This tutorial was originally posted on loreleiweb.com but due to technical reasons moved. The tutorial remains a copyright property of Lorelei (me!)

This tutorial’s purpose is to make an imitation of real painting, made using semi dry brushes.

The final result will be this:

so, lets get started… Make a new canvas, 450*450.

White your colours are set to black and white, go to Filter >> Render >> Clouds and apply the clouds effect (once)

Using the marquee tool, select half of the canvas (or a bit more than half, as this will be out “sky”) and add a lot of Contrast (Image >> Adjustments >> Brightness / Contrast) as shown on the picture below.

While the upper part of the canvas is still selected, go to Image >> Adjustments >> Hue / Saturation and set the following settings to colorize the “sky” and make it bluish. Don’t forget to check the “colorize” box when applying the settings.

After finishing the color process, press Shft + Ctrl + I to inverse the selection.

Now that the lower half of the canvas is selected, go to Filter >> Blur >> Motion Blur and apply the following horizontal blur…

Create a new layer. While half the canvas is still selected, fill it with white (means you will only have white inside the selection).

Go to Filters >> Noise >> Add noise, and apply these “noisy” settings:

Go to Filter >> Blur >> Motion blur and again apply the horizontal blur, only this time upon the noise effect. We are trying to paint the calm water, we need lots of tiny waves and this would be the easiest way to make them)

Set the opacity of the blurred noise layer to about 50%.

This is what you got so far…

Flatten the image.

Select (manually), using the marquee tool, the lower part of the canvas (“water”)

Go to Filter >> Artistic >> Cutout and apply these settings for the cutout effect.

Remember, we are making a painting, it should look as it it was made using a brush!

Now (while your “water” is still selected) go again to Image >> Adjustments >> Hue / Saturation, check the “colorize” box and make the water a bit greenish…

Create a new layer. Using the round brush (with sharp edge), go over the horizon line that separates water from the sky, as shown below:

Select the eraser tool and remove everything that was below the water line, see pic below:

Make a new layer again, select a sharp round brush of a huge size (about 200px) and make a stamp on a place where you intend to make your full moon.

Go to Layer>> Layer Styles >> Outer Glow and apply glow using the white color…

In your layers panel, select the background canvas (where we have the sky and water) and apply this lightening effect from the center of the “moon”, but not on the moon’s layer!

Choose a picture of a girl, or your own which you want to use. For this purpose we used a photo taken from Liam’s Stock free resource.

Crop the picture from the background, so that only the main figure will remain.

Press CRTL + A to select the figure, CRTL + C to copy it and then, when u move back to our painting canvas, press CTRL + V to paste it onto our painting.

While the layer with the girl is selected, go to Filter >> Artistic >> Cutout and apply these settings, that will imitate brush painting.

So far you got a blurred version of it…

Flatten the image yet again (don’t skip this part).

Now that the entire canvas has turned to one layer, go to Filter >> Texturize >> and apply this light canvas texture.

Now for the final touch… Select the “Burn” tool and go with a small soft-edge brush over the horizon line, and darken the “water” on the edge, so that it will look as if it fades into the black “mountains” we made before.

That’s it, you are done! If you have any questions, please post below, as well as the examples of ur work.. cheers!

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Tags: Photo Effects, photoshop tutorial, texture