Members Area Tutorial: Photoshop a Medieval Dream Scene
In this tutorial I will be showing you how to Photoshop a dark, medieval dream scene. You’ll use various images, brushes and textures to create a photo manipulation of a dark and powerful medieval warrior. We will be covering some really handy techniques in order to build up to a highly detailed and vicious design.
Final Image
Here is a preview of the image that we are going to be creating:
Resources Used In This Tutorial
- The Replacement 2 by Disassembly on deviantART
- Clock Face 1 by SpiteStock on deviantART
- Dead Tree Stock 2 by Jiko Stock on deviantART
- Death of a Star by GrahamSym on deviantART
- Fallen Tree 3 by Faestock on deviantART
- Texture 297 by Sirius-SDZ on deviantART
- Silver Helmet from Dreamstime
- Medieval Warrior from Dreamstime
- Bleeding Skull from Dreamstime
- Sunrise On Alaska Mountain from Dreamstime
- Gloves Of A Knight from iStockphoto
- Raven from iStockphoto
- Abstract Background from Shutterstock
- Grunge Brushes 007 by Kimbahanne on Brusheezy
- Crack Brushes 1 by Hawksmont on Brusheezy
- Uh Oh Accident Brushes by Brushchick on Brusheezy
Step 1
Let’s start by opening our image of the suit of armor that we are going to cutout from the background. The first thing we want to do once the images opens is make a copy of it by pressing Command/Ctrl + J.
Apply a Layer Mask to the duplicated layer by clicking the icon highlighted below:
Step 2
Once you have applied your mask, turn the visibility of the original layer off. For this part you will probably want to use a combination of the Pen and Brush Tools, but let’s start with the Pen Tool (P) and I will show you why.
To begin we will click to make a point and then continue to trace around the helmet and the armor to make a selection.
After tracing around the top portion of the armor with the Pen Tool (P), hold down the Control Key and click anywhere along your newly created path and you should see this dropdown menu appear:
Choose ‘Make Selection’ as indicated in the image above, and then you will see marching ants around your armor. From here, as long as you have black as your foreground color, you can press Alt/Option + Delete on your keyboard to fill your selection with black and watch the background disappear!
While this technique works great for the majority of the image, I have used a hard brush to go around the fur. You may want to soften the edge of your brush a bit to make the fur softer. You can easily control the hardness of your brush by using the left and right bracket keys while your Brush Tool (B) is active.
After switching back and forth between the Pen Tool (P) and the Brush Tool (B) you can quickly silhouette your image until you have something like this:
Step 3
Using the technique we used in the previous step, open up an image of your skull. For this the Pen Tool (P) is my weapon of choice only because most of the shape of the skull is made up of hard edges that are fairly easy to trace. You will probably find that the Brush Tool (B) works best when dealing with erratic, random shapes and fine details.
Same as before, once you have your path closed, hold down the Control Key and choose ‘Make Selection’ before filling a Layer Mask with black. The shortcut for that once again is Alt/Option + Delete.
You should now have a nice clean cutout of your armor image and your skull. Be sure to save both of these images since we will be bringing them into a new document to begin compositing.
Step 4
Next we are going to make a new document by pressing Command/Ctrl + N or going to File and choosing ‘New…’ and set up a document that is 11” x 17” and 300 dpi as shown below:
Once you have set up your document, double click on the ‘Background’ layer to unlock it – you can name it anything you’d like.
We are now going to take our suit of armor image and drag it into your new file. Depending on the size and resolution of your image you may need to scale it up which you can do simply by pressing Command/Ctrl + T to initiate a Free Transform. From here, click and drag outwards from any of the four corners of the images bounding box while holding down the Shift Key.
Another nice shortcut you can use is to hold down the Alt/Option Key at the same time as the Shift Key and your image will rescale up or down from the center.
Step 5
Switch to your Paint Bucket Tool (G) and select a mid-gray color such as #595959 as shown here:
Once you have filled your background with gray you can switch over to your Gradient Tool (G). To easily toggle back and forth between the Paint Bucket and Gradient Tools, hold down the Shift Key and then press the shortcut key, in this case it would be ‘G’ on your keyboard.
Use the settings shown in the image above so that you have a Radial Gradient that fades from solid white to transparent.
Click in the center of your image and drag outwards to create a large white gradient behind the suit of armor image. You should have something like this:
Step 6
From here, open the ‘texture 297’ image from the resources folder and bring it into the document. Place the texture underneath the suit of armor layer and scale it up so that the brightest part of the texture is centered as shown here:
Next, change the Blending Mode of the texture layer to Overlay.
