Learn advanced selecting techniques that are fast and easy, and create a sea monster photo-manipulation.
First you will need a photo of the sea and the sky.
Once you've downloaded them, place them both in a 1600 x 900 Photoshop document.
Place the sea photo in a layer above the sky photo, and use a layer mask with a black to white gradient to mask out the sky.
Add a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer above them.
Set the Brightness to -15, and the Contrast to +50.
Next we'll add the splash.
Open it up in Photoshop and make a duplicate layer.
We want to make it as easy as possible to make a selection of the splash, so first go to the Channels panel and click on the Red layer.
The Red channel has the highest contrast between the splash and the water.
To make the contrast even greater, adjust the Brightness and Contrast as shown above.
Now we can make our selection easily. Go to Select>Color Range, the default settings should be fine, so just click OK.
You can delete the duplicate layer now, leaving the selection over your original photo.
Copy and paste it into your background.
Adjust the scale and the angle.
Desaturate the splash, and use a layer mask to fade in the bottom of the splash with a soft black brush.
Add a new layer above the splash layer and call it 'foam'.
Take the Gradient tool set to Radial going white to transparent, and draw a small gradient.
Use the transform tool to stretch it, and place it at the base of the splash.
Change the foam layer's blending mode to Soft Light.
Next we'll add the sea birds.
The birds can easily be selected with the Quick Selection tool.
Paste the bird into your document, resize it, and desaturate it.
Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer above the bird layer with a clipping mask.
Take the Saturation all the way down and take the Lightness down to -20.
Add a Brightness/Contrast layer with the Brightness set to -60, and the Contrast set to +60.
Repeat the process with two more birds.
Next we'll add the tentacle.
Use the Quick Selection tool to make a selection of one of the tentacles.
With the tentcle pasted into a new document, go to Edit>Puppet Warp.
Add a series of points along the tentacle, then drag individual points as well as groups of point to reshape the tentacle.
Once finished, paste the tentacle into your document and resize and rotate it as needed.
Desaturate it and add a Brightness/Contrast layer above it with a clipping mask.
Set the Brightness to -30 and the Contrast to +20.
Next take the Dodge tool with the Exposure set to 10% and the Range set to Midtones.
Use it to lighten the left side of the tentacle as if light is hitting it from that side.
Then take the Burn tool set to Shadows at 15%.
Use it to darken the base of the tentacle and the right side.
Add a new layer above all the others and fill it with black.
Go to filter>Render>Lens Flare and position the light source to the far left of the image.
Set the lens flare layer's blending mode to Screen at 50% Opacity.
Next add a Gradient adjustment layer set to Radial from black to transparent.
Set its blending mode to Soft Light.
Finally add a new layer called 'grain', and fill it with grey.
Go to Filter>Noise>Add Noise and set it to Monochromatic at 100%, then set the layer's blending mode to Overlay at 10% Opacity.
That's it.
