make selection…” and set the feather radius to 0px.

Then hit ctrl+alt+R and apply the following Refine Edge settings:

You selection will look similar as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection onto our document, resize (Ctrl + T) and position it as shown below:

Rename this layer as “Temple 1″. On top of this layer, create two adjustment layers as shown below and make both of them Clipping Mask to the “Temple 1″ layer:

Curves

Black and white

Then set the “Temple 1″ layer blending mode to “Multiply” and you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Load “Temple Texture 2″ into Photoshop. Again we use any selection tool to make a selection around the temple building as shown below:

Hint: use the Refine Edge tool to further adjust the edges of the selection, the goal is to make the selection as smooth and seamless as possible, so it will be easier to blend it into our work later on.

Copy and paste the selection onto our document, resize, rotate it and place it onto the position as shown below:

Name this layer as “Temple 2″ and add a vector mask on it as shown below:

You will now see the bottom part of the “Temple 2″ layer is not under the mask:

On top of the “Temple 2″ layer, add two adjustment layers – curves and black and white and make both of them Clipping Mask to the “Temple 2″ layer:

Curves

Black and White

Set the blending mode of this “Temple 2″ layer to “Multiply” and you will have the following effect:

Step 4

Load “Temple Stock 3″ image into Photoshop. Again we extract the temple building out of the image by making the selection as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection onto our document, resize, rotate it and place it onto the position as shown below:

Name this layer as “Temple 3″ and add a vector mask on it as shown below:

And you will see the bottom part of the building is now hidden:

On top of the “Temple 3″ layer, add two adjustment layers – curves and black and white and make both of them Clipping Mask to the “Temple 3″ layer:

Curves

Black and White

And you will have the following effect:

Step 5

We can see the the centre of the canvas look a bi empty – why not add some cloud in there. (I personally love cloudy effect and I think it can be used in all sorts of occasions)

So load the “Cloud” texture into Photoshop. Copy and paste the entire image onto our document and place the newly-created layer below the “Temple 1″ layer, resize and position it as shown below:

Rename this layer as “cloud” and add the following vector mask onto it:

And you will have the following effect:

Again on the “Cloud” layer, we add two more adjustment layers and make them both the clipping mask for “Cloud” layer:

Curves

Black and White

Set the blending mode of the “cloud” layer to “Multiply” and you will have the following effect:

Step 6

Create a new layer called “Radial Blur”, fill the layer with Black and go to Filter > Render > Cloud and render some cloud (set foreground colour to white, background colour to black)

Go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur and apply the following settings:

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

Duplicate the “cloud” once and set the duplicated layer blending mode to “soft light”, you will have the following effect:

Duplicate the “Cloud” layer once more, on the duplicate layer add a vector mask as shown below:

Change the blending mode of this duplicated layer to “colour dodge”, you will see we now have a centre area of the canvas highlighted and more lighting depth is created:

Step 7

Create a new layer called “fiber” on top of all previous layers, fill it with black and go to Filter > Render > Fiber and apply the following settings:

Set the blending mode of this layer to “soft light” and drop the opacity of around 80%:

Step 8

If you’re happy about the colour/contrast of the image so far, this step will become optional for you.

To further adjust the overall colour balance and contrast of the image, we can add the following two adjustment layers on top of all other layers:

Hue/Saturation

Colour Balance

And you will have the following result image:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! You can of course add some of your own texture or filter effect and see what the end results are!

Here is my final image for this tutorial: (I slightly adjusted the colour balance and add some gaussian blur overlay to make the image shining) – Click to enlarge:

Black and white version:

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!

Create a Pop Art Style Poster with Urban City Background in Photoshop

James Qu — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 10:16:46 +0000

In this tutorial, I will show you the process I used to create this Pop Art Style Poster with urban city background in Photoshop by using a combination of Photoshop Filter effects. Again this effect is discovered by accident and I thought I can share it with you guys :)

Along the way, we will be using a lot of filter effects, masking technique, layer blending options, a number of selection techniques including the use of edge refining and magic wand. The steps are quite simple for this tutorial, however the end result looks good in my opinion. Have a try!