Step 7
Open up the image of the skull that we silhouetted earlier and click on the Layer Mask Thumbnail while holding down the Control Key. The Layer Mask Thumbnail is highlighted in the image below:
When the dropdown menu appears, choose ‘Apply Mask’ to merge the two together.
Step 8
Now that we have applied the Layer Mask to the image of the skull, bring this layer into your working document and place it at the top of your Layers Palette.
Use a Free Transform (Command/Ctrl + T) to resize the skull and position it over the head/helmet on the suit of armor.
Step 9
After thinking things over a bit, I decided that this design would probably work better if it were vertical rather than horizontal. I think this is still good practice as there can be many instances where you might need to change the size or orientation of an image.
So, the first thing we are going to do here is go to Image>Canvas Size.
We will keep the same dimensions, but essentially just flip it the other way around so that our images is 11” wide and 17” tall.
You will most likely receive a warning in the form of a dialog box like the one shown here:
We are just going to click ‘Proceed’ to apply the changes. As you can see, our background images are now kind of messed up.
Starting with the bottom layer, we are going to use a Free Transform (Command/Ctrl + T) and then rotate the image 90 degrees. Do the same thing for the gradient layer as well as the texture layer.
Next, select the top ‘Skull’ layer and then while holding down the Shift Key, click the ‘Suit of Armor’ layer so that both layers are selected together.
With both layers still selected, press Command/Ctrl + T once again to initiate a Free Transform. Hold both the Shift Key and the Alt/Option Keys together and drag outwards from any of the four corners of the bounding box to enlarge your image from the middle.
I know it may seem like an extra step, but in the long run I feel that the design will work better in this format rather than keeping it horizontal, and because we haven’t added too many layers it’s a fairly quick process. You should now have something like this:
Another instance where this may come in handy is if you have an existing design that you need to repurpose. I have had to do this before taking a print ad or a poster and converting it to say a postcard or a web banner.
Step 10
With your skull layer selected, click on the Layer Mask Icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette as shown below:
Once you have applied your mask, switch to your Brush Tool (B) and with a solid black fill, use the settings shown here:
Begin to brush around the top and sides of the skull and you will see it start to fade away. The goal is to roughly mask out the areas of the skull that we want to hide so that it appears to be underneath the helmet.
Hold down the Shift Key and then press and hold down the Right Bracket Key to increase the hardness of your brush. By using a hard edge we can refine our mask to make it more precise.
After going over the edges we now have a crisp selection that we can work with.
It’s okay if it looks a bit odd right now – we are going to be applying shadows and adjustments to blend everything together so it looks more realistic.
Step 11
Add a new layer and make sure that it’s at the top of your Layers Palette, just above the skull layer. For now, I am going to name this layer ‘Shadows’ but you can give it any name you like.
Hold down the Control Key and click on your Shadows Layer to reveal a dropdown menu. From the menu we are going to choose ‘Create Clipping Mask’ as shown here:
With a solid black color selected, switch to your Brush Tool (B) and choose a soft round brush with the following settings:
Using your soft round brush, begin to paint along the top and sides of the skull while still on your Shadows Layer. Because of our Clipping Mask, all of the shadows that we apply will only be visible within the area defined by the layer below. You will notice that the Shadows Layer has a small arrow icon next to it in your Layers Palette, which will let you know that the Clipping Mask is applied.
Step 12
The next thing we are going to do is add a new layer below the skull layer, but above the suit of armor layer as shown in the image below:
Just for the sake of keeping things organized I have called this layer ‘Shadows Under Skull’ but again, feel free to name it whatever works best for you.
Once you have done that, switch over to your Brush Tool (B) and choose a soft round brush with a low opacity like we used earlier. Make sure that you are using black for your color and begin to brush underneath the skull in the direction indicated below:
By doing this it will add more depth and give the illusion that the skull is sticking out and casting a shadow on the armor below.
Step 13
With your skull layer selected, click on the Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of your Layers Palette and choose ‘Hue/Saturation’ as shown below:
Once the dialog box appears, check off ‘Colorize’ and use the same settings as I am using in the image – Hue: 41, Saturation: 25 and you can leave the Lightness where it is. Once you have done that, reduce the opacity of the Adjustment Layer to 50%.
The reason we are doing this is to better match the color scheme and lighting of the armor. Going a full 100% would be too much, but by making the skull more of an off-white/cream color rather than gray, it already looks more blended with the rest of our image.
You will also notice that this layer is also a Clipping Mask like our original Clipping Mask Layer because we created it in between the two layers.
The skull is looking pretty good, at this point if you haven’t done so already, now would be a good time to save your work! Always be saving just in case.
Step 14
Next, we are going to add another Adjustment Layer as a Clipping Mask like we have done in the previous step. With your skull layer selected, return to the Adjustment Layer Icon at the bottom of your palette, but this time choose ‘Curves’ from the menu that appears.
We are now going to create two points on our Curves Adjustment Layer. We will place one right in the middle of the grid, and a second point in the middle of the top right quadrant. Use the same Input and Output settings for your Adjustment Layer that I am using here:
Step 15
We are now going to add a new layer above our texture and fill it with a solid black color using our Paint Bucket Tool (G). Conversely, you can also press Alt/Option + Delete on your keyboard and as long as black is your foreground color it will then fill the layer with black.
After filling your new layer with black, change the Blending Mode of the layer to Soft Light and reduce the opacity to about 50% as shown below:
Doing this will add a bit more contrast to the image and in turn, help the focal point to come forward more to the foreground.
Step 16
Next, open the space texture from the resources folder shown below:
Drag this image into your document and place it just above your original texture layer. You may have to use a Free Transform (Command/Ctrl + T) to scale the image up so that it’s wide enough to fill your canvas. Once you have done that, change the Blending Mode of the layer to Screen.
Then, apply a Layer Mask by clicking on the Layer Mask Icon at the bottom of your Layers Palette.
Switch to your Gradient Tool (G) and choose a Linear Gradient that fades from black to white as shown in the image below:
With your Layer Mask active, click and drag downwards to fade out the top of the space texture layer, leaving only the bottom half.
Press Command/Ctrl + J to duplicate the layer, then press Command/Ctrl + T to initiate a Free Transform and flip your texture vertically. We are just making a copy and flipping it so that the top half mimics the lower portion that we want to keep.
With the top texture layer selected, press Command/Ctrl + E to merge it with the texture layer below. This will merge both space texture layers together. You may have to change the Blending Mode back to Screen once you have done this as merging layers will often times revert the Blending Mode back to Normal.
From here, make a copy of your black fill layer by selecting it and pressing Command/Ctrl + J once again.
Although we are using a space texture here, the way we have treated it makes it look different so that it appears to be more like scattered particles or snow rather than outer space, which is exactly what we want!
Step 17
With your newly merged space texture layer selected, click on the Adjustment Layer Icon at the bottom of your Layers Palette and select ‘Hue/Saturation’ as shown here:
After doing that, hold down the Control Key and click on the Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer to reveal a dropdown menu. From this menu we are going to select ‘Create Clipping Mask’ just like we did early on in this tutorial. This will make it so that our Hue/Saturation Adjustment only affects the layer below, in this case that is our space texture.
Now all we need to do is slide the Saturation slider all the way to the left to desaturate our texture.
From here we are going to select our first texture layer and reduce the opacity to 75%.
Step 18
Next, open up the landscape image from your resources folder shown below:
Drag the image into your document and place your layer between your original texture and the space texture layer. Use a Free Transform (Command/Ctrl + T) and scale it up so that it fills the canvas by holding the Shift Key and dragging any of the four corners outwards.
Once you have scaled your image up, change the Blending Mode to Soft Light.
With your mountain layer selected, click on the Adjustment Layer Icon at the bottom of your Layers Palette and choose ‘Hue/Saturation’ from the menu that appears.
Hold down the Control Key and click on the Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer and then select ‘Create Clipping Mask’ as shown in the image:
When the dialog box appears, move the Saturation slider all the way to the left to desaturate the mountains.
Step 19
We are now going to add a Layer Mask to the ‘Mountains’ layer so that we can hide part of the image.
With a solid black color selected, switch to your Brush Tool (B) and make sure that you have a large round brush with a low opacity like the one I am using here:
Take your brush and click a few times along the bottom of the image to mask out some of the darkest areas of the mountains. This will lighten up the bottom of the image slightly as we don’t want it to appear as a pure black.
Using a lower opacity brush here allows for more control. Play around and experiment with this to see what looks best, but if you feel that you have taken too much away from the image you can always change your brush color to white to paint some of the image back in. This is just one of the many advantages of using a Layer Mask on an image.
