When romance is gone leaving dead petals with dry and sharp thorns, you find yourself cracked on the desert of loneliness with the heart full of wounds and bloody tear...
My first surreal photo manipulation ! Not sure if its really nice ! But i hope you still find something useful in it
Resources:
Desert
Model : from Photoxpress, i will give the link later.
Thorn
Heart
Stitches brushes
Cracked brushes
Rose petals
1. Open desert background and duplicate it. Apply Lens Correction from Distort filter:
Add layer mask with soft black brush, eraser parts as shown below:
2. Create two new adjustment layers:
Curves:
Gradient Map:
Set Gradient Map layer to Overlay 30%:
3. Open model stock. I only cut the face and place it on desert, name it "face"
Create a new layer under face layer, use soft black brush to create shadow for the face. Try different opacity for the shadow under face( higher opacity) and shadow beside face ( lower opacity) to fit the light on background.
4. To create "plastic" effect, i duplicate face layer, and apply Surface blur:
5. Now we will correct the light on face. Right click face copy layer, change Inner Shadow:
After this step, we see light on some unwanted parts:
To remove it, right click face copy layer to reveal layer effect( Inner Shadow)
Right click Inner shadow, choose Create layer:
Now we have Inner Shadow as a normal layer with Clipping Mask option:
Add layer mask to clear light effect on parts selected like on a previous screenshot:
6. To darken the face part that is not shown up by the light from background, i create a new Curves layer above the face copy layer and make sure that Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask is checked. By this way the Curves only affect face copy layer.
7. Create a new layer on the top. Use Pen tool to create a path then make a selection, fill it with color 560303 like the pic below show we have a blood flowing from eye : ( to make this blood look softer and more realistic, set feather for selection = 1)
Add layer style for this blood:
Add layer mask and soft black brush again to eraser the part near to eye:
Make a new layer, with same technique to make a blood drop that is fallen on desert from the eye:
8. Cut the thorn and move to the right of the pic:
To correct the light on the thorn, i use Inner Shadow and Inner Glow effect:
Duplicate this layer and transform as shown below:
9. Cut the heart and move into top of thorns:
. Place this layer under thorn layers.
Like with thorns, apply Inner Shadow and Inner Glow to fix the light of heart:
Create a new Hue/Saturation layer with Clipping Mask option like in step 6.
We have:
Come back to thorn layers, add layer mask with brush to clear some parts to make the heart look like stabbed by thorn:
10. Create a new layer and set on the top. Use stitches brushes with color 560303 to draw on the heart, then set this layer to Multipy 100%:
11. New layer and set to Hard light 100%, use cracked brushes with color 3a3739 to paint on the face:
12. Use soft brush. color 560303 , on a new layer that is set to Multipy 40% to darken lips:
13. Open rose petals stock. Choose some of them and move them on desert, remember to transform them:
Merge all rose layers and apply Drop Shadow:
To make dead effect for petals, i create a new Hue/Saturation layer above petals layer with Clipping Mask option, reduce lightness and Saturation:
14. Create a new layer above Hue/Saturation layer with Clipping Mask option. Use soft white brush to spot on petals as shown below:
Set this layer to Soft light 100%:
15. Create some new adjustment layers:
Color Balance:
Midtones: 8, 8, 8
Shadows: -1, 3, 10
Hightlights: 8, 4, -16
New color fill layer ( color 2919c0) with Soft light mode 10%.
Hue/Saturation:
16. Stamp visible all layers. Use Lasso Tool to make a selection on desert thats near to horizon with feather 40.
Right click it choose Layer via Copy, then apply Gassian blur with 8 px, lower opacity to 50%:
Add layer mask to clear blur effect on the thorns.
17. Final touch! Stamp visible again. Choose a selection as shown below:
Apply Gassian blur with 4 px, then set it to Soft light 50%:
