THE ARTIST NOOK

Today, I will be teaching you how to make a fiery photo manipulation using Abobe Photoshop. This is going to be a detailed tutorial wherein you will see how easy it is to use this amazing application in rendering realistic photo enhancement...

This will be the final result.See how detailed is the photo... This is just easy to do especially if you will just read all the instructions...

Are you ready to learn?...

Be empowered as I unveil the secrets of Photoshop....

Below are the images I have used for this photo manipulation...

You may download these images directly from this page or you may search them in Google.

Now, let's start with the tutorial.

1. First, you have to open the image that you want to edit. In this tutorial, I have chosen the picture of my friend that I have taken during our beach party.

2. Now, to delete the background, we will use the magic wand tool to select the area that should erased. Once you have selected the area just press Ctrl+Shift+I or simply go to Select menu and choose Deselect.

3. As we are able to delete unnecessary areas/ parts of the photo, you will observe that there are still part of the background that we are not able to erase. So to delete that part, we have to use the eraser tool and manually erase those parts.

4. After doing that, open as well the image which will serve as the background to our main subject (the girl)..

5. Now drag the picture and place it under the layer of our main subject so that it will serve as the background. Adjust and re-size.

6. Then, choose the first layer ( the girl) and re-size it while dragging the transformation control and at the same time holding the shift button on key board so that the image will not be distorted. Make the image smaller than the original size so that we may able to put other elements of our photo manipulations later.

7. On this step, I used a soft brush to delete the edges of the first layer (the girl) so that it will somehow blend to the background.

8. We also have to delete some parts of the hair for us to achieve a naturalistic blend to the background.

9. Once we are done deleting some parts, we will use clone stamp tool to clone other parts of the hair. Also, we will use smudge tool to give naturalistic flow to the hair so that it won't look stiff.

10. Now, adjust the levels of the first layer ( the girl) so that the color will blend to the hue of our background. Make it a little bit darker giving an impression that the source of light is at the back of the girl... Go to Image>Adjustments>Levels.

11. Also adjust the vibrance... Go to Image>Adjustments>Vibrance.

12. Then make adjustments with the curves to set the image just right for the background. Go to Image>adjustments<Curves. Make adjustments on the RGB and REDS. make it to blend the sunset background.

13. Now, open this image of the wings. Drag it to the composition.

14. Afterwards, put the wings underneath the girl because it will serve as her wings...

15. With the wings selected, adjust its color levels. go to Image>Adjustments>Levels.

16. To make more realistic, adjust its hues and saturation. Go to Image>adjustments>Hues and Saturation. adjust it to the shade of brownish orange to make it blend to the sky.

17. But it seems like the wings are too small for our girl and it's too lousy to look at. So, we need to re-size it and change its position. To be able to do that, we need to put it to the top most layer for us to see what we are doing. Now, use the rectangular Marquee Tool. Choose the right wing and then press right click and choose or click on Layer via Cut so that the wings will be cut into two separate layers.

18. Since the wings are now in separate layers., we can now re-size each of them. Also, we must tilt the wings to the angle that will be appropriate to the position of the girl.

19. Choose the left wing and then create new layer by simply clicking at the bottom of the layers panel. See sample below...

20. On the new layer, just above the layer of the left wing, brush a black color paint using the soft brush on the upper portion of the wing. With this, it will give a darker shade of shadow to the wing. Make sure to set the opacity of the brush to 29%.

21. Right click on this layer and choose Create Clipping mask. The purpose of this is to make the new layer follow the shape of the layer of the left wing. See result below...

after creating clipping mask this will be the result:

you will observe that without the clipping mask, the black paint is just scattered outside the area of he left wing. But after the clipping mask was created, it seemed like the paint/ color just followed the shape of the left wing.. we will also the same with the right wing for it to have darker shadows.

22. After putting shadows to both wings, we need to make another layer. This time we will paint a red color to the bottom part of both wings using soft brush with the opacity of 29%. Again after painting, we will make a clipping mask.

23. Then we have to select all the layers except the the girl and the background. Once selected, we can now group all of this layers. Simply drag them to the folder at the bottom part of the layers panel... see sample below.

24. After grouping them, open the folder and merge them to one layer.

25. Now, to achieve the right tint or shade for the wings to blend our sunset background, again we have to adjust its hues and saturation. Go to Image>adjustments>Hues and Saturation.

26. Now, open the image of the water with ripples. On this step we will be creating a special effects at the bottom part of our composition...With this, the girl will look as if she is submerged to the water.

27. Drag and reposition the image of the water below the girl. also change its color to reddish brown using Hues and saturation.

28. Now make the image of the water more brilliant. Go to Image>Adjustments>Channel Mixer. Increase the level of the red to give an exquisite result.

29. Resize the water just above the knees of the girl.

31. Use a soft brush to delete the part of the water covers the knees of the girl. Make sure to use only soft brush so that the part that you are erasing will have soft edges...

32. Then drag a splatter image to our composition. Put it at the top most layer.

33. with the splatter selected, set its blending mode to screen so that the black parts of the picture will be hidden. Drag and reposition it beside the knees.

34. Change its color to red by using the channel mixer.

35. Then copy the splash and put the copy behind the girl. This time it will as if the splash covers or circling around the girl. This will give an illusion which intensify the brightness of the light coming from the back of the girl... some sort of a back light...

36. Repeat the procedure of copying the splash and wrap it around the girl's arm this time.

37. Now, since we are done with splatter. We will drag an image of fie to the composition.

38. Change the blending mode of the fire to screen to hide the black background. Then re-size and reposition it just above the girl's hands.

39. Duplicate the fire and choose the original copy of the fire then go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Set it to 5.7%. This will give a mirage effect to the fire.

40. Make a new layer on top of the fire. On this layer, create a circle. Then erase its edges so that it will have soft and smooth edges; use soft edge eraser for this. Reposition it above the girl's hand. Make it transparent; decide the percent of opacity and set its blending mode to screen.

41. Now drag a picture of stars to our composition.

42. Re-size and put it just above the background.

43. Set its blending mode to screen and play with the opacity. Also use soft edge eraser tool to delete the lower part of the picture so that it will have a soft blending effect to the background.

44. After that change the color to reddish orange. You may use hues and saturation or channel mixer.

45. To make it more realistic, create a new layer just above the layer of the water and brush a yellow paint using soft edge brush with very low opacity. Make sure that the brush stroke will be above the water because it will serve as the sun's reflection to the water.