Step 20
Next, open up the image of the silver war helmet from the resources folder.
For this part we can simply use the Magic Wand Tool (W) just as long as we can get a nice selection around the horns. Click inside of the eyes and on the outside by clicking one area, holding down the Shift Key, and then clicking the second area.
Press Command/Ctrl + Shift + I to inverse your selection and then press Command/Ctrl + J to duplicate your active area onto a new layer. After doing that, turn the visibility of your original layer off and you should now have a cutout of your helmet.
Drag the helmet layer into your document and place it underneath the suit of armor as shown below:
With your helmet layer selected, click on the Adjustment Layer Icon at the bottom of your palette and choose ‘Hue/Saturation’ from the menu that appears.
Hold down the Control Key and click on the Hue/Saturation Adjustment to reveal the dropdown menu. From this menu we are going to once again select ‘Create Clipping Mask’ just like we have done in some of our previous steps.
For the Hue/Saturation settings, we are going to check off the box that says ‘Colorize’ and then move the Hue slider to 36. If the Saturation slider doesn’t automatically change for you, then make sure this slider is set to 25 and you can leave the Lightness slider right at zero.
We have now added some cool gold horns to our helmet to make our character appear even more sinister and frightening.
Step 21
From here we are going to open up the image of the old clock from the resources folder.
Switch to your Circular Marquee Tool (M) and make a selection around the inner part of the clock. You will see in the image below what my selection looks like.
Press Command/Ctrl + J to duplicate the selection onto a new layer just above the original. Drag the layer over into your working document and place it above the black fill layers, but below the armor and horns. Lastly, change the Blending Mode of the layer to Soft Light.
Step 22
Create a new layer above the suit of armor and switch over to your Brush Tool (B). Then, switch to a solid black color (#000000) as shown below:
If you aren’t sure how to load brushes, then go to the Window Menu and choose Brushes (F5) to bring up the Brushes Palette. Then, click on the small arrow icon in the upper right hand corner of the dialog box. When the list of brushes appears, go to ‘Load Brushes’ and navigate to the cracked brushes in the resources folder.
After your brushes have loaded, find them in the preview window – they are generally added to the bottom of the palette. Still with your solid black color selected, begin to paint in a few cracks on the chest area.
Continue to experiment with the brush set by rotating the brush or changing the size until you start to build up a good sized opening in the middle of the chest.
After spending a few minutes building this up and also filling in some areas with a solid black brush you will start to get a cool look going that makes it appear as though the chest are of the armor has been blown through.
While you are experimenting, remember that you can also add a Layer Mask to your brush layers to remove certain parts of the brushes that you want to hide.
Step 23
Next, open the image of the heart from the resources folder.
Using your Lasso Tool (L) make a quick selection around the heart – it doesn’t have to be perfect because we will be masking out most of the edges in the next part.
Drag the heart image into your document and place it right above the layer with the cracks that we created in the previous steps.
Once you have done that, hold down the Control Key and click on the heart layer before choosing ‘Create Clipping Mask’ to make it so that the heart is only visible within the are occupied by your cracks.
Then, with your heart layer selected, click on the Layer Mask Icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette so that you can paint out some of the edges around the heart.
Using a soft round black brush with a low opacity, start to brush out some of the heart to make it appear more recessed like it’s further back in the chest cavity.
Once you are happy with the way the heart is looking and it feels blended, create a new layer just above the heart layer and with the same low opacity soft brush, lightly paint in some shadows around the edges of the cracks and the opening as shown in the image below:
Step 24
On a new layer at the top of your Layers Palette, use a few more of the cracked brushes to put additional cracks and imperfections in the armor. This will help to sell the idea that the armor is banged up and damaged, also unifying it with the central piece revealing the heart.
The image below indicates some of the areas where I have added some more cracks and fractures. Feel free to experiment here by rotating your brushes and using varying sizes to mix things up.
Step 25
At this point I am looking over the image and something that is bothering me are the hands of the model. I think having a skull for the head with a savage looking helmet and armor is working really well, but then to have these delicate feminine hands is not really helping the overall image.
To fix this, we are going to do a bit of chopping so let’s open up the image of the armored gloves from the resources folder.
