make a new Canvas and fill it with a dark color, we used dark gray with a little light spot in the middle to outline the effect. We are using 600 x 500 cnvas (and this is the size of the psd you can download, just scroll all the way down).

Using  a curvy font and very big letters, type your word. We used the Harrington font with 260 pixels size, however in this particular effect, the biggest is your font, the better viewable is the result. Worry not about the color you are using at the moment for typing since we will overlay it with metallic gradients, which we designed specifically for this tutorial.

Go to Layer >> Layer Styles >> Blending Options and begin applying the effects…

Our Inner Shadow is pretty important so pay attention to the size and Quality.

We decided that default “Linear” curve doesn’t really outline the effect good enough, so we used a “half Round” curve. If you don’t have it pre-installed in your Photoshop, please use our mapping:

For outer glow, we use gradient from black (#000000) to white (#ffffff). The outer glow in this case creates an additional stroke around the text, which looks slightly rounded and with a mild gradient. Without these settings, your effect will not look complete and moreover look rather poor.

And, a Rolling Slope Contour, please note that we are using the “descending” path, otherwise we will have a totally different result..

A mild touch of inner glow, just to smooth out the shadows at the edges of the text..

Now we are getting to the hardest and most essential part of this tutorial — the gradient overlay.

For beginners, it could be a little difficult to copy these gradients, but I strongly recommend that you won’t give up and try to copy them as close as possible since they will allow you to add a nice metallic touch to any text or object later. Just don’t forget to save them as a new gradient, for future use!

For Stroke effect we also used a gradient of metallic shades, however, not only it will be a different gradient (not like the one we just set up for the inner filling), but also we will set the style to “Reflected”. This allows us to have the gradient mirror-repeated, without having to set too many shades.

What’s good about these layer style settings is that it will look good on ANY font size, for example here we zoomed in using a font of nearly 700 pixel and you see all the curves, shades and gradients so neatly….

Here is our result! I hope you enjoyed the tutorial and if you decide to download the psd, please remember to click “return to merchant’s website” after you complete the transaction, so that the download will start instantly. Also, please join our Facebook page and subscribe free for future updates!

• Face by Tammy Manet
• Flowers by Nolene
• Splash by R’eyes
• Smoke Brushes
• Perfume by Rodrigo Senna

Step 1

Let’s get started, open a new canvas, of any desired size. We didn’t want to create a huge canvas so we used 700×600 pixels. It also depends if you are going to use this image as a print later or just for playing around and using on the web. If you do intend to print it, make sure CMYC is set to the right properties. So, please the face of the girl in the middle of your canvas…

Step 2

Duplicate the layer. Select the layer that is above and go to Gradient Map, by pressing Image >> Adjustments >> Gradient Map. Use gradient from black (#000000) to white (#ffffff), from left to right with NO reverse, just the way you see on the image below.

Step 3

While the upper layer is still selected, set the blending option to Multiply. This will give your image a nice darkish touch, while preserving all the hues, gradients of colors and tones — you will get a very artistic and interesting result that will instantly look like a professional photography.

Step 4

Create a new layer by pressing Shft + Ctrl + N.

Select a brush with soft edge and set the foreground color to black and carefully cover all the area beside face and neck with the black background color. We are using the soft brush here because we don’t want to have any sharp edges, we want the dark background to blend in nicely with the shadows that we see on girl’s face.

Step 5

So lets get started.
You will need two waterscapes. I used this one for the the shore edge:

and this one for the primarily background image:

The image above is watermarked, if you wish to download the full resolution image, please go HERE

Next, select and copy the first picture, and paste it unto the canvas of the second one. Erase most of it, leaving only the shore’s edges, and set the opacity of this second layer to 89%.

Making the moon:
Make a new layer. Select the brush tool, #FFFFFF color, 135 px size, and apply one stamp in te middle of your canvas.

Select the eraser tool with sharp edge, and “cut” with eraser’s tool side, most of the circle, as shown on the picture below.

Now that your moon has just started to develop a shape, using the rectangular marquee tool, select the bottom of the moon and cut it, just like we did here:

So, today we will make this:

Start off by making a new canvas, 500*500 pixels. The color is irrelevant as we will overlay it with a photo later.

Fish out a photo of clouds from somewhere. I used some free stock on DA, but since YOU will probably make a picture for private use, you can use almost any photo u find.

We are still gathering material. Next step is to find a nice girl we will turn to a fairy… As always I used liam-stock.deviantart.com but again, this is up to you, you may use your own photo just as well.

Select the clouds photo and paste it unto your 500*500 canvas. Then, crop the girl carefully, and paste it unto your canvas either, above the clouds, more or less in the center.

Make a new layer. Using a white color and a Brush Tool with a radius of about 250 px, make a “stamp” above the girl.

Now, just like we did in the Moon Eclipse Tutorial, using the eraser tool of almost the same size, cut most of the stamp you made, in order to leave a small, “young” moon.

Go to Layer >> Layer Styles >> Outer Glow, and add White Glow to your moon. See illustration HERE.

This is what you got so far…

Select the Clouds layer and go to Filter >> Renders >> Lightening Effect. Apply this lightening effect exactly on the place where you have your moon.

