Adobe Photoshop Tutorials - Photo Manipulation

First of all, welcome to my newly launched Adobe Tutorials Blog. I hope you’ll have fun learning some of the amazing softwares from Adobe!

Now, let me start the “Photo Manipulation” tutorial by showing you guys step by step on how to get this done.






Step 1

Import all the images into Photoshop (any versions will do but I recommend CS versions) First, let’s edit the background image that you want to use for this image manipulation. In this tutorial, I use “Image 1” as the main background.
Next, go to Image> Adjustments> Levels

Here, use the “Eyedropper” to pick colors around the image and get the color tone (the vintage feel) you want on the image. Do also make sure you choose the “Set Gray Point” eyedropper tool before you the pick the colors.

Step 2

Once you’ve done with, cut out the girl’s photo (Image 2) by using “Polygonal Lasso” tool. Do practice a lot using this tool as you’ll need to use it most of the time.

Step 3

Copy the girl’s photo onto the Image 1’s document just like the image above.

Step 4

You might need to adjust the color tone of the girl to match the background image. To do this, go to Image>Adjustments > Color Balance. Play around with the color by moving the color slider (Cyan, Magenta and Yellow). Make sure you’ve ticked the “Preserve Luminosity” and choose the “Highlights” tone balance.

Step 5

We are now done with the 2 images. Let’s add Image 3 onto the Image 1 document. I need to use this image because of the clouds (Image 1’s clouds is not that much compared to this image). Positioned the photo on slightly to the top, so that the clouds position is the same as Image 1. Right after that, erase the bottom part of the clouds by using the “Eraser tool” because we don’t need the grass anymore. You can choose different size of the eraser by selecting it from the top menu (the part you see Brush, Mode, Opacity and Flow) . Once you’ve done erasing the grass, go to Image> Adjustments> Levels to adjust the clouds to look vintage as well so that it blends with the rest of the images.

Step 6

Now, your document will look something like this (See above). Do label the layers for your future reference.

Step 7

Copy the last Image onto the document and resize it using the Edit> Transform> Scale tool (Ctrl T). After that, use the Polygonal Lasso tool to cut the background of the image.

Step 8

Once you’ve done cutting out the background, use the “Eraser” tool to make the image blend with the grass at the background. How to do this? You need to adjust the eraser’s shape first. Click on top left’s brush menu and select the “Rough Round Bristle” (the name appears when once you rollover on any of the brushes)

Step 9

Slowly erase the Image and you can see as if the Buddha image is positioned on top of the grass.

Step 10

We’ve almost there. Create a new layer by pressing the “New layer document” icon so that we can make the final work which is the “Sun ray”.

Step 11

Use the “Polygonal Lasso” tool to create the “Sun Ray” shape. Then, filled it with white color using the “Paint Bucket” tool.

Step 12

Select the layer and adjust the “Fill” to 18% so that the Sun Ray looks transparent.

Step 13

Go to Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur. Set the bar to point to 3.6 pixels blur and click “OK”

Step 14

Erase the bottom and top part of the Sun Ray, so that it looks blend with the Buddha statue.

We’re now done! Here’s the outcome of the photo manipulation process!



PS: FYI, I've edited the final result using Image>Adjustments > Color Balance.

Do leave your comments and critiques on what do you think of this tutorial, so that I can improve in preparing the future upcoming tutorials. Thank you.