Drag the image into your document and place it at the top of the Layers Palette. What we are going to do next is flip the image so press Command/Ctrl + T to initiate a Free Transform, and then hold down the Control Key and click on the image to reveal the dropdown menu. After the menu appears, choose ‘Flip Horizontally’ as shown in the image below:
Press the Enter Key to apply the change and the add a Layer Mask to the armored gloves by clicking the Layer Mask Icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette.
We want to position the gloves over the hands of the original image, and then use a small hard round brush to mask out all of the areas of the glove mage except for the hands so that it fits nicely.
Step 26
With the glove layer selected, click on the Adjustment Layer Icon at the bottom of the palette and choose ‘Hue/Saturation’ from the menu that appears.
Hold down the Control Key and click on the Hue/Saturation Adjustment to reveal a dropdown menu. From there, click on ‘Create Clipping Mask’ to once again make it so that the adjustment only affects the layer below.
Check off the box that says ‘Colorize’ from the dialog box and make sure that you set the Hue to about 45 and the Saturation to 20 as shown in the image below:
Select the armored glove layer and then return to the Adjustment Layer Icon at the bottom of your palette, only this time choose ‘Levels’ when the menu pops up.
Once the dialog box appears move the middle slider to the right until it’s set to 0.86.
Step 27
Holding down the Command/Ctrl Key, click on the thumbnail icon of the armored gloves layer to activate a selection around it.
Add a new layer and place it above both of the Adjustment Layers we added in the previous step. Switch over to your Brush Tool (B) and select a small soft round brush with a dark color.
While your selection is still active, use your brush to paint in some shadows to the hand using the image below as a guide. Here I have changed the Blending Mode of the layer to Multiply and then just masked out any areas I wanted to get rid of with a soft low opacity brush.
Step 28
Create a new layer above your glove shadows and select a grayish color such as #453A3E as shown below:
Hold down the Command/Ctrl Key and click on the thumbnail icon of your armored gloves to once again activate a selection around them. Then, select your new layer at the top of the Layers Palette and press Alt/Option + Delete on your keyboard to fill the layer with your gray color.
Once you have done that, change the Blending Mode of the layer to Color and lower the opacity to around 50%.
Step 29
Add another new layer above your previous color layer and then choose a pale yellow color such as #CAC19F which has been sampled directly from our image.
Using the same technique that we used in the previous step, activate a selection around your armored gloves and fill your new layer with the yellow color.
Lastly, change the Blending Mode of the layer to Multiply and then lower the opacity of this layer to about 30% as shown in the image below:
At this point our gloves are looking much better with the image and by playing with a few different Adjustment Layers and Blending Modes we can start to get a really convincing effect. Similar techniques can be used anytime you need to swap out different pieces of an image. In this case, the armored gloves are working much better than the hands from the original image.
Step 30
Now we are going to make a few small adjustments to the image starting with the skull. Hold down the Command/Ctrl Key and click on the layer thumbnail icon of the skull layer to activate a selection around it. Then, add a new layer between the skull shadows and the Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer as shown in the image below:
Make sure that your foreground color is black and then press Alt/Option + Delete to fill your new layer with black.
Next, change the Blending Mode of the layer to Color and lower the opacity to around 20%. This will modify the saturation of the skull layer slightly to tone it down and blend it in better with the surrounding colors.
Step 31
Create another new layer below the armored gloves layer that we modified earlier in the tutorial. Using a soft round brush with a low opacity setting (15-20%) and a solid black color selected, brush in some shadows underneath the hands. Use the image below as a guide for the placement of your shadows.
Step 32
Next, open the image of the raven from the resources folder. Press Command/Ctrl + J to duplicate the layer.
Because our image is already on a white background and has pretty clean edges, we are going to just quickly use our Magic Wand Tool (W) to click on the white areas of the image. Make sure you hold down the Shift Key and click in between the legs to add that area to your selection as well. As long as the tolerance setting for the wand is around 32 you should be able to see a very clean selection.
Press Command/Ctrl + Shift + I to invert your selection, and then click on the Layer Mask Icon at the bottom of your Layers Palette. You should now have your image with the background removed as shown here:
Bring your raven image over into your main document and place it at the top of your Layers Palette, placing it on the left shoulder of the armor.
Step 33
Create a new layer just above your raven layer and select a pale yellow color such as #E5EOB7 as shown here:
Hold down the Command/Ctrl Key and click on the thumbnail icon of your raven layer to activate a selection around it. Once the marching ants are visible, make sure your new layer is highlighted in the Layers Palette and press Alt/Option + Delete to fill the layer with your foreground color, which should now be the pale yellow.
