japanese garden

The first part of the tutorial I created a new layer and sketch what I think should go behind the people I wanted to erase. Its always a good idea to sketch the background out when there is a good amount of details.

The second part I use the marquee tool to select the upper part of the door and pasted down, than use a soft eraser to blend it in. You can use this to help you align the doors by moving the copied layer around until it fits.

Next I used a solid color for the small area on the bottom next to the door. When the area is small it's ok to use a solid color but don't over do it or it will look fake.

Finally I use the clone stamp to finish the rest of the image, when you first activate the clone stamp you will need to "sample" an area on your photo by holding the Alt key and clicking on a area that you want to clone, than you start painting over the area that needs to be covered.

This is a 2 part video tutorial that teach you how to add special effects and lightning through adjustment curve. Here is the original photo

and here is the after

Please leave a comment if you have any question regarding this video and let me know what needs to change so I can improve on future videos, thanks!!

The first of the series is simple flame, these are calm controlled fire that are often seen in man made fire sources such as match/lighters or stove fire.

The second in the series is a larger type of fire, its the type of fire that can be seen before it gets out of controlled.

The third in the series is a wild fire effect often seen in forest fire or burning car with dark smoke.

The forth type is an explosion, its a smaller explosion, you probably wont see the shock wave in real life, but I added it anyway for the effects so it is up to you.

Here is one way you can create an artistic water/fluid/liquid effects in any form. I will create a liquid flower to show you how you can apply this method to virtually any shape and size.

The main point is to create 2 main layers, one is the reflection layer and the other is refraction. You can use the distort and chrome filter but it does not give you as much control when you need to work on something this complex, instead I will use quick mask and layer effects to create the effects.

First, I will draw one of the flower petals on a blank layer and set the background to black.

Go into dynamic brush menu to set the spacing, scattering, size and color dynamic so you end up with a randomize surface. Don’t use too much scattering as it becomes hard to control where the paint go, instead focus on the spacing dynamic. I also created few drops of liquid that escapes the main petal to make image more dynamic.

Do the same for all the petals but make sure each of the petals are on separate layers.

Now go to Filter-Noise-Medium and set the number to 1, do the same for all the layers, you can press Ctrl+F to repeat the last filter.

Before moving on to the next step, I will create the base of the refraction layers.

I am going to use the black and white value of each layer as the transparence level. Select the first layer and draw a marquee over the petal, copy it and enter Quick Mask Mode.

Paste the copied information and it will appear red, now align this with the original petal, now make sure nothing is selected and invert the color by pressing Ctrl+I.

Exit out of the Quick Mask, create a new layer, fill this layer with white.

Your picture should look something similar to this when you are done with each of the petal layers.

So basically we have turned all the lighter part of the petal into solid and the darker area to semi transparent, I will show you what it is for later on, but hide them for now.

Going back to the original petal layers.

I will create the liquid surface by using the layer style. Double click on the layer icon, check bevel and emboss and increase the depth, size and Gloss Contour until it gives it a nice shiny surface. Duplicate these settings on to all of the original petal layers and this will be your reflection layer.

Now let’s hide reflection layers and unhide the semi transparent (refraction) layers we created earlier.

We will add the scattered reflection and refraction that liquid create using the semi transparent layers.

Double click on the layer icon to bring up the layer style.

Use the Gloss contour similar to the one I have selected and adjust the depth and size until you are satisfied, don’t over do this or it will look too busy.

Whatever that is solid, layer style will treat it as higher elevation and whatever is transparent will be of lower elevation, this simulates the uneven surface of liquids.

Now make all the layers visible, put the refraction directly above their reflection layers. You now have a surface that has both scattered refraction and reflection.

As a final touch, I created an additional layer with more liquid droplets.

Now combine all the layers and use Hard Light as the blending mode. You can either integrate this with a photo or just use a simple gradient.

Please feel free to leave a message if there any thing that was not clear or if you have ideas on how to improve on this method, thanks!

More...SET UP - I use a photo that was shot using a consumer camera with flash, no professional lightning was used. The first thing that I did was delete the background, since my background is fairly plain, I just use the Magic Wand to delete them. You can access this tool on the tool bar or by pressing (W) on your keyboard. For photos that are more complex, you should use the pen tool. I also combined eraser tool and marquee tool to help delete the background.

SMOOTHING EDGES -The problem with using Magic Wand is that it leaves jagged edge, so you will need to smooth out the edge once you are finished. First start by selecting the empty pixels, you can use Magic Wand to do this or by Ctrl click the layer icon, it will select all the active pixel than inverse the selection. Than enter Quick Mask Mode, it can be found on the tool bar, the icon right below the color icon or by hitting (Q) on keyboard. Now you will notice everything that was selected is red and everything that is not is clear. Anything thing you do now will be reflected in the selection once you exit the Quick Mask Mode. Now go to filter-noise-medium and smooth out the edge than exit out of the Quick Mask and hit delete, now all the uneven pixel will be deleted.

BACKGROUND - The bacground is fairly simple, its just a series of filters and adjusting the color until you are satisfied.

LIGHT RAYS - To create the light rays that are shining behind her, first paint in some white in a new layer than use filter-blur-radial blur. Select the zoom option and hit ok. The white that you just painted now looks a bit more like light rays. However, light rays are usually broken up into tiny rays by the atmosphere or surrounding so lets break up the rays. Using the Quick Mask Mode again we will create a noised selection and delete that selection on our newly made rays than radial blur it again. You might not be able to see much now because the density of the pixel is low from all the blurring, you can increase density by duplicating the layer about 2-3 times, and don't forget to merge them when you are done.

I repeated the same steps for another set of ray that will be overlapping her. After finishing with this second set, clean it up so the direction of the light make sense.

HAIR - I want to create the illusion that my subject is underwater but she is in a standing pose and her hair is down so I will have to paint the flowing hair myself. First is paint brush to paint in blobs of hair, use the noise filter to create some white noise than smudge it out. If you want you can duplicate this and make it a light color so it looks like the light is illuminating the edge of her hair.

COLORS - You should use adjustment layers to correct the color so you can come back later to make more adjustment. Adjustment layers are located at the bottom of the layer pallet, It looks like a ying-yang circle. Ctrl click on the subject's layer and select the Level Adjustment Layer, by having a selection ready before you choose your adjustment layer, photoshop will automatically create a mask according to your selection, so now the adjustment layer only effect the subject and not the background.

FINISHING TOUCH - I've added some bubbles by duplicating them and went into liquify filter to to change her body, I didn't spend a lot of time on liquify filter but I will show you a more detailed tutorial on this later.

I hope you didn't have problem understanding it. If there is any part that you do not understand please let me know so I can change it or just any general comment and recommendation on how to improve on this will be appreciated. Thanks!