Create a Stylish Two-Tone Photo Montage

Images Used

The following images were used in making this tutorial:

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/297618
http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1108940
http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1108937
http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1108939
http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1108938
http://www.sxc.hu/photo/990866
http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1174393

Step 1

Open up the first texture from this great texture set courtesy of BittBox: Light Grunge Textures.

Resize your image to be 1000x750, and you have your background.

Step 2

Now download the photo of a large statue head. Paste it into your main document. Then cutout this image using the pen tool or lasso tool.

We want the statue head to be facing upright, and to be central in our canvas. To do this, copy/paste your selection to paste the head onto a new layer. Delete the original photo. Then go to edit>transform>rotate and rotate the head until it looks right. Finally, I want to make my photo a little smaller, so I drag in the corner of my scaling box whilst holding shift+alt (to keep the same image proportions and also keep my image perfectly central in my canvas).

Step 3

Now we want to get rid of the head support on the left side of the statue's face. To do this select the clone stamp tool, and make your brush around 30-50px in size. Begin cloning areas of the statue's face around the support and pasting them over the support area. To do this, alt+click on the areas you want to copy, then release alt and click on the areas you want to hide. It doesn't matter if this step isn't absolutely perfect, but just try to roughly cover up the selected area.

Step 4

Go to image>adjustments>levels and apply the settings shown below. This should make your head a lot darker and more intense.

Step 5

Now paste in an image of an ink splatter. Position it over the dark cheek of your statue head.

To make the white background of this image hidden, change the layer's blend mode to 'multiply'.

Then resize it, and use a large soft eraser brush to merge it slightly better with the head.

Step 6

Add several more splatters to the dark side of your face. Once you've created all of your splatter layers and erased them to blend with your face, merge them all into a single 'splatter' layer.

Step 7

Now hide your 'face' layer, leaving just your background and splatter layers. Go to select>color range and apply the settings shown below. You can see that the white area in the selection window shows the area that will be selected (my splatters). This is because I've selected 'shadows' from the selection menu.

Now with your selection in place, create a new top layer called 'selection shape'. Fill in your selection on this layer using a bright, obvious color (I went with red).

Step 8

Now, stay on your 'selection shape' layer and alt+click on your 'face' layer in your layers palette. This will select your entire face shape. Now fill in this selection with your same bright color. This should give your a brightly colored shape on your 'selection shape' layer that is the same shape as your face+splatter layers data.

Step 9

Now paste in a photo of a garbage bag onto a new top layer. Resize and move it to fit over and cover your selection shape layer shape. Then, alt click on your 'selection shape' layer in your layers palette to select your colorful shape. Go to select>inverse and then select your garbage bag layer and hit 'delete'.

You can see the result of this below:

Step 10

Now go to image>adjustments>desaturate to grayscale your garbage bag.

Then go to layer>apply layer mask>reveal all and select a large, very soft, black paintbrush and begin painting over the parts of your garbage bag covering the light side of your statue's face. Be sure to use a low opacity paintbrush, as your black paintbrush strokes will be erasing parts of your garbage bag. We're using a layer mask as this preserves your original garbage bag photo if you make a mistake.

I also made sure to brush over my face's features (the eyes, nose and mouth) as I wanted these to show through more. The result of this step is that you've given parts of your face a super cool texture!

Step 11

Now go to image>adjustments>levels and apply the settings shown below in order to enhance your garbage bag texture.

Step 12

Now paste in an image of some smoke onto a new top layer called 'smoke 1′. We want to turn this photo into some stylish black smoke going over parts of our main image. To do this, first go to image>adjustments>grayscale to desaturate it. Then go to image>adjustments>invert to create a negative image of the original (black smoke on a white background).

Then to make the smoke stand out more go to image>adjustments>brightness/contrast and increase the contrast to +60.

Step 13

Now change this layer's blend mode to 'multiply' and select various parts of your smoke, moving them to fit over parts of your face. Then use a large, soft eraser brush to erase away parts of the smoke to make it blend better. I ended up duplicating this layer and merging the duplicate down with the original in order to make the smoke more prominent.

Step 14

Now use your rectangular marquee tool to select a thin strip at the top of the statue's face. Click on the mask on your garbage bag layer and fill your selection with black to hide this part of your layer. Add a layer mask (reveal all) to your face layer and repeat this same process.

Then create some similar rectangular shapes over nearby parts of your image. This should give the impression of a broken look.

Step 15

Now create a new top layer called 'pen lines'. Draw out a curved path line using your pen tool, that curves under the statue's left eye out into your main background. With a 1px black paintbrush selected, right click on your path line and click 'stroke path'. This should give you a 1px curved black line. Then duplicate this layer and move the duplicate 5px beneath the original. Repeat this several times, and then merge all of your path line layers together. Then use a large, soft eraser to erase the left and right sides on your collection of path lines. Finally, reduce this layer's opacity to 50%.

Step 16

Paste in a photo of a rock. Cut it out using your pen tool or lasso tool. Then go to image>adjustments>desaturate. Then duplicate your rock image multiple times, each time resizing and rotating the image to make your composition more random. Try to make the light side of each rock face the right side of your canvas, as this fits with the lighting of your statue's face.

Step 17

Now go to filter>blur>gaussian blur and apply varying amounts of blur to each rock. You want to blur the closer rocks much more, and apply a subtle blur to the furthest away. Ultimately you're looking to give the impression of perspective in your cluster of rocks.

And We're Done!

I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial, and as always I'd really appreciate your comments.

You can view the full-sized outcome by clicking the image below: