Really COOL Photoshop tutorial #1 - Street Famous Poster look

Okay so this tutorial was requested by a few people on here, I took some time and put it together. Please if you think a video tutorial would be a lot more effective comment this and tell me! All credits to myself and people at Deviart for the photos. (http://leo723.deviantart.com/art/Umbrella-Girl-15649267)|||| This one was made for the Geeks community and not any other! Today I will be showing you how to make your photos have a kind of a Dave Hill effect, look at his work here. Also add some extra stuff to your images!


Lets get Started! - Step 1 - THE BIG CUT
Alright enough chit chat lets get started!
First thing, you will need a image, I am using

I will be cutting her out using the PEN TOOL this tool gives very good output in quality.
The PEN TOOL looks like so,

Now start cutting here out, try not get leave to much background around her but don't cut any of her off. If the space is to hard to get right now leave it alone and you can clean it up later. Take your time and save often. I can't tell you how many times I have gotten far on a project and loved how it was turning out then my photoshop just all the sudden closes or something along those lines. In my opinion, how well you do this Step determines the end result.

Step 2 - THE CLEAN UP
A QUICK SIDE NOTE* - You may change the images coloring at this stage as I did. The skin tones are now lighter.
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Now you should have something that looks like this

As you can see I still have some things to clean up, but so far so good. To be able to see the parts that need to be cleaned add a background color that will make the image pop out from it. I usually use a lime green color but in this case I have chosen the color red due to the images overall color. Use whatever color works best for you.
Here's what yours should look like so far. All I did was add the Background color so I can start to clean the image up.

Use the POLYGONAL LASSO TOOL to clean up the image

Look for the highlights around the edges. If you leave the highlights it will give the effect that the image isn't really in the picture. We don't want that.
Step 3 - BACKGROUND
So you have gotten this far?! Great! Now choose a background for this object, I will be selecting

Sorry I cannot find the orginal picture for this but you are more then welcome to you this one. It has been touched up and dave hill effect added to it but still is not finished. Place your object over the background, if your using the images I have provided you with go ahead and place the Girl on top of the Walkside image. Remember keep these separate layers!

Step 4 - THE DARK AND THE LIGHT
Time to make the images interesting! Okay so people love the Dave hill effect, if you don't know what that is go ahead and scroll back up to the top and READ. I have provided a link to his work at the top of this tutorial. What he does is create derastice lighting in his Photo's then Burns and Dodges them. He makes the light parts really light and the dark parts really dark. This makes a surreal effect on the image, looks really cool if done right. As this is the first time I have attempted to do it, it isn't as nearly as good as his.
So right now focus on the Girl layer, I am going to start with Dodging the image. Use the DODGE TOOL Located here:

Focus Dodging (Making Lighter) in these areas

Now let the darkness fall! Okay jk
But this will help your image come together.
Select the BURN TOOL

Focus your burn on all the dark spots, but don't over do it. You can tell from a carefully burned image to a careless and overdone image. If you don't know the difference then just play around with it but try to not over due it. Here are the areas you want to focus on

Repeat this for your background, if you are using the one I provided move on as I have already done this step for you.

Step 5 - LIGHTING
Here you can either kill everything you been working up towards or make it a master piece.
Make a new layer over all of your current layers (Fill it with Black). FILTER -> RENDER -> LIGHTING EFFECTS...

DO NOT MAKE YOUR LIGHTING SETTINGS LIKE MINE! They were not set yet. This image is just to show you the screen.

Want my lighting effect? Go and download the image here
Place this image above all other layers and set the Opacity to : 52% and the Layer setting to OVERLAY like so -

Step 6 - SWIRLY!
A very simple yet cool effect for images glowing lines. This is made with the PEN TOOL. Select the BRUSH TOOL then make sure your settings match mine, brush size set on 3. Now Select the PEN TOOL and make swirls around her legs or arms, do whatever you want just have fun! Set the layer styling like this

Heres what I came up with so far -

Now take the ERASER TOOL and erase the lines to give the impression that they are going around the legs or object like so -

Step 7 - FINAL TOUCHES
Just take a look at my final result, I have added a font to it. Street Famous as the text of course as it is my Clothing line =]. I also added shadowing under her which is really easy to do, all I used for that was the BRUSH TOOL and with the color Black. Make sure you set the Hardness to 0% when doing the shadowing. Also make sure your lighting is matched up with your shadowing. That could really cool the whole look.

Here it is -

Don't forget to Rate this blog post, the more feed back I get the better!

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http://www.StreetFamous.com