After you have filled the layer with your color, change the Blending Mode to Multiply.
Create another new layer, and once again activate a selection around the raven. Using a large soft brush with a low opacity, begin to brush in the indicated areas using the same yellow color.
Change the Blending Mode of this layer to Soft Light.
Step 34
Add a layer to the top of the Layers Palette and select the color #DDC3B1 as shown below:
Hold down the Command/Ctrl Key and click on the thumbnail icon of your raven layer to activate a selection around it like we did in the previous step. After that, press Alt/Option + Delete to fill the new layer with your foreground color. Change the Blending Mode of this layer to Overlay.
Step 35
Create a new layer at the top of your Layers Palette and select the color #DDC3B1.
Switch to your Gradient Tool (G) and make sure that you have a Radial Gradient selected that fades from your foreground color to transparent.
Click and drag outwards to create a Radial Gradient. Place the gradient over the to the left of the head and change the Blending Mode to Screen. Once you have done that, lower the opacity to about 20-30%.
Duplicate this layer by pressing Command/Ctrl + J and move this gradient to the opposite side of the head so that you have one gradient on each side.
Step 36
Select your raven layer and then click on the Adjustment Layer Icon at the bottom of your Layers Palette. Next, we want to choose ‘Curves’ from the menu that appears.
Hold down the Control Key and click on the Curves Adjustment Layer to reveal a dropdown menu. From this menu we are going to select ‘Create Clipping Mask’ like we have done in some of our previous steps.
Create one single point in the middle of the Curves Adjustment dialog box. Move the middle point straight up so that your Output Setting is 197 and your Input Setting is 130.
At this point your raven should look as though it’s blended into the scene. We added several layers this time of overlapping colors and different Blending Modes to create this effect keeping in mind that there is a strong light source coming from the left side. The goal here is to mimic the light and shadow that is hitting the armor – the closer we get to that with our raven the better it will fit into the composition.
As an extra detail, I have created a layer below the raven layer and used a small round soft brush with a solid black color to add in some shadows just below the feet to help add some dimension and depth.
Step 37
Create a new layer just above the clock layer in the background and switch to your Gradient Tool (G). With a solid white foreground color selected, choose the Radial Gradient setting that fades from solid to transparent.
Click and drag outwards to create your gradient in the background. Here I have created one in the center, and dragged it outwards to go behind the head.
After that, change the Blending Mode of the layer to Overlay and reduce the opacity to 50%. Doing this will just brighten and bring some of the more saturated colors out of the background behind the head, adding some visual interest and more contrast to the image.
Step 38
Add a layer to the top of your Layers Palette and select the color #F2F1CD as shown in the image below:
Switch to your Gradient Tool (G) and make sure that you have the same settings that I am using here:
This is the same gradient that we used before – a Radial Gradient that fades from a solid color to transparent.
Click and drag your mouse outwards to create a small to medium sized gradient and place it around the space between the front of the raven and the shoulder/neck area of the armor.
After that, change the Blending Mode of this layer to Overlay and reduce the opacity to about 50%.
Step 39
Add a layer to the top of your Layers Palette and select the color #914134 as shown in the image below:
Load up some splatter brushes from the Brushes Palette as we did earlier with our cracked brushes.
On a new layer, paint in some different splatters and stains on top of the armor. Also, change the Blending Mode of the layer to Multiply so that you can still see some of the details beneath the splatter.
Hold down the Command/Ctrl Key on your keyboard and click the layer thumbnail icon of the suit of armor layer to activate a selection around the figure.
Make sure that you have your splatter layer selected while you still have the marching ants around the body and click on the Layer Mask Icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette. This will mask all of the splatter so that it’s only visible within the armor.
Once you have done that, use a soft round black brush to mask out any additional areas where you want to fade the splatter.
Step 40
Now to make a few adjustments to the skull as it could benefit from being slightly darker, perhaps a Levels Adjustment. Start by selecting your skull layer in your Layers Palette.
From here, click on the Adjustment Layers Icon at the bottom of your Layers Palette and choose Levels. This will add your Adjustment Layer but notice also that it automatically sets it up with a Clipping Mask – this is because we have added it in between our previous clipping masks and our target layer.
Once you have done that, move the middle slider over to about 0.76 as shown in the image below. Now the skull is feeling more recessed and feels better within the helmet.