Make a new canvas, we used here #373d40 for backgrounds. Using white color as your primarily color, and Baskerville Old font, type the word you want to render…

Once you are done, duplicate the layer and make it temporarily invisible (click on the eye in layers panel). Get back to the second layer copy, which you have on visible mode and go to Layer >> Layer Style >> Blending Options

Apply the following settings for Inner Shadow, Outer Glow, Satin and Stroke…

Pay attention to the contour you choose, it has to be Rounded Steps otherwise you will get a different result. This Countour comes pre-installed in All Recent Adobe Photoshop versions.

Finally apply a light outside stroke on the text, to give it a nice outlining.  We did 2px but if your text is very big you may want to add a thicker line, or, on the contrary, if you are making a small logo, use 1 pixel outlining.

This is what you should get by now..

Believe it or not, but from a few ordinary photos and some primitive brushes, we will make this image (see below). OK, despite the rather impressive outcome, this is a very simple tutorial, you wont need more than a few brushes and a few pictures. Most of it is a mater of technique.

Start by creating a new canvas, 500*500 pixels, and fill it with dark blue colour, we used #060062.

Next, you need a beautiful, and preferably mysterious photo of a woman, this is what we started off with:

Copy the girl to your clipboard (Ctrl + C) and paste it (Ctrl + V) unto the blue canvas

Select the “Single Column Marquee tool” place the selection line on the edges of the picture, Press Ctrl + T to draw a line, and repeat the action from the other side as well. This is what this action will give you…

Duplicate the woman’s picture, and set BOTH layers to “Luminosity” blending option. This will turn both layers blue, as we have a blue background.
While the upper (duplicated) layer is selected, apply the Gaussian blur on it.

Select the eraser tool with a soft edge, and go over the girl’s silhouette, erasing the blurred layer from over the woman’s body. This is how it will look, but work your way with the eraser over her skirt as well.

After having finished to erase the blur over her body, this is what it will look like:

This tutorial will show you how, in a few easy steps, to turn a simple photo into a “pure glamor”, just as in most of the commercial shots. Of course, here we used a good photo already, but using this technique you can take the most ordinary picture and turn it into a professional shot.

This is what we will do:

Start of by taking a good quality photo of a face. Don’t use blurred pictures, or ones that were taken from a big distance, else your result wont be sharp enough.

Multiple the amount of existing layers, just in case you do something wrong, u will have a few spare.

Using the Magic Wand tool, select the hair, using the “Add to selection mode”

Go to Image >> Adjustments >> Hue / Saturation and apply these settings, making the photo truly dark and brownish

Press Shft + Ctrl + I to invert the selection, and using the Eraser tool with soft edge, remove everything (only the deselected hair will remain)

Select the Burn Tool, 5 px size, with a soft edge, and enlarge your image on the screen (only zoom it for the view, leave the image size intact).

Make sure you work with the layer that is underneath the “hair” layer. Go over the edges of the eye… this will be easier to women, as they know exactly where to draw a line under and above the eye, but guys can also give this a try.. just try not to over do it and not to turn the picture of a woman into a vampire (unless this is your purpose, of course).

Inspiration: Although today’s horror movies are all quite cheesy, very predictable and always disappointing,  I drew my inspiration from one of the infamous and unpopular movies – “Long Distance“, starring the beautiful Monica Keena. Don’t be surprised if it does not ring a bell, I’d be surprised if it did. I myself however love the cover / poster of this movie, the original plot and I decided to make my own little scenery with my own little plot, which is more or less reflected in the film’s poster.

So, let’s get started. The canvas size is really your choice, you may want to make it slightly longer or even bigger, because we initially work wit ha small image here.

Paint your canvas in dark color, we used #211f1f.

Take one of the grungy backgrounds you like to use, make sure it’s pale enough and not too dark. We used a great image from here.

You don’t need to use a stained old paper, like I used here. You can also use bricks surface, old wood or any other old-looking texture because this is not going to be your leitmotif, we just need something to be on the background.

Now, once you have downloaded the texture you want to use, let’s move to the next step.

Paste the background you downloaded unto the dark canvas you are working with. You will need to either resize or de-size it. I didn’t bother downloading the full version of this background, so I just took the small image and stretched it across the canvas, because in this case, we don’t mind to lose a bit of quality.

Once pasted and resized, set the lending options of the background to “Overlay“. You should have it looking like this..

Once this background has been blended, let’s add some more horror – grunge effects. If the hue of your canvas turns to be different — don’t worry, eventually we will overwrite it all with black and white so the colors are irrelevant at the moment.

Next, we took this nice finger prints image, called “Tint black 2″. Again, paste it onto your canvas, resize, position slightly above the middle…

Set the blending options to “Darker Color” and Opacity to 80%.

This is more or less how it should look.

Next thing we need is a model for our main character in the movie. Here I really can’t advice you, feel free to use any photo you really like, if you want — use your own and then print it up as a poster, this could be a great idea for your bedroom! So… Choose a picture of a girl. We wanted to go with a dramatic look so we chose a fantastic photo taken by Zsolt Dreher of a woman under the rain. You can download it here.

So, Let’s get started…

You will need a few stock photos to get started:

• Shore background [download]
• Girl’s photo [download]

Open the landscape photo. First we want to adjust it a little bit because the original picture is a bit, so go to Image >> Adjustments >> Levels and set the following settings for RGB channel.

Now that our background has a better contrast, open the girl’s image and crop it carefully.  We used Magnetic Lasslo Tool to do the cropping but of course you can also crop using the infamous mask technique, the choice is your. Once the image is cropped…

…place the girl on the landscape canvas, where you want her to appear. Remember, that we want to capture a jump, so she should not be too close to a ground or any object, if you have any on your background image.

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)