So, what does the art of dance and image editing have in common? Both requires creativity, skills, talent and (believe it or not) patience. Since we discovered that there’s a connection between the two, we decided to bring them together in this month’s tutorial.
We’ll teach you how to apply layer duplications, blending mode, transforming and creating of objects that will give a plain looking image that extra edge by adding multicolored effects. Are you ready? Let’s go! 🙂
Before we begin, prepare these set of images:-
P/S: Click on the images for a larger and clearer view 🙂
We’ll kick start by creating a blank background for our montage according to this size setting – 1678 pixels x 2500 pixels.
Once the background is ready, create a new layer and fill the canvas with black color.
Then, create another layer but this time go to Edit > Fill and fill it with 50% Gray.
After that, go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and set the amount to 400%. Then, select the ‘Monochromatic’ option and apply that setting.
Next, go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur and apply these settings – Angle: 0,Distance: 999 pixels and click OK.
You can also start applying the ‘Curves’ setting as shown in the example above.
Rotate that layer to a certain angle so that streaks can be seen coming out from the corners.
In this section of the tutorial, we’ll import our main object and add some patterns onto it.
Open the image entitled ‘Hip Hop Dancer Showing Some Movements’ (code: 9284539) and edge out the dancer from the image.
Create a new layer and select the ‘Elliptical Marquee Tool’. Hold down the ‘Shift’key to draw a symmetrical circle and fill it with white color.
Go to the layer style and apply a ‘Gradient Overlay’ with an orange-yellow hue. Once you’re done, flatten the layer style by merging this layer with an empty layer.
Then, change the angle of the gradient.
Next, add a ‘Layer Mask’ and brush/mask off the undesired areas of the circle.
Duplicate that layer as many times as you want and place it around the dancer. You can also change the settings of the layers so that it looks varied.
For the following series of steps, we’ll be using similar methods as above but with more triangles and action keys.
Create a new layer and use the ‘Polygonal Lasso’ tool to create a triangle. Fill it with the gradient of your choice and flatten it.
Then, go to Window > Action. At the bottom of the window, you will notice a‘Folder’ icon (1). Click on that to create a new set. Then, click on the ‘Actions’icon (2) to create a new action. We can start recording actions by pressing the red ‘Record’ button.
Duplicate the triangle layer and apply a rotation or scale effect. Feel free to change the hue/saturation to any color of our choice but bear in mind that these changes will be recorded in your actions window.
When you’re done, remember to press the stop button at the ‘Actions’ window (4).
Now, here comes the fun part! Select the triangle layer and press the ‘Play’button a few times to create different triangles, forming a loop. In this example, 8 triangle layers have been created.
Rotate or move the triangles to any position that you like and group the triangle layers into a folder. We can then add a layer mask to the group and use a black brush to remove any excessive areas. You can change the colors of individual triangles based on your personal preference.
As an additional effect, we’ll add on some simple gradient lines.
Let’s spice up the image by sharpening and increasing it’s contrast.
Press ‘Control’ and click on the layer mask of the dancer image in order to get the dancer’s shape.
Then, create a new layer and fill it with white. You can nudge the selection to get a few pixels upwards (towards the left) and press the delete key. Make sure the selection tool is selected and that you’re only nudging your desired selection.
Next, clip this layer with the dancer image layer (Alt+click between the layers).This will create a thin outline that resembles a highlight without extruding the dancer’s shape.
To get the outline, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set the radius to 1.5 pixels.
Duplicate the dancer image layer (Clip it) and apply the ‘High Pass’ filter. Set the high pass radius to 4.9 pixels.
After that, change the blending mode to ‘Hard Light’. This will help sharpen the image and bring out even more details of the dancer.
In this step, we’re going to create some reflected colors and highlights that will surround the dancer’s body.
Firstly, select the brush tool and create a new layer. Then, press Alt+Click (Eye dropper tool) on the colors surrounding the dancer and use a softbrush to brush over the dancer’s body.
After painting it, change the layer blending mode to ‘Color’. You can darken around the dancer’s image to match it with the background. When you’re done with brushing, change the blend mode to ‘Color’ as well. You can apply the same technique at different areas around the dancer.
Next, draw a selection around the dancer’s vest (Feather it by 1- 2 pixels) and go to Layer > Adjustment Layer > Curves. Since it looks rather dark, drag it upwards to brighten it. Make sure that the color brush layer and other layers are clipped together with the dancer’s layer so that the changes you make will be applied within the dancer’s shape.
Once you’re done, create a new layer and go to Filter > Render > Clouds. Place the clouds layer beneath the dancer layer.
Then, roughly mask the cloud according to the dancer’s shape. You can refer to the image above for clarification.
After that, add some colors to the cloud by creating layers just above the cloud layer. Change the blend mode to ‘Color’ and fill/brush using any color of your choice.
Now, we shall add more light and glow effects to the image.
Let’s start off by importing the image entitled ‘Disco Background’ (code: 14061929). Then, go to Filter > Liquify to make the shape similar to the example displayed above.
Place the layer beneath the dancer image layer (but above the clouds layer) and change the blend mode to ‘Screen’.
Then, create another layer and follow these settings – Brush:13 pixels with a 100% Opacity and 100% Flow. Then, select the ‘Shape Dynamics’ and ‘Smoothing’ option using white color. After that, select the ‘Path’ tool and draw lines as shown in the image below.
Next, go to Window > Paths and you’ll be able to see the paths drawn. Right click, select ‘Stroke Path’ on the path layer and select the ‘Simulate Pressure’ option.
Finally, access the ‘styles of lines’ layer and apply these settings:
To enhance the image even more, we’ll add some more creative elements.
First, import the image entitled ‘Planet Earth with Rising Sun in Space’ (code: 8784408) and change the blending mode to ‘Screen’. Transform, rotate and place it at the bottom.
Feel free to darken this layer until the edge is not too visible.
Next, erase the sharp edges. Then, add a hue/saturation adjustment layer and set it until you can see a green hue. You can also brush to hide the green areas in order to create a blue-green tint on the Planet layer.
You can repeat the same steps for the following images – ‘Abstract, Creative Dynamic, Magic Fire Illustrations’ (code: 13742095), ‘Abstract Acceleration Speed Motion on Night Road’ (code: 9745304). It’s basically just transforming, rotating, positioning and changing colors of those elements.
As for the images entitled ‘Illustration Of A Bright Star In The Sky’ (code: 6967039) and ‘Glowing Waves’ (code: 9720928), you can change the blending mode to screen.
We’re almost there! Just a few more steps and you’ll be done.
Open the image called ‘Abstract Glowing Background with Stars’ (code: 11818701) and open the Hue/Saturation in the same layer. Set the Saturation to(-100).
Then, open the ‘Curves’ tool to adjust the contrast until the image looks like the one shown above. After that, set ‘Screen’ as the blending mode.
The result should be like this, as shown in the image above (labeled as No.3).
Finally, on top of the layer, open the ‘Color Balance’ tool and apply theShadows, Midtones and Highlights settings to the image.
You can always change the colors according to your personal preference.
Taadaa… check out the BEFORE and AFTER result.
How exciting was that? We hope you had fun with this tutorial. Stay tuned for more to come. Till next time!