Step 41
Next, open the gray grunge texture from the resources folder shown below:
Drag the file into your document and place the layer between the ‘Shadows’ and ‘Color’ layers for the skull. The texture will automatically apply a Clipping Mask and should only be visible within the skull.
Next, change the Blending Mode of the texture layer to Overlay and reduce the opacity to about 50%. Once you have done that, you should have a nice texture over the face. Before I felt as if the skull was looking too smooth, and with the armor looking bloody, cracked and banged up, it’s only appropriate that the face should have some kind of worn look to it as well.
Step 42
From here, open the larger branch image from the resources folder shown below:
Press Command/Ctrl + J to duplicate the layer so you have your original ‘Background’ layer and then a new copy above it.
With your newly duplicated layer selected, go to the Select Menu and choose ‘Color Range’ as shown in the image below:
Use the middle eyedropper icon with the small plus sign next to it and begin selecting the lighter cloud colors in the background. There is a good amount of contrast between the branch and the sky so this should be fairly simple. The reason we are using the eyedropper with the plus is that this allows us to continue to add more colors, so it’s additive as opposed to the regular eyedropper which only allows you to select one color at a time.
Once you have all of the lighter colors selected you should be left with a black silhouette on a white background in your little preview window. You can also try moving the slider to the left just to make sure that it grabs all of the parts of the tree branch.
So far we have mostly been using masks to remove the backgrounds from our images, but now we will use this technique to show another way of approaching an image that you would like to silhouette. Keep in mind this technique works best when you have an image that has more contrast such as this.
Press the Enter Key and you should now see your marching ants indicating your active selection area. Press Command/Ctrl + Shift + I to inverse the selection area and then Command/Ctrl + J to duplicate the selection onto a new layer. You should now have three layers – the top one will be the isolated branch.
Step 43
Bring your isolated tree branch into your working document and place it just above the clock layer. We are going to position it so that it’s placed on the left hand-side of our composition. Use the image below as a guide for placement.
With your branch layer still selected, click on the Adjustment Layer Icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette and choose ‘Hue/Saturation’ from the menu.
Once the layer has been added above your branch layer, click on the Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer while holding down the Control Key. This will reveal another menu where we are going to once again select ‘Create Clipping Mask’ as we did for some of our previous steps.
Once your Clipping Mask has been applied, check off the ‘Colorize’ option in the Hue/Saturation dialog box. Then, move the Hue slider to 37 and the Saturation slider to about 26.
Now that we have modified the color of our branch we are going to clean it up a bit. Click on the Layer Mask Icon at the bottom of your palette and then use a hard round brush with a solid black color to mask out some of the areas indicated in the image below:
We just want to remove some of the extraneous pieces from the branch that aren’t really adding anything, only leaving in some of the larger pieces.
Step 44
Next, open the second image of the tree branch with the blue sky.
We will use the same technique as before by duplicating the layer and going to the Select Menu where we will then choose ‘Color Range’ and select all of the blue color from the image with the eyedropper that has the small ‘+’ next to it.
You can see how this can help you to quickly silhouette images and as long as there is a good amount of contrast it will require very minimal touching up.
Press the Enter Key, then once again and inverse the selection before duplicating it onto a new layer.
Bring this image over into your document and place it just above the clock layer, but below your first branch and use the image below as a guide for placement.
Add a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer and apply a Clipping Mask as we have done in the previous steps. Once you have done that you will want to use the same settings that we used for the other branch – Hue: 37 and Saturation: 26.
Step 45
Next, select your new branch layer in your Layers Palette just making sure that it is highlighted as shown here:
Add a Layer Mask like we had done with our first branch image and begin to paint out some of the extraneous pieces to clean it up, mostly along the bottom and side of the image.
With your branch layer still selected, click on the Adjustment Layer Icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette and add a Curves Adjustment. This will automatically have a Clipping Mask since it will be added between the branch layer and the Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer that we’ve already created.
Create a point in the middle of the grid and drag it downwards so that your Input Setting is set to 78 and your Output Setting is 126.
Lastly, reduce the opacity of your Curves Adjustment Layer to about 75%.
Step 46
We will now open the image of our abstract light swirl from the resources folder.
Bring the image into your document and place it behind the clock layer. Once you have done that, change the Blending Mode to Screen and position it so that it matches the image below:
With your abstract light layer highlighted, return to the Adjustment Layer Icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette and choose ‘Hue/Saturation’ once again.