Here is a preview of my final image for this tutorial:

Black and White version:

PSD File Download

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Firstly let’s download this wonderful model image and load it into Photoshop. Duplicate the background layer once and go to Filter > Artistic > Cutout and apply the following settings:

Name this duplicated layer as “cut out” and change the blending mode of it to “Hard Light”. Then make another duplication of this “cut out” layer and you will have the following effect:

Now you will see the the bottom part of the photo is completely black, which is not very nice in my opinion. To reveal the original image, we can add a vector mask to each “cut out” layer and grab a big soft eraser to erase the portion as shown below:

And you will see the original texture come back:

Step 2

Go back to the background layer and make another duplication of it. Drag the duplicated layer on top of all previous layer and go to Filter > Sketch > Chrome and apply the following settings:

Name this duplicated layer as “chrome” and change the layer blending mode to “soft light”. Then duplicate the “chrome” once more and you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Now we can add a light source (I chose from the top right) for this image so later on we can have some dynamic light effect. To do this, go back to the background layer and duplicate it once more. Drag the duplicate layer above all other layers, go to Filter > Noise > Median and apply the following settings:

Rename this layer as “Median” and add a vector mask to it, grab a big soft eraser and erase the portion as shown below:

And you will have the folloiwng effect so far:

Step 4

Now we can add a urban city background to the image. Download a copy of this city image and load it into Photoshop. Drag the entire image onto our canvas and resize until it covers the whole canvas.

On this newly created layer, apply the following adjustments:

Black and White

Then apply the following filters:

Halftone Pattern

Box Blur

Name this layer as “city” and you will have the following effect as a result:

Step 5

Go back to the background layer, grab the Magic Wand tool and make a selection of the white area:

Hit Ctrl + Alt + R and bring up the Refine Edge tool, apply the following settings:

Hit Ctrl + Shift + I and inverse the selection, go back to the “city” layer and go to Edit > Clear and you will have see the model image pop out:

Step 6

Duplicate the “city” layer once and on the duplicated layer, go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur and apply the following settings:

Change the blending mode the duplicated layer to “Screen” and you will have the following effect:

Make a duplicate of this duplicate layer, and change the layer blending mode to “color burn”. You will have the following effect:

Step 7

Now the upper portion of the image seems a bit empty and we can add a bit of cloud texture to it. So download a copy of this cloud brushset and simply create a new layer and paint some cloud over it:

Hint: to create a light source on the cloud, simply paint over the same position a few times. (In this case, it’s top right corner)

Step 8

To finalise the image, add two new adjustment layers as shown below:

Colour Balance

Shadow

Midtones

Curves

And you will have the following effect:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! You can of course add some of your own texture or filter effect and see what the end results are!

Here is my final image for this tutorial: (I slightly adjusted the colour balance and ) – Click to enlarge:

Black and White version:

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!

Awesome Fantasy Style Castle Scene Creation in Photoshop

James Qu — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 11:06:55 +0000

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to design this awesome Fantasy style Castle Scene with icy background texture, space and debris brushsets.

Together we will be using a variety of Photoshop techqinues such as layer blending mode, selection methods, filter effects, masking technqiues and image adjustments. Again this is an intermediate tutorial so some of the steps can be a bit tricky, but it doesn’t hurt to have a try!

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

PSD File Download

To complete this tutorial, you will need to the following textures:

Castle

Icy Background

And these two brushsets:

Space Brush set

Debris Brushset

Step 1

Firstly let’s prepare our background texture. Load the “Icy Background” texture into Photoshop, duplicate the background layer once and set the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “soft light”.

Go to Layer > New adjustment layer > Curves and apply the following settings:

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

Now go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Colour Balance and apply the following settings:

Change the blending mode of the newly created colour balance adjustment layer to “soft light” and you will have the following effect:

You can see now the image has more colour depth and much more eye-catching than the original one.

Step 2

Now let’a add an ancient castle in. Load the “Castle” image into Photoshop, use the Magic Wand tool to select the sky portion of the image: (Hint: hold down “Shift” Key to add onto the existing selection)

Then press Shift + Ctrl + I to do an inverse selection, then grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool and hold down the Alt key and make a selection of the bottom part of the image.

This will substract the bottom part of the selection off , as shown below:

After the substraction, press Ctrl + Alt + R to bring up the Refine Edge Tool, apply the following settings:

After the edge-refinemetn, copy and paste the selection on to our document, resize and position it as shown below:

Name this layer as “Castle” and change its blending mode to “Hard Light”.

Add a vector mask onto this layer, grab the Gradient Tool (G) and set the foreground colour to “Black” and background colour Transparent, apply the following gradient effect on the mask:

And you will see the untidy bit on the left side of the castle disappeared:

Step 3

Duplicate the “Castle” layer once, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply the following settings:

Keep the Blending mode of the duplicated layer as “Hard Light”, however drop the opacity to 70%, and you will have the following effect:

Now go back to the orginal castle layer and make a duplicate of it once more, drag the duplicated layer above all other layers, go Edit > Tranform > Flip Horizontal and flip this layer horizontally once, set the blending mode of this layer to “overlay” and opacity 65%.

