Create a Colorful and Grunge Background Effect

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create colorful curves and grunge background for your favorite model or probably your own photo yourself. I really intended the easier route in creating those arch shapes instead of the more tedious pen tool way of doing it. This is not, however, a substitute for the pen tool because this has its own advantages especially so when you're already familiar and master of it. It's your own preference really what tool and method to use relative to this tutorial. But then, this tutorial is good too in its own right. So, let's get started and find out what we have here!

Preview

What you need

• model's photo
• grunge paper texture
• floral vector or image

Step 1 : Preparing the Background

1. Create a new document, at least equal to or larger than your model's photo size. Duplicate it, then fill this with black.
   
2. Open your grunge paper texture. Make a mask out of it by clicking the mask icon below the layers palette, then by using a big soft brush, paint the edges of the paper texture to make a vignette. In so doing, we're making sure that the model we'll paste into later will be highlighted.
   
3. Make a new layer. Again, with a big soft brush, paint randomly the edges with different colors. About 4-6 of these will do. Set mode to Lighten.
   

Step 2 : Bring in the Photo

1. With the photo now on the canvas, make a selection of the model using any of your favorite selection tool, then paste it onto your newly-created texture.
   
2. Click the "Add a layer style" icon (fx) below your layers palette, then choose Outer Glow with the following settings:
   
3. You'll notice that our background is too bright, so we'll have to darken it a bit to have a balance contrast with our model. Switch back to Layer 3, then click the "Add a new fill or adjustment layer" icon and select Brightness/Contrast. Bring in the slider to the left until it matches the outcome below:
   

Step 3 : Put the Floral Vector in Place

Open the floral vector and put it behind the model, on the upper part, because we'll be making the colored moons or arcs below it. Set the blend mode to Color Burn to remove the white background. So no need in selecting it to remove from the background.

Step 4 : Creating the Colored Moons

1. Create a new layer group to make the colored moons (arcs, or whatever you may call it). This will make our work organized and put all these moons into one folder or group for easier editing if needed.
2. Now, create the moons one-at-a-time, a new layer each of them. To do it, make a circle using the Elliptical Marquee Tool, then apply a gradient of your choice ("Create a new fill or adjustment layer" icon>Gradient fill...). To erase and make it like a comb moon, create a new circle then use the Eraser Tool to easily wipe the selection. Make this method for the rest of the moons. Put these all behind the model's layer except for the last which I place it on top.
3. Note : You can use the Free Transform Tool to resize and reposition the created circles, or, use the arrows alternately. You can also use the Warp Tool under Transform to alter the shape you've created if you happen to prefer it that way.

Step 5 : Finishing Touches

Finally, apply Curves to enhance the contrast of our final image by dragging and making the line into an "s-hape". Experiment which values create the best output here.

Conclusion

You can definitely add more effects in the background, like putting splatters and others that you can imagine that adds up more colour and depth maybe. But then this tutorial limits only to the basics that will however hopes to open up more and better ideas to the reader and/or artist in you.

Switch Faces in Photoshop

Replacing or switching faces is one of the funniest a beginner in Photoshop can easily do. In just 5 to 10 minutes (or even lesser), you'll be able to see your finished product with amazement and wide grin, or, you may burst with laughter of what you've done! And then you can even brag to your friends what you've created! Let's get started...

Preview

All you need is a photo of 2 person or more that you will work with. Similar face position is easier to deal with, so choose your photo well. It doesn't matter what facial expression it has.

Step 1

Open the photo to be used. Below is a photo of James and Chalmers of Miami Heat which we will use in this tutorial.

Step 2

Duplicate the Background layer, then select the face of Chalmers or James (whichever) first via the Lasso Tool (or any of the selection tools). Copy and paste when done. Do the same thing for the second. After hitting "Paste" (Edit>Paste...) the first time, a new layer named Layer 1 is created in you layers panel. Rename this to "Chalmers" so you can remember which face was copied. As for James, Layer 2 is created, so rename this to "James".

To paste the selected face, just grab the Move Tool and drag which face will be pasted first. Do the swapping. Fix the positioning and resizing by using the Free Transform Tool (and Perspective, if needed).

Step 3

Apply Layer Mask to both "James" and "Chalmers" layers and, using a small, soft brush, 50% Opacity, brush around the selected faces to remove rough edges or unnecessary parts on the image.

Step 4

After fixing the rough edges, you may apply some adjustments to the color and contrast to the skin to look realistic. At some instances, depending on the photo used, you may also need the Dodge, Burn, and Clone Tools. Like the final image below, I applied the Curves adjustments to make the contrast better.

Done!

Create An Abstract Shape Effect Into An Image

Creating a unique and nice effect to your valuable photos is something you can keep and be proud of, if done properly which, I bet, you can do it easily. In this tutorial, you can easily follow the instructions step-by-step, and you'll be amazed of what you've created. This is a variation with a different approach and much better compared to the more familiar collage or jigsaw puzzle effect.

