Bad Girl Dark Editing in PS..

 

Introduction

Create a Dark, Moody and Comical Photoshop Effect and sexy artwork by following a few simple steps! Inspired by Max Payne and Sin City.

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Resources Required

Girl Assassin
Water Drops
NYC Street
Ink Splatter
Another Ink Splatter
Laffayette Comic Pro Font

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Step 1: Setting up the Background

Open the stock of the NYC Street, and use it as a basis for this tutorial.
Make a new layer on the bottom of that NYC layer, and make it a full black background. You may need to unlock the layer first by double clicking on it.
Get back to your NYC layer and go to Filter -> Stylize -> Find Edges
Desaturate it by CTRL/CMD + SHIFT + U
Invert the image by going to Image -> Adjustments -> Invert
Level it and get rid of the filterish look that you get and make it look like a sketched piece by going to Image -> Adjustment -> Levels

Use a value of around 60 Black and 220 White for the sliders.

If its still a bit noisy, add layer mask and brush on it to get rid of the noise.
Optional: Add a filter in Filter -> Brush Strokes, but if you do, keep it subtle.
Duplicate the layer, add a Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur of around 4 and turn that layer to Screen to soften the edges.
TIP: If you want to create more depth, use a filter of blur and blur the background. Play around with Lens Blur settings to create some interesting results.

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Step 2: Adding the Rain

Copy and Paste the Water Drops image into your PSD and Desaturate CTRL/CMD + SHIFT + U
Filter -> Blur -> Motion Blur. This is the rain for the background, there’s still another one later for the foreground to achieve depth.

These values should work.

Go to Filter -> Sharpen -> Unsharp Mask. Value of around 150, Radius 2, Tolerance 0
Change Layer Blending Mode to Lighten or Screen.
Add a layer mask to the Rain layer and use a Filter -> Render -> Clouds , make sure your colours are set on Default (Foreground – Black, Background- White).

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Step 3: The Girl

Copy and Paste the girl into a new document, and select the background using the magic wand and holding shift. Tolerance about 30.
Go to Select -> Modify -> Feather and value around 1.
Invert the selection, CTRL/CMD+ Shift + I
Press Delete about 3 times. You may need to unlock background layer to clear it by double clicking on the layer.
Drag her into your artwork. You may need to press F a few times to do so.
In your artwork:
Have her on top of the rain layer.
Transform her into a nice scale and position; Refer to the Rule of Thirds guides to get her in an aesthetic position.
Duplicate her layer, and Desaturate.
Do the same thing we did for the Background of NYC.
Now, create a layer mask and paint out any areas of her skin and hair.
Duplicate the layer of her and give it a Gaussian Blur of around 4 and turn that layer to soft light.
Go to Curves CTRL/CMD + M and use an S curve to bring out the lighting.

Use a S Curve like this.

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Step 4: More Rain

Get another Water Drop layer on top of everything, and do the same thing we did except this time varying it for the foreground.
Vary the motion blur so that its in a Slightly different angle, and shorter distance.
Sharpen Mask Value 500
This time after layer masking with clouds, use Levels on both the Layer Mask and the layer itself to make it more subtle than before. Play with the Black sliders.

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Step 5: Adding Splatters

Copy the ink splatters and paste them into your image.
Invert them CTRL/CMD + I
Turn down the opacity.
Blending mode to Screen.

To create depth on the splatters, overlap them on top of the girl and erase some so that some of it are hidden beneath her.

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Step 6: Comics!

Create a New layer
Use the Rectangular Marquee tool and draw out 2 comic-like boxes by holding Shift and dragging.

Draw out 2 comic-like boxes by holding Shift and dragging.

Add some connection and a speech indicator by adding on the selection with the Polygon Lasso tool.
Fill the selection in with White
Go to its Layer Styles and add a Black Stroke value of 2.
Type in some text, use the font Laffayette Comic Pro

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Step 7: Bring out her Eyes

Select her eyes and go to Image -> New Adjustment Layer -> Curves

Use an Arch Curve like this.

CTRL+Click the selection from the layer mask to select it again and go to Image -> New Adjustment Layer -> Hue/Saturation
Turn up the saturation around 50.

Zoom out and see how its working out, and keep playing with it.

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Step 8: Sharpen and Done!

CTRL/CMD + A, Edit -> Copy Merged, Paste
Filter -> Other -> High Pass, Value around 4
Layer Blending Mode to Soft light
Play with opacity and congrats, you’re done!

Conclusion

This technique is very useful to quickly stylize a photo. So be creative, have fun and show us your results!