Photoshop Tutorials
If you're an already advanced user of photoshop, this tutorial will not contribute to your skills. However, I have found it very useful in teaching people the basics of photoshop. For this tutorial, the following pictures are used.
* The model was taken, with permission, from Neebow-stock on deviantart.
Start by opening the picture from neebow stock in Photoshop. A small version of the picture will open in the layer-palette.
In the layer-palette, you can drag pictures, edit layer modes, change opacity, etc. Layers are essential in PS, as you will notice through out this tutorial. If you can't see the layer-palette, click in the 'windows' menu, and select the option 'layers'.
tip: Enlarging the picture in the navigator will enable you to see more details.
We will start by transforming her skin a bit. Grab the smudge tool (R) in the menu on the left. A menu will appear on top of the screen.
I have chosen a standard round feather (PS brush), size 7,and put the strength to approx. 60%.
tip: brushes are PS tools which enable you to draw or stamp. Clicking on the downward arrow on top of the screen will bring you to the brushes palette. From there, you can manage your brushes and brush sizes.
If you have chosen the right brush size and strenght, start brushing those parts of her skin that you want to enlarge or change. In this example, I have enlarged her fingers and changed her ears, nose and chin. Just experiment and be creative. :)
Now it's time to use the first texture. Open the texture in photoshop, and drag it into the picture you've been working on. For dragging it in: click in the texture, so it gets selected (you can see it in the layers-palette).
Now drag the small picture from the layers-palette (the texture) into the big picture you've been working in. The layer-palette will now contain two pictures: the background picture with the girl, and the texture layer on top of it. Make sure the texture layer is selected in the layer-palette, and click on the arrow next to normal. Several options will appear. Experiment with them and see which one you like best.
For this one, I have used the color burn mode.
If you choose the color burn mode, your picture will look as follows:
Now, open the second texture and drag it into the layers-palette. This time, I have chosen overlay and put the opacity to 80% and the fill to 90%.
tip: You can move the textures by selecting the move tool (V), on the right top of the tools menu.
As this is a beginner tutorial, we will keep things simple, so the only thing we will edit now are the colours.
Click on the black and white circel at the bottom of the layers-palette.
A menu will appear. Chose the option selective color.
Play around with the levels untill you are satisfied with the result.
After these few steps, my image looked like this.
tip: Some simple changes can be applied by exploring the other options in the 'black and white circle' menu. Hue and opacity offer some more colour changes, levels and curves change the light, and brightness/ contrast can sharpen your pictures. As said before, just play around and explore, and soon you will have a better insight in all the possibilities the program has to offer.