Photo Manipulation Tutorial

Stocks used:

Model (Lisajen-Stock) // Background (Prolific-Stock) // Crow (Peroni68) // Wing (Thy-Darkest-Hour) // Feathers (Dark-Dragon-Stock) // Hair (Dezzan) // Brushes (aboutthebirds)

Step 1:

_{Open a new document (650x900). Open the premade background and make it fit in the document. Re-size if needed. Group it (Ctrl+G) and name it 'background'.}

Step 2:

_{Open the image of the model and paste it into a new document. Cut her out and paste her on the main document of your image. I adjusted the picture, using the Levels and Contrast and Brightness. Group it and name it 'model'.}

Step 3:

Make a new group at the bottom of the model group and name it 'shadows'. Make a new layer and take a small, soft brush (size 50px). Set the settings at the top to the following: Opacity: 20% -- Flow: 50%. Zoom into the picture and under her dress beging to color shadows to make it look like it belongs there.

^{>> >> Flash}

Step 4:

Now that you've got your shadows the way you want them, make a new layer and group it, with the name as 'wings'. Open the wing into the document and re-size and make it fit with the picture.

Step 5:

Take the hair stocks from the psd and select the ones you like the most. I will take the black hair and paste it on the main document. After you've pasted your desired hair (3 or 4), group them and name it 'hair'. Grab one hair stock and move it around to where the head is. If it's really light, use the curves and darken the stock. If it's a different color, use the desaturation to make it black and white (ctrl+u). Zoom in to see where your hair will go best. Another thing, since the models hair is a dark redish color, you will need to change that. Go back to where the model is and make a duplicate of her (Ctrl+J). Hide the orignal and select the pen tool. Go all around the models hair until you get something like this:

Once her hair is outline, right click and select "make selection". You will need to set the feather to "o.3". Click ok and copy the hair (Ctrl+C) and paste it (Ctrl+V) into another layer in the same group. Desaturate and go to curves (Ctrl+M) and drag the line down until you get a dark color to the hair.

After you've got that, start to place the hair onto her head. Like this: example. Once you have the hair how you like it, move on.

Step 6:

Now we're going to add the feathers. Make a new layer an dgroup it naming it 'feathers'. Open the feather pngs in a new document and take the ones you like. Take four or five and paste them on the main document. Take one and enlarge it just a bit, go to Filter > Blur >Motion Blur and input the following: Angle 0 and distance 11. Your feather should look the following:

Add the rest of the feathers under the wing and use the motion blur again (Ctrl+F). You should have an image that may look like the following:

Step 7:

Add the crow png, re-size and do the same thing you did with the model and its shadows. Take a small brush (14px) and set some shadows under the crow's feet and then set the opacity to 10% and add a circle of gray around the crow. It should look like this:

Step 8:

Use the set of crow brushes and make a new layer. Use one brush and use it on a side of the image. Use the motion blur. If there's too much crows, erase some and leave only 5 or so crows. Add some mist, or fog, you can do fog and mist by using a 90px soft brush with the color white in a new layer. Make a few dots, two or three around the image and set the opacity to 15 or 20 percent. You should have the following image look like yours:

Step 9:

Make a new layer and group it, name it filters. You'll be using the saturation, brightness and contrast, solid color filters to make the image look like one. First go to the layer section and click this . Click it and do the following steps:

Step 10:

Now just add your credit and tada, you are finished!

Finished look:

I hope this helped!