You will have the followinge effect: (This add a bit more depth to the image)

Step 4

Now let’s add some mist/fog around the castle and add a bit of distant feeling to it. Create a new layer named “Mist”, grab the Lasso Tool with 50px feather, draw a selection as shown below:

Go to Filter > Render > Cloud and render some cloud inside it (White as Foreground Colour, Black and background colour), set the blending mode of this layer to “Screen” with 70% opacity:

Then duplicate the “Mist” layer once, put the duplicated layer below the orginal Mist layer and change its blending mode to “Color Dodge” , you will see now we also have some shining effect for the castle and this make the image more vibrant:

Step 5

Now load the “Debris Brushset” into Photoshop. Create a new layer and grab a brush of your choice from the set, paint over the newly created layer as shown below:

Change the blending mode of this layer to “Soft Light” and drop the opacity to 40%, you will have the following effect:

Then load the “Space Brushset” into Photoshop, create a new layer with “overlay” blending mode on top of every other layer, simply paint over the layer with any brush you like from the set:

Step 6

Now you may feel the left side of the image looks a bit empty. To fill this, I simply duplicate the background layer once more, flip the duplicated layer horizontally once and change its blending mode to “Darker Color”:

Add the followinge vector mask to the duplicated layer to add some lighting dynamics to the image:

You will have the final effect:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! You can of course add some of your own texture or filter effect and see what the end results are!

Here is my final image for this tutorial: (I slightly adjusted the colour balance and add a few Pen Tool lins in the background) – Click to enlarge:

Also if you like to have some extra practices of making those Pen Tool lines, you can take a look at my other post here.

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!

Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

James Qu — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 15:54:15 +0000

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In this tutorial, I will show the steps I took to design this absolutely magical, floating Eiffel Tower scene in Photoshop. The inspiration of this tutorial came from this wonderful design done by matu02 in PSD Vault Flickr Group.

Along the way, we will be using a lot of layer masking techniques, blending options, selection technques, pen tool and dynamic brushes. Hope you enjoy it and find it useful and inspirational!

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

PSD File Download

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

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Load the “Misty Ocean” stock image into Photoshop. Duplicate the background layer once and set blending mode of the duplicated layer to be “Soft Light”.

We can see the overall image become darker a little bit and the colour contrast increases comparing with the original image:

Rename this layer as “soft light” and make a duplicate of this layer, set the duplicated layer blending mode to “overlay” and this will further increase the light and contrast of the image:

Rename this layer as “light overlay”.

Step 2

Now you will see the ocean portion disappeared and we don’t really want that. To reveal the ocean portion, add a vector mask to the “light overlay” by clicking the following button on the layer palette:

Click on the mask thumbnail to select it, grab a big soft brush (I chose a 300px round brush), erase the ocean portion off the “light overlay” layer.

You will now see the ocean become more visible:

Optional: I feel the colour tone of the image is a bit dull and a bit more variation will make the image looks a bit more lively. So I add a new Adjustment layer (Color Balance) and apply the following settings:

Change the blending mode of this adjustment layer to “lighten” and you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Now let’s again focus on the ocean portion of the image. Currently we have a very smooth ocean without much movement at all. This can be a bit of problem because the end result we would like to achieve is a dynamic, active image.

So let’s load the “Dark Water” image into Photoshop. Go back to our document and use the Rectangular Marquee Tool with 20px feather to select the ocean portion of the image:

Drag this selection onto the “Dark Water” Texture to position the selection as shown below:

Copy and paste it back to our document, and you will see now the image become a bit dynamic and not so boring:

Step 4

Load the “Tower Image” into Photoshop. Use the Pen Tool to make a working path around the Tower:

Make a selection (Right-click and choose “Make selection”) from the working path (0px feather), copy and paste the selection onto our document. Desaturate the layer, resize and position it as shown below:

Rename this layer as “Tower”. Then add a vector mask to this layer, grab the Gradient Tool and apply the following gradient to the mask: (You can go the mask by Alt+left-click the mask thumbnail on the layer palette)

Go back to our document and you will see the tower is seamlessly linked to the cloud:

Step 5

Load the “Moon” image into Photoshop, use whatever selection tool you feel comfortable with to make a selection of the moon, as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection back to our document, resize, rotate and position it on the top right corner of the canvas:

Name this layer as “Moon” and change the layer blending mode to “soft light”, you will have the following effect:

Duplicate the “Moon” layer a couple of times, you will see the the Moon become more visible:

Step 6

Load the “cloud scene” image into Photoshop, use the Lasso Tool with 100px feather to make a selection as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection back to our document to the tower position, use Free Transform Tool (Ctrl + T) with Warp, perspective, resize, transform the cloud into a flaming effect:

Name this layer as “Flame” and set its blending mode to “Overlay”. After this, duplicate this layer once, change the duplicated layer blending mode back to normal, use the Eraser Tool to erase off the bottom part of the flame on the duplicated layer:

Step 7

Load the “Eagle” image into Photoshop, use the same Pen Tool technique to make a selection of the eagle. Tip: after you make the selection, use the refine edge option to further enhance your selection: (The setting below can be used as a guideline only, you might have to apply slightly different settings according to your own selection)

Copy and paste the image onto our dcoument to the position as shown below:

Name this layer as “eagle” anc change the layer blending mode to “linear burn”. Make several duplicated of this “eagle” layer, resize and rotate each layer and position the eagles in different places: (Assign different opacity, fill opacity to each duplicated layer as well)

Step 8

Create a new layer called “shining effect” on top of all layers, use the Pen Tool to create a working path like this:

Stroke the path using the following dynamic brush:

Shape Dynamics

Scattering

And you will have the following end result:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! You can of course add some of your own texture or filter effect and see what the end results are!

Here is my final image for this tutorial. I Added a few light beams – If you like to know a quick way of rendering this, I have another tutorial here containing a part about doing so. Also tried aonther colour scheme:

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!

Design a Vintage Car Poster with Grunge Texture, Font and Brushset in Photoshop

James Qu — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 11:30:30 +0000

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In this tutorial, I will show you the processes involved in making an old-looking, vintage car poster with grunge texture, font and brushset in Photoshop.

Along the way, we will be using a series of Photoshop techniques such as layer blending options, image adjustments, filter effects and masking. Some of the techniques can be a bit tricky (especially with the Pen Tool), but why not just have a try :)

Here is preview of the final image result for this tutorial:

Alternative version with Newspaper Texture overlay – This idea comes from one of my workmates Claudia Ferreira, who is awecome web/graphic designer and a very nice person!

PSD File Download

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Download a copy of this grungy texture pack from devaintArt and choose one of those textures, load it into Photoshop. We will be using it as our background for the car poster.

I chose “Texture 1″ from the pack:

Now duplicate the background layer and set the duplicated layer’s blending mode to “Multiply” and opacity to 80%. You will see the texture darken a little bit:

Step 2

To further add Duplicate the “Background Copy” layer once and hit Ctrl + Alt + Shift + B to bring the Black and White image adjustment tool, apply the following settings:

Keep the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “Multiply” and adjust the layer opacity to 90%, you will see the following effect:

Add a vector mask for this layer by click on the following button on the layer palette:

Click on the Mask icon and grab the Eraser Tool with a big soft brush, erase a portion of the duplicated layer by following the direction as shown below:

You will see by doing so it created some colour variation and we now have a light source coming from the top right.

Optional: you can add a gradient fill layer on top of this and apply the following settings:

Set the blending mode of this gradient fill layer to “soft light” and opacity to 80%, you will see the following effect:

Step 3

Now we can add the car image onto our texture. Download a copy of this classic car image from stockvault.net and load it into Photoshop.

Use the Pen Tool (or any other selection tool you prefer, but it’s good to practice Pen Tool cos you will feel the benefit later on) to make a working path as show below:

Then Right-click and choose “Make selection” and set the feather radius to 0 pixel, press Ctrl + C and copy the selection, then go to our document and press Ctrl + V to paste the car onto the canvas, resize it as shown below:

Use the Eraser Tool to clean up the edges of the car: (if you did not make a perfect selection)

Name this layer as “Car” and set its blending mode to “multiply” and you will have the following effect:

Step 4

Dupliate the “Car” layer twice. On the “Car Copy” layer, apply the following Gaussian Blur settings:

Set its blending mode to “overlay”.

Then on the “Car Copy 2″ layer, go to Filter > Artistic >Watercolor and apply the following settings:

Set its blending mode to “Screen” with 70% opacity. You will have the following effect:

Make a duplicate of the previous Gradient Fill layer, drag it to the top and right-click on the layer, choose “create clipping mask” and set its blending option to “overlay”.

This will highlight the car according the light source:

Step 5

Create a new layer called “grunge brush” on top the “Background Copy” layer, below the “Car” layer. Download a copy of this brushset from devaintArt.com. Load it into Photoshop.

On “Grunge Brush” layer, use the brush we just download, randomly paint around the car (alter the flow and opacity of the brush for dynamic effect):

Create a new layer on top of the “grunge brush” layer, call it “grunge stream”. Grab the Pen Tool to make a work path, right-click and stroke it using a grunge brush we just downloaded (Make sure “Simulate Pressure” is selected) as shown below:

Hit Esc Key to cancel the path, use the Free Transform Tool to distort it until similar as shown below:

Duplicate the “grunge stream” layer twice, on each duplicated layer, use the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl + T) to alter the size, angle of the stream, and position them as shown below:

Merge all the duplicted layers and the original “grunge stream” layer together. Duplicate the merged layer once, rotate and position it as shown below:

Step 6

Now we can add some text effect on the poster. Download a copy of this font from dafont.com. Type some text onto our document as shown below:

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

Blending option

Drop Shadow

Inner Shadow

Outer Glow

Inner Glow:

Color Overlay

And you will have the following effect:

Step 7

For the final touch-up, we can add some cloud texture on it. Download a copy of this cloud image from stockvault.net, load it into Photoshop.

