Fortunate Photomanipulation

Finished Preview

Stock Used

Link Credits

Man - http://jademacalla.deviantart.com/art/iamw-3-44908664
Bottom part of background - http://night-fate-stock.deviantart.com/art/antelope-island-42-109697923

Fog brushes - http://pelleron.deviantart.com/art/Resources-Fog-Brushes-116552946

Horseshoe - http://www.sxc.hu/photo/489054

Cube - http://pelleron-stock.deviantart.com/art/Confused-Cube-120216505

Grunge texture - http://pelleron.deviantart.com/art/Resources-Grunge-Texture-1-118304651

Everything else is from my private resources but it will be no problem to find similar sky and quarter foil as I used.

Step 1 - Cutting pictures

Cutting and blending of background

Create new document in Photoshop and drag photo of sky and desert into it. Make sure that the desert is placed above the sky. Now add vector mask on the desert. Press B (= Brush Tool) on your keyboard. Select soft round brush and pick black color. Now make sure that the vector mask is active (just click on it) and start to paint over the sky of the desert picture.

Now we are going to add the cube. Open the picture and press W (= Magic Wand). Now just click on the black color and magic wand will select it. Select -> Inverse. Thanks to this command the cube is selected. Press V and drag the cube into our manipulation.

Cutting of the rest images

Now we have to cut out the man, horseshoe and quarter foil. To that we will use the Lasso Tool. I know cutting is boring part but do it as good as you can. If pictures are not cut out properly the whole manipulation will never look realistic.

After the cutting drag all pictures into the manipulation. After this step you should have something like this:

Step 2 - Blending

In this step we will blend the cube with sand, add shadow under the man’s´ shoe and under the horseshoe.

The cube

We will start with the cube. Click on the layer with it and add vector mask. Press B on your keyboard. And pick soft round brush and some dark grey color. Dark grey color means lower opacity than black color.

Now paint over the parts of cube which you think should be hidden in the sand. After you finished, it should look like this:

If you want to do it much more realistic you can copy some part of the desert (like on the picture below) and add in front of the cube.

Shadows under the man

Create new layer under the layer with man. Press B and choose some small (diameter about 5px) round brush. Pick black color and lower the opacity of the brush on about 70%. Now start painting very close to the man´s shoes.

Then create new layer again. Make brush little bigger, lower the opacity and paint in bigger distance. If you´re not sure where to put shadows look at the picture below:

Shadows under the horseshoe and cube

We will add shadows under the horseshoe and the cube in the same way as we did it with the shoes.

Step 3 - Color blending

If you look at the picture you will see that it does not look much realistic so far. We will fix it in this step.

Colors of the desert

Desert should be more orange because of the colors of sunset. It is easy to fix it. Click on the layer with desert. Now add new Adjustment Layer and choose Photo filter. Set these settings:

We don´t want to it will affect the whole picture. Right click on the adjustment layer and choose Create clipping mask. Now it changes only colors of the desert layer.

Colors of the man

Now we will do better colors of the man. We will use adjustment layers and will make from them clipping mask in the same way as in the previous step. Also change Hue and Saturation, Brightness and Contrast and Photo filter.

Colors of the horseshoe

We have to change also colors of the horseshoe:

After this step your manipulation should look like this:

Step 4 - Global coloring

In this step we will color the whole picture to give it better atmosphere.

At first add Adjustment Layer Brightness and Contrast and lower the brightness (on about -30). Then add Adjustment Layer Hue and Saturation and lower the saturation (about -35)

Now I will show you little trick how to add to all parts similar colors. Add new layer and press G (= Gradient Tool). Choose violet and yellow color (as on the picture below) and then choose radial gradient.

Now fill the layer with this gradient. Yellow should be in the middle and violet on the borders. Set blending option as I did (look at the picture below)

Now add new Adjustment Layer Brightness and Contrast and higher the contrast (+15)

I also changed Curves a little

Picture looks much better now.

Step 5 - Lighting

It is time to add more dramatic lighting to the picture which catch eye of the one who look at your pictures.

Press M (= Marque Tool) and select the whole picture. Now go to Edit ->Copy Merged and then paste the merged image on the top of your layers.

Click on Filter -> Render -> Lighting Effect. As light type choose Omni. Set Intensity on 32 and Ambience on 8. Now place the light source.

Press O on your keyboard and dodge the parts which should be lighten because of the light source we added

After this step picture should look like this:

Step 6 - Special effects

In this step we will add the mist and lens flare.

Adding mist

Download some nice mist brushes and add them to your brushes.  -> Load Brushes…

Click on the brush you wish and paint some pretty mist in the background.

Adding lens flare

Now add new layer above the rest of the layers. Fill it with solid black color. Now go to Filter -> Render -> Lighting Effect and choose lens flare you wish. Then press OK.

To blend it with picture change the blending option on Screen and lower the opacity.

Step 7 - Final touch

We are almost done. Only few thinks left.

At first add the grunge texture you choose. Set the blending option on Color Burn and lower the opacity on about 25%.

Higher the contrast a little

also the saturation

and we are finished!

Category: Photomanipulation / Tutorials Author: Matt LaceycloseAuthor: Matt Lacey Name:
Email: matt@flashessential.com
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About: Matt is an interactive website designer and technical writer who specializes in Actionscript development. He's written for a number of online training companies and is the founder of both Flash Essential and PSD Essential.See Authors Posts (33)