photoshop tutorial

Photoshop Tutorial 1

By Christie

When you first open Photoshop, you want to go to file New to create a new base for your graphic. I usually make my large graphics 600 x 450, so that’s what we are doing for this

tutorial.

To start, we are going to open a texture. I got this texture from deviantArt. The link will be on the sources page. After you open it, you will go to Select All. Then, you will do the Ctrl

+ C copy.

Then, you will go back to your graphic base, and paste it. You may want to move it around, like I did.

Now, it is time to open your first stock. I am using this Britney Spear photo (which you will find on sources page). If you do decide to use the same photos as me, you might notice that mine

look a tad different. That’s because this shoot was not photoshopped at all, so I photoshopped her skin/body a bit.

Now we are going to recolor her! You want to click on the adjustment tabs, and for this, we are going to use Selective Coloring, the one that is highlighted.

These are the colorings I used. You can always change them/create your own, or follow a psd that you can download from websites, like dA.

There are more colors other than red/yellow, but this is what we are using for this tutorial.

Now, it is time to cut out the stock. There are numerous ways to cut things out, but I mostly use the cut tool. It is hard to see in the picture, but basically, to cut, you just do continuous dragging/clicking movements around the picture. When you are done, right

click, click ‘Make Selection’, press okay, and copy.

After you paste the picture onto the graphic, you will notice it’s a bit big. To resize it, you want to go to Edit Free Transform.

To resize the picture, go to W/H and put in a %. For this picture, we are going to put 20% for both (if you don’t, it

will look distorted), but depending on what picture you are using, you might have to put something bigger or smaller.

Also, if you notice some little details that you want to fix on your stock (like a sharp edge, etc), you can use the eraser

tool to fix it.

Ignore the graphic, and open a second stock. Again, if you use this photo, I did photoshop it, so it will look different. Do the

same coloring/cutting/pasting steps as before.

After you paste the 2nd stock, you will have to resize it. This time, you will want it to be a bit smaller than your 1st stock, though. I am using

17%.Also, you can fix your stock again. As you can see, we did not cut out some places between the arm/body, so I am going to take the eraser

tool and carefully erase it.

Now, we want to add a white glow behind both pictures. First, make

sure on your color palette, white is the top color. Then, go to Layer

Gradient.

You want to make sure this layer is going to be behind your stock, so if it’s not, you can fix it later. The gradient we want, should be the default gradient. The style we want is

Radical. We want this to be fairly large, so the scale will be 125. You can move it around, but I always like to put it right behind the stock, so it looks like they are glowing.

When you are done, press ‘OK’.

Now we are going to add a brush.First, you want to make a new layer. You do this buy clicking Layer New Layer

Layer. Put this layer under the stock layers.Now, you want to click to ‘Brush’ tool, and then select what brush you want to use.

I am using a custom brush, so it will be on the sources page.After you pick a brush, pick a color. I picked a light blue for it.

Then, you place the brush. I usually put it on the right side of the stock.

Now, we are going to add a shadow to the brush, so it can pop a bit. This next step is very important, because Layer Styles can be used for ANYTHING. Text, Brushes, Pictures, etc.

Go to layer Layer Styles Drop Shadow.

We don’t want a really dark shadow, so I just chose a gray. That’s the only thing we really need to change.

Our final step is to add text. You can use any quote, but I chose “Only an angel could be so unusual”. My fonts are custom that you can download from dafont (link will be in sources)

After that, save it as a .jpg and you are done!

Sources

• Base Texture• Stock 1 & Stock 2• Brushes• Fonts