Press Ctrl + A to select the whole image, copy and paste the selection onto our poster, put the newly created layer just above the “Background” copy layer, below the “grunge brush” layer.

Resize and fit it to the canvas as shown below:

Go to Image > Adjustment > Channel Mixer and apply the following setting on the cloud layer:

Change the blending mode of this layer to “soft light” and you will have the following effect:

Optional: if you feel the colour of the car look a bit distracting, you can simply go to “Car” layer and desaturate the layer:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! You can of course add some of your own texture or filter effect and see what the end results are!

Here is my final result for this tutorial: (sightly adjusted Hue, and add a bit of radial blur to it)

Alternative version with old Newspaper Texture overlay: (You can download this texture here) – This idea comes from one of my workmates Claudia Ferreira, who is awecome web/graphic designer and a very nice person!)

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!

Design a Dark and Misty Mountain with Distant City Scene in Photoshop

James Qu — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:01:27 +0000

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps involved in designing this dark and misty mountain scene with a gloomy looking far-away city scene in Photoshop.

Along the way, we will use techniques such as layer blending and masking, adjustments layer, filters effects and a variety of image adjustment options. You will learn methods to seamless blend two (or more) images together and generate cinematic effect. This is a simple tutorial with just 5 steps, have a go!

Here is a preview of before and after effect:

Before

After

Alternative colour scheme:

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Download the following two stock photos from stockvault.net:

Mountain Image

New York City Stock Photo

Load the “Moutain Image” into Photoshop, duplicate the background layer once. The reason we duplicate the background layer is in case we mess up this duplicated layer, we can always delete it and go back to the original background layer.

We can firstly give this photo a nice and cool gradient effect. So after duplicating, go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Fill, apply the following gradient settings:

Then set the layer blending mode of this adjustment layer to “soft light” and you will have the following effect:

Step 2

Duplicate the background layer once more and drag it to the top. Set the blending mode of this to “Screen” and go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer >Color Balance and apply the following settings:

Keep the blending mode of the adjustment layer as “normal” and you will see the following effect:

Step 3

Now we will add some more colour depth and make the image a bit darker. Firstly, we go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer >Channel Mixer and apply the following settings:

Then go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves and apply the following settings:

Lastly we go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels and apply the following settings:

And you will have the following effect so far:

Step 4

Load the “New York City Stock Photo” into Photoshop, use the Rectangular Marquee (M) tool to select a portion of the image as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection onto our document and name the layer as “city”. Resize the image until it fits the width of our canvas and position it as shown below:

Set the blending mode of “city” layer to “multiply” and erase (using a big soft brush, I used 1,000px with 0% hardness) the the bottom portion of the layer (use a layer mask if you would like to be safe)

Duplicate the “city” layer once and apply the following Gaussian Blur settings:

Set the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “screen” and you will add a glowing effect for the city far-away:

Step 5

Now we can render some mist/cloud for the forest and also add some uneven lighting effect. To do this, create a new layer called “lighting effect”, use the Lasso Tool with 80px feather to make a selection for the mountain forest, and render some cloud inside it (Filter > Render > Cloud):

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

Duplicate the “lighting effect” layer and hit Ctrl + L, apply the following Curves Adjustments to the duplicated layer:

Change the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “color dodge” and you will see the following effect: (lighting effect towards certain area has been enhanced)

Duplicate this layer a few more times, drag each of the duplicated layers around the image to produce more dynamic lighting effect and misty environment: (keep the blending mode to “color dodge” for each layer).

Here is the effect after duplication:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! As for my final image, I slightly adjusted the hue/saturation:

Alternative colour scheme:

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!

Design a Cool “Mystic Dancer” Scene In Photoshop

James Qu — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 16:17:11 +0000

In this tutorial, I will show you the processes I used to create this really cool “Mystic Dancer” scene by using natural grass texture in Photoshop. I came across the original image while browsing for free stock image and I thought: what if I combine it with some natural pattern and texture?

Together we can explore various image adjustment tools, filter effects, layer blending mode, dynamic brush settings and more. Some parts of this tutorial can be a bit tricky, but why not have a try :)

Here a before and after preview:

Before

After

Alternative version:

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Download a copy of this image from stockvault.net and load it into Photoshop.

