Photo manipulations have always been one of the most tackling and time consuming techniques in the graphic world. So today we’re diving into the wonderful and sometimes mind bending world of photo manipulations and all the madness that comes with it.
Indeed brushes, shapes and such provide loads of help but it’s the actual work that cannot be automated or preset that makes manipulations so attractive to graphic designers striving to further their knowledge and versatility. And there are plenty of things to be learned from this niche of design, some of which most web designers, for example, have not even thought of.

First off we have to gather our project assets, but that means one must clearly have the idea of the graphic set into one’s mind. For this tutorial I went for the popular “person in the air with stuff around it” type of design… with a twist. But more on that at the end of the tutorial. So I went to the good ol’ boys of SXC which have been life savers on countless times for me and I imagine plenty of other designers.

These are the 6 picture I gathered for my project. When it comes to asset management you need to keep a few, very important things, in mind. This is a most crucial step in the life of the project. Bad choices here will lead to wasted time, money, resources, brain cells and perhaps high blood pressure for those of you that think coffee is a food group.

01 – 02 – 03 – 04 – 05 – 06

When choosing your assets focus not on the technical features of the picture, like perspective and depth and color balance, things which can later be edited but rather on the quality of the picture and the feelings it expresses, how well it fits into your scenario. These should be the only two parameters in your search. Anything else is editable.

Here’s a real example: the girl I chose. My search query was “girl jumping”. Go ahead, search it on SXC. You’ll see there are plenty of good choices but my vision implied joy, happiness. Most were eliminated because they expressed freedom more than joy. Also I ended up with my picture because I like the fact that you can’t see her face. Most of you would disagree because faces are the part of the human body that express the most emotion. And I agree, but the hair on her face, caused by the speed of the fall (and probably thin hair strands) transmitted joy, in my mind, more than any of the other possible choices.

01

First things first: the background. The picture I found had some lens distortion problems, even though it’s a 3d render and not a real room. The vertical perspective was a little high so I brought it to normal. I left the slight inverse fisheye effect, visible where the wall meets the floor, because it will later give depth to the design, a problem often found in photo manipulations. And, trust me, if you can get depth from something in your design, be it the lens perspective, depth of field, lots of objects stacked etc. take it! it’s scarce and precious and will elevate the design 3 levels above average.

02

But that plant stand really screws things up, doesn’t it? It’s slanted and looks really, really fake. So I cloned some of the background to cover it. This wasn’t as easy as it seems because of the progressive angle of the wallpaper.

03

As you can see it’s showing what seem like stains. But that’s alright, those areas will be barely visible after the final color treatments.

04

Time for the next asset: the girl. I placed her to seem as if she has just jumped from the couch. Also, pay a lot of attention to size here. You need to visualize how big the girl would be in comparison with the couch if she were standing next to it and resize her accordingly. I also tried to place her at a size that didn’t seem impossible. to achieve…couches must have some sort of elastic limit, right?

05

Here I used Stefan of Photo-D-Mention sharpen method. I’m not sure he made it up or he saw it somewhere but hey, he told me about it so the kudos go to him. It’s simple and effective, just the way I like it. And it goes like this:

Stefan’s sharpen method:
Take one non-sharp layer, duplicate it, set it to blend on Vivid Light, turn the opacity down to 50% and then apply a High Pass filter and adjust according to taste. Works every time. Thanks, Stefan!

06

Next please! Those would be the fireworks from asset 4. I placed these first because they are fewer and I could see whether they would be enough or if more was actually more. Set to blend to Soft Light and mask out the edges with a very very soft brush.

07

More was better. It’s the same technique as with the previous fireworks. Only these are bigger. And on top of the other ones.

08

Ok, now grab your trusty large soft brush [of doom] and start drawing behind the girl with some really saturated yellow on one layer and white on another layer above this one. Then blur generously and hello mr. Glow.

09

I used soft brushes and hexagonal shapes that were then blurred to recreate what would seem like a Bokeh effect. I did this to make a sort of transition from the bottom of the image to the top. It’s really a very old technique that comes from painting and it’s meant to catch the viewers’ attention to a certain area of the image.

10

It’s only natural that the couch would receive shadow coming from the girl, considering that the light is coming from above. This is one of those things you need to start thinking about when you attempt a photo manipulation. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: shadows and lights make or break a design more than anything else.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: shadows and lights make or break a design more than anything else.

11

I know, sunbursts have been done to death and back, but just like I did for my Nifty Jellyfish tutorial, I like to be a bit off so I drew a few of them just above the Bokeh layer. The color is a pale blue set to blend on Color Burn.

