Create Abstract Photo Manipulation with Tree Bark Texture and Brush Elements

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

Girl Photo by ~Mirish

Tree Bark Texture

Grunge Brushsets (Pick a few from the list)

Video Tutorial

If you have any trouble with Step 3, I have a video tutorial here to show you exactly how to apply the tree bark texture over the model’s face:

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Step 1

Create a new document sized 800px * 1136px, fill the background layer with #cccec9 color. We will add some textures onto the background – Load the tree bark texture into Photoshop, use the rectangular marquee tool to select a portion of it as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection onto our document, resize it to fit the size of the canvas. Apply the following image adjustments to it:

Black and White

Levels

Set the layer blending mode to “Subtract” (for versions other than CS6, you can use “overlay” mode instead)

Add a highlight to the centre with a soft white brush:

Then create a new layer, and apply some grunge brush paintings over it – I have the following effect below:

Step 2

Load the girl image into Photoshop, cut out the girl and paste it over to our document:

Apply the following surface blur settings to this girl layer:

Use any grunge brushset as eraser, remove the edges of the girl as shown below: (make sure you adjust the brush size accordingly as you paint)

Add the following 3 adjustment layer as clipping mask to this girl layer:

Black and White

Layer mask on the black and white adjustment layer:

Levels

Layer mask on the levels adjustment layer:

Curves

and here is the effect so far:

Step 3

We will add some bark textures around the face – use quick selection tool to select a piece on the bark image, and copy & paste to our document, as shown below:

Distort the new bark layer as show below:

Select this new layer, and apply the following “Refine Edge” options: (by doing so, it will give a rough edge for this tree bark layer)

Apply the following 3 image adjustments to this bark layer:

Black and White

Levels

Curves

Then we can duplicate this layer a few times,  then move them around the face as shown below:

Step 4

We’ve now done the textures and painting parts. Let’s flatten the image and duplicate the background layer, grab the clone stamp tool:

Set the brush to soft round for this clone stamp tool:

Define the following portion as the clone source, then paint around the girl’s face, as shown below:

Apply the following layer mask to this new layer to hide some portion:

You can apply some liquify filter effect to various parts of the photo as well:

and here is the effect so far:

Step 5

We will fine-tune the image a bit and add some colour effect to it. We will do them via adjustment layers as below: (from bottom to top)

Curves

Layer Mask on the Curves adjustment layer:

Selective Color

Color Balance

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

That’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy it and find it useful! Drop me a comment below if you have any question.

Till next time, have a great day!