If you can take some time to observe the image, you can the image itself primarily consist of some dark and cold concrete wall, with a only a line of the light source in the middle.

The first step is to add a few extra light to the overall image. To do this, duplicate the background layer once and hit Ctrl + M and bring up the Curve Tool, apply the following settings:

Then hit Ctrl + Alt + Shift + B to bring up the Black and White Image Adjustment Tool, apply the following settings:

And here is the effect so far:

Step 2

Still on this layer, use the Eraser Tool (E) to erase the distracting white bits of the woman’s upper body:

Duplicate the “Background Copy” layer once, set its blending mode to “overlay” and you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Now we want to add some texture on the concrete wall so it looks not so boring. Download a copy of this Grass image and load it into Photoshop. (This image is of my own stock and you can use it wherever and for whatever purpose).

Then go back to our document, hit Ctrl + A and select the whole canvas and drag that selection over to the grass image, copy and paste back to our document and name the newly-formed layer as “grass texture”.

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

Then go to Image > Adjustment > Channel Mixer and apply the following settings:

Change the layer blending mode to “overlay”, and you will see the following effect:

Optional: you can erase the texture overlay on the dancer or keep it, that’s totally up to you.

I chose to erase the grass texture off because I felt I would have more room later on for adding something else:

Step 4

Now we can add a bit of motion into the image: Duplicate the “Grass Texture” layer once more, then go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur and apply the following settings:

Then hit Ctrl + L to bring up the Levels tool, apply the following settings:

Change the blending option of this layer to “Screen” and you will have the following effect:

Step 5

Now we can add something around the dancer to create a better connection between her and the rest of the image. Pen Tool + Dynamic Brush is usually a good choice for this :)

Create a new layer called “Stuff around the dancer”, grab the Brush tool and apply the following brush dynamics:

Shape Dynamics

Scattering

Texture:

Dual Brush

Color Dynamics

And tick “Airbrush” and “Smoothing” options.

Then we use the Pen Tool to briefly outline the dancer as shown below:

Then right-click and choose “stroke path” with brush, and you will see the following effect:

Step 6

We can add some additional lighting effect for the dancer so the image looks more realistic. Create a new layer called “extra light”, grab a soft round brush and paint as shown below:

Change the layer blending mode to “overlay” and you will see the following effect:

Step 7

Lastly we can add some cloud in the middle of the image to give the photo some extra flavor. To do this, create a new layer called “cloud”, grab the lasso tool and set its feather to 100px, make a selection as shown below:

Then go to Filter > Render > Cloud (Make sure you set White as foreground colour, Black as background colour) and render some cloud inside:

Then duplicate the “cloud” layer three times, change the blending mode of each duplicated layer as below:

Cloud Copy – Multiply

Cloud Copy 2 – Overlay

Cloud Copy 3 – Soft Light

and you will have the following effect:

Step 8

Lastly, we can add a light source to the image. To do this, create a new layer called “source light”, fill it with black colour and go to Filter > Render > Lens flare and apply the following settings:

Change the layer blending option to “screen” and erase some unnecessary bits down the bottom, you will have the following effect:

I also added some flying bird on the top of the image, you can download this brush from qbrushes.com and load it into Photoshop. For those who don’t know how to load brushes, here is a handy link for you.

Here is the effect so far:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! You can of course further enhance it and add whatever effect you feel like to it!

Here is my final image for this tutorial: (Add some colour and rainy effect)

Alternative colour scheme:

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!

Design an Awesome Urban City Photo-Montage In Photoshop

James Qu — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 10:24:40 +0000

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to design this cool-looking, urban city photo-montage in Ph0toshop. You will learn how to combine several stock images together to achieve surreal photo effect.

This tutorial involves techniques such as layer blending options, image adjustments, tranformation techniques, filter effects and lighting effect rendering. The tutorial itself is quite simple but the end result looks good in my opinion, have a go!

Here is a preview of the final results:

Black and White version:

PSD File Download

OK let’s get started!

Step 1

We start off by download the following four stock images from stockvault.net and cgtexture.com:

Load the “Grunge Splatter” image into Photoshop, duplicate the Background layer once and set the blending mode to “Overlay”:

Save this document to a new psd file and name it “urban city”.

Step 2

Load the “City Image” into Photoshop, drag the entire image onto the “urban city” document, use the free transform tool (Ctrl + T) to resize it until it fits the canvas size:

Name this layer as “city” and change the layer blending option to “vivid light”. You will have the following effect:

Step 3

On the “City” layer, hit Ctrl+Alt+Shift+B and bring up the Black and White adjustment tool (for those who don’t have CS3, try use the Channel Mixer with Monochrome option enabled), apply the following settings:

Then hit Ctrl + M and bring up the Curves tool, adjust the Red channel a bit:

And here is the effect so far:

Step 4

Duplicate the “city” layer once, apply the following Gaussian Blur Setting to the duplicated layer:

Duplicate this layer once more and merge them together, then change the blending mode of the merged layer to “Darken”. You will have the following effect:

Step 5

Load the “high-rise image” into the Photoshop, drag the entire image onto our canvas, resize and erase (with a big soft brush) the cloud/sky + bottom part of the image. (please also note that you can use layer mask to achieve this) Name this layer as “high-rise”.

Again we apply the black and white adjustments to this layer using the same settings as in the previous layer: (Make sure you set the whole document as RGB color mode)

And the effect so far should look like this:

Step 6

Change blending mode of the “high-rise” layer to “overlay” and you should see the high-rise image blend into the grunge texture:

To add some shape dynamics and depth onto the image, we can duplicate the high-rise layer a few more times, resize and position the duplicated layers as shown below:

Step 7

Load the “Little Girl” image into Photoshop. Again we drag the entire image onto our canvas, but this time we don’t resize it. Instead, we move the image to the position as shown below: (where we see only the girl and the sky)

Erase the sky portion as well as the build to right using a soft brush, and change the layer blending option to “Hard Light”.

The effect so far will look like this:

Name this layer as “little girl” and duplicate this layer once, set the blending mode of the duplicate layer to “overlay” and you will have the following effect:

Step 8

Lastly we can add a bit of shining effect to the image so it won’t look boring. To do this, create a new layer called “lighting effect”, use the Lasso Tool with a 40px feather, draw a selection in any area (I chose a place where it meets with the direction the girl is looking towards) and render some cloud and lens flare in:

Change the layer blending mode to “Color Dodge” and apply the following gaussian blur settings:

You will have the following effect:

Duplicate the layer a few more times and drag them in areas you would like to lightup, and you will have this result image:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! I further adjusted the image hue/satuation a bit and here is my final result: (click to enlarge)

Black and White version: (click to enlarge)

You can of course further enhance this text effect by applying some more filter effects, or combining it with some background texture, that’s totally up to you :)

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!

Design an Elegant Abstract Site Header Image in Photoshop

James Qu — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 08:45:01 +0000

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

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!

Transform a Daylight City Image into a Epic Warzone Scene in Photoshop

James Qu — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 07:53:06 +0000

In this tutorial, I will show you the processes I used to transform a daylight city image into a epic warzone scene in Photoshop. The inspiration of this tutorial came from a random war image I came across while reading a magazine.

Together, we will explore a variety of Photoshop techniques such as image adjustment option, a number of filter effect and some basic selection skills. This is an intermediate tutorial and some steps could be a bit tricky, but why not just have a go? ;)

Meanwhile, I would like to take this opportunity to raise the attention to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal, as you may have already known. If you would like to make a donation, you can do so throught the Australian Redcross Website.

Here is a preview of before and after images:

Before

After (Click to enlarge)

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Download a copy of this city image from stockvault.net and load it into Photoshop. Once loaded, duplicate the background layer once and name the duplicated layer as “Black and White”.

On the “Background Copy” layer, hit Ctrl + Alt + Shift + B and bring up the Black and White image adjustment tool (If you’re using an earlier version than CS3, you can use Channel Mixer instead, just make sure you tick the “monochrome” option down the bottom).

Apply the following Black and White image adjustments:

Change the layer blending option of this duplicated layer to “Multiply” and you will have the following effect:

Step 2

Duplicate the “Black and White” layer once and name the duplicated layer “Curves”, hit Ctrl + M and bring up the Curves Image Adjustments, apply the following image adjustments:

Keep the blending option of this layer as “Multiply” and you will see the image darkens further:

Step 3

Now let’s add some particles on the image. Duplicate the “Curves” layer three times. On the “Curves Copy” layer, go to Filter > Distort > Glass and apply the following settings:

Change the layer blending option to “Screen” and reduce the layer opacity to 70% and you will have the following effect:

Then on “Curves Copy 2″ layer, go to Filter > Brush Strokes > Spatter and apply the following settings:

Change the blending option of this layer to “Screen” and you will have the following effect:

Step 4

Grab the Lasso Tool and set its feather to 40px. Make a selection on the Sky area and the high rises as shown below:

While maintaining the selection, hit Ctrl + J and make a layer via copy. Name this newly created layer as “Smoke” and go to Filter > Render > Cloud and render some cloud:

Duplicate the “Somke” layer once. On the duplicated layer, go to Filter > Render > Difference Cloud. Apply this filter a few times and change the layer blending option of this layer to “color burn”.