Preview

Step 1: Preparing the Photo

Open your photo to be used, double-click the layer created in the layers palette to unlock it which becomes "Layer 0" as a result. The image I used can be downloaded here if you prefer to use this to get along.

Step 2 : Creating the Rectangles

Create a new layer above the existing layer. Grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool then make rectangles with different sizes randomly onto the image. Don't fill the whole photo yet with rectangles as we will be creating 2 layers more of this.

Note: After the first rectangle had been made, press Shift while making the other rectangles to work. This is so, because the rectangles would just be repeatedly deselected otherwise. When done with the rectangles, click on the color palette and choose the gray color (or any color of your choice), then use the Bucket Tool and fill one of the rectangles. That would automatically fill in all the others. Set the blending mode to Overlay, Opacity to 100, and Distance to 7 (or just leave the default values). Click Ok. Here's the result:

Step 3 : Creating the Second Set of Rectangles

Create another layer and do the same process as Step 1 except for the color which should be light gray. When finished, click Layer 1, right-click it and select "Copy Layer Style". Switch back to Layer 2, right-click it and select "Paste Layer Style".

Step 4 : Finishing the Last Set of Rectangles

Create rectangles again, but this time use white color to fill them. Afterwards, activate Layer 3, right-click it, then select "Paste Layer Style". So, finally, we're done with the rectangles and here's what we got:

You can already stop here actually, if you like to. Lookin' good eh! If you prefer to proceed, then we'll continue...

Step 5 : Choosing the Background

You can put any background you want. Here, I preferred to have a simple yet effective solid color. So, to do it, Ctrl-click first Layers 3, 2, 1 icons to select the contents, then activate Layer 0 (our original layer), hit Ctrl-J to create a new layer (e.g. Layer 4, as a result). Select Layer 0 again, then after selecting the orange color, go to Edit>Fill..., then select the foreground color. Here's our layers palette look like :

Here's the final result :

Texture Mapping Using Displacement Map

There are various ways where you can use the displacement filter, one of which is the "mapping" of a face by a texture or pattern like the one we used here. What is really amazing in this application is that it follows the contours of the image where your texture is applied to. You can use other textures like wrinkled skin, shirt, or anything you can imagine and try experimenting for yourself which gives you the best results. In this tutorial, I hope you will learn something useful that you can apply afterwards.

Preview

What we need

• Corroded metal sheet
• Photo of Megan Fox

Step 1 : Prepare the photo

After opening the photo, go to the Channels palette and select which of the channels give the best contrast. In this case, it is the green channel that offers the best result.

Step 2 : Prepare the displacement map

Duplicate the Green channel by right-clicking it, then choose Duplicate channel. In the dialog box that appears, select the Destination as New. A new layer (Alpha 1) will be created as a result inside your channels palette.

Apply Gaussian Blur to achieve a smooth end result which will be seen later as we apply the displacement map.

Go to Filter>Distort>Displace. Save this image now as a .psd file. Name it whatever you want. This will serve as your displacement map.

Step 3 : Select the face

First, switch back to RGB to see the photo in full color again, and then, go to Layers palette. After this, duplicate the photo. Now, select the face using the Lasso Tool. When done, select the eyes, eyebrows, lips, and hairs in the face which we don't want to include in the texture-mapping. Observe the icon selected below.

Step 4 : Bring in the texture

First, we will make the texture into a pattern by going to Edit>Define Pattern of which you will select the opened texture, of course. This will then be saved to your pattern lists. Now, go to Edit>Fill and select Pattern. Select the pattern you've just saved, and presto, the selected faced has changed into a pattern!

But this is not what we'd like to achieve. At least, we've done the first step though. What we will have to do is adjust the color of the original photo and change the blending mode and opacity as well.

Step 5 : Making the color adjustments

So, first, change the blend mode from Normal to Overlay (or what is best depending on the photo you used), then set the Opacity to 50%. You can deselect the selected areas for now (Ctrl-D).

Now, we will switch back to Layer 1 (the duplicated photo layer). You can turn off the uppermost layer, if you want to. In the few next steps, we will be using the Create new fill or adjustment layer, the icon of which is located below the layers palette, that small circle with half of it shaded with black. Select first the Hue/Saturation with the following values:

Second, the Color Balance:

Third, the Brightness/Contrast:

And, fourth, Hue/Saturation once more:

As you can see, the color of the skin is more realistic now. If you want the image to have more color and hue, try experimenting with different values with lesser saturation.

Step 6 : Run the displaced filter

Go to Filter>Distort>Displace...In the dialog box that appears, set the values both to 10, then open the psd file that we have saved afterwards.

Set the blend mode to Soft Light and Opacity to 70%.

Step 7 : The finishing touches

To soften the edges of the pattern, use the Blur Tool using a soft brush; the Smudge Tool to hide the supposedly covered skin with hair; and some Burn Tool where needed. Apply the Curves in the Adjustment filter under Edit with the following values:

Finally, select the iris of the eyes and lips, then apply Hue/Saturation and check Colorize.

Here is the final result: