This tutorial is mostly for advanced users, as it will require a lot of “manual labor”, brightening small areas in the face, adding hair from another picture, etc. If all these steps won’t be done neat, you are risking to make a funny monster, rather than a mermaid… anyway, this is what we will do:

Unfortunately a PSD file of this tutorial is not available at this time but as soon as we release the PSD membership club, I hope to include a file with this effect as well. Star of by taking a photo of a brunette girl. We used a downsized wallpaper of this woman:
http://vetton.ru/models/6406.html

Duplicate the photo so that you will have 2, or even 3 layers. If anything goes wrong, you can always pull out an intact layer and you can start allover again.

Select the upper layer and go to Filter >> Distort >> Diffuse Glow.
This will give your photo a nice dreamy effect for a start.

Next step is to colorize your photo. As you know, mermaids tent to have blueish face (they have drown, don’t forget! ) and greenish blond hair.
So, press Ctrl + U to colorize your photo (entirely) and apply these settings:

This is what you got. Mildly glowing and blue colored face. if you don’t wish to go ahead with your Photoshop skills and create a mermaid, you can stop here, this result may look good if you want to add mystery to your ordinary shot.

Next, select the Dodge Tool in Photoshop, about 3px with a soft edge, and go over the inside of the eye, lightening the eye balls and the eyes themselves, but try not to touch the contour of the eye, in order not to make the entire area too pale.

After you have finished with both eyes, do the same with the lips. Again, try not to lighten the contour of the lip but only the inside, which will make the lips look as if they are covered with a light glossy lip gloss.

So far, we got a very good looking picture…

Now to the hardest part – adding blond hair. Try finding a photo of a big resolution and good quality, where u can pull pieces of hair and add them to your wanna-be mermaid. We mercilessly cut the hair from Michelle Hunziker’s wallpaper – vetton.ru/models/6495.html

How to cut the hair and add it – up to you. try to make it look natural, u may want to add a several layers with different hair pieces (which is what we did) and blend them together, since it will be very hard to find another photo with a similar angle, and hair structure.

If your newly added hair is not blond enough (like in our case) add some contrast and brightness, so give the hair more depth and goldness

Now it’s time to turn the blond hair into greenish. remember that they shouldn’t bee too green, we are not trying to make a covered with moss girl!

Press Ctrl + U (while the hair layer is selected) and apply these settings:

That’s it! You are done, this is your result. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and if you do, please subscribe to our RSS feed and make sure you never miss a tut. Stay tuned, next week we will have many more Photoshop tutorials for you, including original effects and fantasy art tutorials.

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Tags: face, photo effect