Hold down the Control Key and click on the Adjustment Layer to add a Clipping Mask. Next, modify your Hue/Saturation Adjustment settings by changing the Hue to +11 and the Saturation to -70.
Our original light swirl is too vibrant and distracting, and by modifying the saturation and color of this image we can make it blend more seamlessly with the rest of our composition. Doing this will add some more depth and visual interest to the background as the shape feels organic and somewhat whimsical.
Step 47
Create a new layer at the top of your Layers Palette and fill it with solid black either by selecting black and using your Paint Bucket Tool (G) or by making black your foreground color and then pressing Alt/Option + Delete on your keyboard.
Next, go to the Filter Menu and choose Noise>Add Noise.
Once the dialog box appears, check off Gaussian and Monochromatic and then change the Amount setting to around 82%.
Press the Enter Key to apply the changes and then change the Blending Mode of the layer to Soft Light. After that, just reduce the opacity of the layer to 10-15% so that it’s very subtle. This is a technique often used when finishing a piece to add a bit of grainy texture and is not meant to be overpowering.
Step 48
Next, select the very top layer in your Layers Palette, which at this point will be your noise layer. Then, hold down the Shift key and select your very bottom layer so that all of your layers are selected. Press Command/Ctrl + G to put all of your layers into a Group Folder and give it a name like ‘All Layers’ or something similar.
Once you have put everything into your newly created Group Folder, select the folder and press Command/Ctrl + Alt/Option + Shift + E and it will make a new copy of all of your layers in one single merged layer.
After that, select your newly merged layer and go to the Filter Menu and choose Sharpen>Unsharp Mask as shown below:
When the dialog box appears, use the following settings:
Press the Enter Key to apply the settings and you will now have a sharper version of your merged layer.
Step 49
Now we will do a bit of non-destructive Dodging and Burning to add the final touches to our piece. Hold down the Alt/Option Key and click on the New Layer Icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette.
You will then be prompted with a dialog box giving you a couple of options. Since we will be using this layer to Dodge and Burn that seems like a suitable enough name. You don’t have to name it if you don’t want to, but I think this is good practice and just helps to keep things more organized.
Change the Mode to Overlay and then you will be able to check off the box below that says ‘Fill with Overlay-neutral color 50% gray’ as shown below:
This option basically tells Photoshop to fill your new layer with 50% gray so that any areas on the layer that are lighter than this color will be used to lighten the image, and anything darker than 50% gray will darken the image. If you paint on the layer with 50% gray it will make your changes transparent or back to the way it was before it has been adjusted.
After that, apply the changes and you will now see that you have a new layer with the name you have chosen and also notice that the Blending Mode has already been set to Overlay.
Now switch to your Brush Tool (B) and choose a low opacity soft round brush.
We want to keep the opacity low so that we can build our highlights and shadows up gradually, giving us a lot more control over our adjustments.
With a solid white color selected we can now paint in the areas that we want to lighten. The image below shows a few of the key areas where I have painted in to bring out some highlights – mostly on the face, armor and the raven.
I have done very minimal burning here, using a soft round black brush to paint over some parts of the branches on the right side of the image.
If at any point you want to ‘undo’ an area that you think has been brightened or darkened too much, simply pick a 50% gray color as shown in the image below and paint over that area:
Now we will take a look at our image before and after our Dodge and Burn adjustments. The original image is on the left and the corrected version is on the right.
While there may not be a major difference that is visible right away, this technique is very helpful when putting the finishing touches on a piece and bringing out a few key areas.
Step 50
From here, be sure to save your work and sit back and take a look at our end result!
I hope that you have enjoyed this design tutorial and learned some useful techniques along the way! As always, your comments and feedback are welcome and I would love to see some of your own works using any of these assets or techniques that we have covered here!
Member File Download
Download the original .psd file for this tutorial here:
Hey, there! What an interesting character! I may give it a go! I wanted to let you know, though, that quite a few of the links aren’t valid. The stock was easy enough to find on DA, but, on the other sites, not so much. LOL Thought you might want to know.
Su
Thanks for pointing that out Su, I thought I’d fixed the link issue. They’re definitely all working now.
Unfortunately I can not do this tutorial.
It would be better to make tutorials with easy links and free stocks.
Hi Sandra. The links are all fixed, sorry about that.
Many of the stocks are free, but unfortunately sometimes our authors can’t find free versions of the stocks they need. I hope that you can still learn something from this tutorial and the source files available.