Photo Manipulation of a Sweet Lady

 

Andreea from DeviantArt takes us through a perspective photopmanipulation in Photoshop. In the tutorial you’ll learn how to blend 2 images together, clean up the blemishes and create an effect that you’ll be able to use over and over again.

Perspectives can be a little tricky. The first thing you need to do is look for stock images in various perspectives and see how you can mix and match them together.
I’m going with something simple. I’ll be using these 2 images. Model: http://liam-stock.deviantart.com and Bricks walkway texture is from the freebies section at renderosity.

Finished Preview

Stock Used

Step 2

The second step is to crop out the model. As you can see the model is on a grass background so a quick blend doesn’t work in this case. There are several ways of cropping the model: using the eraser tool, using a layer mask, the pen tool and many more. I am used to cropping with the help of the pen tool. It gives a lot of precision and I can easily crop the model with leaving any eadges or bits of the background. I skipped a few portions of the dress because there were wisps of grass visible on the transparent lace fabric of the bottom part of the dress.

Step 3

After the model has been cropped I copy/pasted her on to the background. As you can see, she looks a bit small as compared to the bricks, especially when in perspective.

What I’m going to do is resize the background and make it smaller. You are free to resize the model but I honestly wouldn’t advise you to. Oversizing an image will ruin its quality. The size looks more reasonable once I cropped, and so the model is the center of attention.

Step 4

Now I’m gonna do my usual edits on the model. I always duplicate the layer so if I mess it up I can always go back to the beginning and try again. I’ll be softening her skin using the smudge tool. I always use a soft round brush with the hardness set at 20% when I smudge the skin.
I dodged a bit the white of the eyes and also the iris (dodge tool set at 25% highlights). I also used the burn tool (25% midtones) for the eyeliner and eyebrows and to bring out some of the facial lines such as the nose shape. I painted over some minor details that needed a fix: make-up, nose, cheeks.

Step 5

The next step is the hair. I used a smudge brush designed especially for hair that I had bought, but there are several out there that are free you can use and achieve a similar effects. They are made of tiny dots and have dynamic settings.
Have a look around http://getbrushes.com/ for similar brushes

I also used it to paint over a couple of strands. I pick a color that is already on the hair using the color picker tool, going from the darker shades to the lighter ones. Then I take the brush tool and select a small round brush set at 9px and add in the first layer of strands. Then pick a lighter color and decrease the brush size to 7px and so on. I usually go with 3-4 layers for this but you can add as many as you like and combine as many colors you want.

Step 6

The hair looks a bit flat so I merged the 3 hair layers and dodged and burned in parts making sure I preserve the natural lights.

Step 7

Now back to the background. The light comes from the right side of the screen so we need to make sure the background matches the model.

Step 8

I used the dodge tool set at highlights 40% on the right side of the background with a large brush.I like the outcome but I also added a bit of red to it with color balance at midtones/ red+20. It looks cool so far but it feels kind of empty.

Step 9
I’m going to add a few falling leaves to add more to the autumn feel of the image and the sense of motion. I found these wonderful 3d rendered leaves over at http://jlstock.deviantart.com that I had used before and gave a really nice effect to the final piece.
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Step 10

Simply copy/paste the file (it comes as a transparent .png file) onto your image and delete any unnecesary bits that may cover the model.Now on to giving them the sense of motion. Duplicate the layer and place the copy under your original layer. Go to blur> motion blur and set the direction to be diagonally like this / or 2 o’clock . Now go back to your original layer and pick the blur tool and blur partly the leaves. Think of the effect given by a photograph that turned out blurry. You need to achieve a similar look. At finally dodge and burn the leaves to match your background’s lighting and you’re done.