You will see an effect similar to the following image:

Step 5

On the the duplicated “Smoke” layer, hit Ctrl + B and apply the following Colour Balance:

To reduct the noise a bit on the smoke, we can apply the following medium (Filter > Noise > Medium) settings:

You can see the noise has been reduced:

Step 6

Now we can add some fire effect to the image. Download a copy of this fire image from cgtexture.com and load it into Photoshop.

Drag the entire image on our document and name newly-created layer “fire”. Set the layer blending option to “Screen”.

Grab the Eraser Tool (E) with a big brush, erase the black part of the fire image and leave just the fire:

Then use the Clone Stamp Tool (S) with different size of brushes, flow and opacity, clone this fire until it reaches desired burning effect:

Step 7

To add a bit more dynamics to the image, I duplicate the background layer once more and put it just below the “Curves” layer in Step 2, then apply the following Radial Blur Settings:

Desaturate the layer and change its blending option to “Screen” and you will have the following effect:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! You can of course continue enhancing the image by adding some more effects, such as filter, texture or just have a play with its hue and saturation!

Below is my final image for this tutorial: (Click to enlarge, I added a planet of the sky, adjusting the hue and saturation of image)

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!

Transform a Daylight Photo into a Realistic Lightning Storm Scene

James Qu — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:34:28 +0000

In this tutorial, I will show you the processes I used to transform an average daylight photo into a realistic lightning storm scene in photoshop.

Along the way, we will take about interesting ways of darken your image and reduce noise non-destructively, and also a simple way of rendering rain effect and making. water splashes. Have a try :)

Here is a before and after preview:

Before

After

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Download a copy of this image and load it into Photoshop.

Because we’re creating a rainy image, so firstly we can make the image a bit darker.

To do this, duplicate the background layer once and change it the blending option of the duplicated layer to “Multiply”. This will darken the whole image and the effect is shown blew:

Step 2

Then we can tackle the sky area and make it darker. Hide the “Background copy” layer for now and Press “L” to select the Lasso Tool. Draw a selection around the sky area.

Hit Ctrl + J to make a layer via Copy, name the new layer as “sky” and drag it on top of all other layers.

Then hit Ctrl + Alt + Shift + B and bring up the Black and White image adjustment Tool, apply the following settings:

Then hit Ctrl + M to bring up the Curve Adjustment Tool, apply the following settings:

You can also use the Blur/Smudge Tool to patch up the “sky” layer so it blending more seamlessly to the houses and trees below:

Once you’re happy with the result, change the blending option of this “sky” layer to “Multiply”, and the effect will look like this:

Step 3

Now you will notice that we have quite a few noise on the “Sky” layer, which you may want to get rid of. So to do this, duplicate the “Sky” layer once. On the duplicated layer, go to Filter > Blur > Surface Blur and apply the following settings:

Then change the layer blending of the duplicated layer to “Hard Light” and you will have the following effect:

Step 4

Now we will add some lightning effect to image. As you may know the previous image I used for this part was removed due to copyright issue (a lesson learnt). Also thanks to the copyright owner for accepting my apology. Also if you guys are interested, you can check out his work at www.jeffsmithusa.com.

So i used an alternative image from stockvault.net instead. Download a copy of this lightning image and load it into Photoshop. Use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to select a portion, copy and paste the selection back to our document. Put this layer on top of all other layers and name it “Lightning”:

Then use the Eraser Tool to gently erase the unnecessary portion of the image and leave only the lightning bits:

Step 5

Still on the “lightning” layer, go to Image > Adjustment > Channel Mixer and apply te following settings:

Then change the layer blending option of this lightning layer to “Screen”, duplicate this layer a couple of times and you shoud have the following effect:

Step 6

Still on the “lightning” layer, use the Clone Stamp Tool (S) to clone a few portion from the existing lighning and create some dynamic lightning effect:

Tip: use a big soft brush and adjust the flow and opacity to make lightning more dynamic.

Step 7

Now we can render some rainy effect on the image. Create a new layer called “Rain” on top of all other layers, grab a small White brush (3px) and apply the following brush options:

Shape Dynamics

Scattering

Once you set the brush, simply paint over the sky area, then apply the following motion blur settings:

After that, change the layer blending option to “Overlay” and you will have the following effect:

Step 8

To add a bit of water splashes on the lake so it look a bit more realistic, we can duplicate the background layer once more and put the duplicated layer just above the background layer, go to Filter > Distort > Ocean Ripple and apply the following settings:

And the effect should look like the following image:

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

Here is my final image for this tutorial: (I adjusted the Hue/Saturation of the image a bit) – Click to Enlarge

If you have any questions, just drop me a comment :)

Cheers and have a nice day!