12

Above the sunburst I used a custom shape set called Arabeski Shapes set to Overlay. Sadly, I noticed it’s not available for download anymore. They were created by Deviant Art user Limoli, so kudos to her!

13

In order to further portray the idea of joy I added some nice butterflies using Emma Alvarez’ brush set. I didn’t over do it with the butterflies because the scene might have become too crowded which is quite a pain to look at, you can imagine.

14

The edges of the girl were really starting to annoy me now. Remember what I said about shadows and lights? Well light tends to diffuse, to scatter and affect the color of things around it function of it’s wavelength. So why isn’t my girl getting any of this light stuff on her? She is now. Make a new layer a clipping mask of the girl layer and using a soft brush with max 10% opacity go around her edges. Paint more towards the edge of the girl and less towards the center. Also, keep the brush off areas that would not normally have heavy light coloring like the middle of the back of her heels or her lower belly.

15

Alright, now it’s time to move to our croc. Lovely little thing, isn’t she? I had to rotate her [for the purposes of this tutorial our croc is a she] and mask out the rest of the image before deciding where exactly on the couch she would fit. Also it took some cloning as well because there was some vegetation on her. Luckily crocodiles are very…patterned? Anyway, her tail was sticking upward which might have been a problem but I got lucky and saw an opportunity to place her tail on the couch arm rest. Sometimes it takes a little luck with these things and also some looking for multiple possible answers to an issue and then choosing the most natural and best looking one. Usually they’re the same.

Sometimes it takes a little luck with these things [Photo manipulations] and also some looking for multiple possible answers to an issue.

16

Obviously the croc was going to leave a shadow on the couch. The way I made it was I drew with a 100% opacity black brush the rough idea of the shadow and then I Motion Blurred it horizontally with about 60px. That’s going to make the shadow look sharp and elongated, so I Gaussian Blurred it with about 10px to what you see now. Always keep in mind the direction of the light. It’s not complicated, it just requires some concentration and insight.

17

To further blend the croc in the scene I added a few blending options: an Inner Shadow which is actually saturated light yellow set to Color Dodge and 70 degrees [because it's tail is more to the back of the couch than the head], a desaturated greenish Color Overlay set to Color and a low yellow to top white Gradient Overlay set to multiply to account for diffuse light.

18

Now it’s time for some finesse work. I realized that the croc wasn’t blending nicely into the scene and that’s because it was only casting shadows [on the couch] but it wasn’t receiving them naturally [to be read at all]. A new Clipping Mask on the croc layer on which I painted with a soft black brush did the trick. You can notice the new shadows clearer on the belly next to the back leg, under the mouth [chin?] but also all along the belly line in different degrees.

19

This may not be all that noticeable but it’s always good to pay close attention to details. The croc’s expression, so to say, was a bit blant. So I spruced him up a bit with a twinkle in his eye and using the Burn tool I accentuated his teeth by brushing over the dark parts in between them.

20

We’re almost there now. It’s time for some hippy happy hoppy typography in Folks Shades underneath which I added a new layer and painted it with white for legibility and better separation from the background.

21

It’s time now for out last asset. The tag. I masked out the rest of the image and resized and rotated to stick on the croc’s finger. She’s not dead, just…tagged?

22

Of course this needs to be blended too so again with a soft black brush I painted the shadow underneath the tag layer. Here’s a slight detail some of you might miss: the third finger seamed above the tag which meant it should leave a shadow. Pay close attention to the little things, but only after you’ve dealt with the big ones.

23

Just some text on the tag and we’re almost done. The text reads “Joy – the croc”, by the way.

Click the picture to enlarge it.

Quite a bit of change here, right? This is the Color Treatment process I was talking about. It’s fairly easy as long as you work non destructive and is the final step in any self respecting photo manipulation. It’s easy to understand why too: most projects require more outside assets than this tutorial so you need to somehow bring them all to a common denominator. Sure, blending and shadows and highlights etc. help but it’s this final step that really seals it.

I used a black Color Fill at 50% opacity set to Overlay [masked out] to create the vignette at the bottom, a Levels Adjustment to tighten the contrast and the most important part: a Curves Adjustment. There’s really no point in giving you my settings because they are not universal. Any picture can have any setting you wish, you’re not restricted by anything although I do suggest using the it subtly. Harsh color curves mean you will lose some details, maybe burn your image too much and all sorts of other nasty plagues I’m sure most of you have seen around.

Well, that’s that from me. I hope you liked this tutorial [and maybe laughed a bit at the silly Joy pun?]. I’ll be seeing you next time when I drop another payload of insanity on the ever so unsuspecting interwebs.