Step 1 – A Good Photo

Start with a good photo. This may seem obvious to some, but that’s not always the case. There’s no Instagram setting available that is going to turn a bad photo into a good one. Trust me.

For my little tutorial here, I found this great photo by linh.ngan.

Step 4 – Square is the New Landscape

Part of the appeal of Instagram, in my opinion, is the square cropping. Why? Because it’s different. It’s not portrait, it’s not landscape… it’s something completely new. Cropping a photo to a square can sometimes be a challenge. You want to try and get everything important into the square so the new photo reads the same as the original.

Here is the photo cropped using the Crop Tool (C). Hold the Shift key down as you click and drag out the crop area. Press the enter key to complete the crop.

Step 3 -  A Little Cross Processing

A little goes a long way here, so don’t overdue your cross processing.

To add the cross processed look, I created a Curves adjustment layer over my photo.

I used the following settings for my Curves adjustment.

Here’s a look at the photo with these adjustments. Pretty big difference for one simple adjustment layer, huh?

Step 4 – A Must-Have Vignette

What’s a vintagey Instagram look without a nice vignette? Or maybe you’re asking “What’s a vignette? A vignette is that darkened edge effect that you see on a lot of vintage photo effects. Here’s how to create one in a single step.

Create a new Curves adjustment layer. On the adjustment layer’s mask use a large soft black brush to paint a circle in the center of the image.

Now when you make this adjustment it will only effect the outer edge of the photo where the white appears on the mask. Adjust the RGB curve to something similar to what I have below.

Here’s a look at the newly created subtle vignette.

Step 5 – Blurring the Edges

Instagram gives you the option to blur the edges around the subject matter of a photo. You can control the position and size of the focus area as well. Lets take a quick look at how to achieve the same effect in Photoshop.

Duplicate the original photo layer, and create a new layer mask for the layer copy. Run a Gaussian Blur (Filter | Blur | Gaussian Blur), and choose an amount that blurs the details of the photo.

Now on the layer’s mask, use a soft black brush to paint the area that you want to be in focus. This is essentially revealing the layer below that is not blurred. For this photo I chose the area over the subjects faces.

Step 6 – Adding a Border

Some of the effects in Instagram add a cool border effect. For this image lets add a nice rounded white border. To do that, choose the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U) from the tools panel. While holding the shift key draw a rectangle in the center of the image. This creates a vector shape layer. Cmd+Click the vector shape layer’s mask to create a selection from the shape.

Now create a new layer above all others, then press Cmd+Shift+i to invert the selection. Press (D) then (X) on the keyboard to reset the colors and make white the foreground. Then fill the selection by choosing (Edit | Fill) or by using the Paint Bucket Tool (G). You can now delete the vector shape layer.

There you have it! I hope this little exercise has inspired you to create your own Instagram style vintage photos. Experiment and have fun!

Here is a view of what we will be creating.

Typically with projects like these I will gather a group of photos that I think might work in the composition, and as I work I begin to narrow down what photos will and will not work. My final list of photos consisted of these:

- Honey Bee Macro (incredible photo!)
- Spring/Coil Image
- Clock Mechanism
- Skeleton Caseback

Step 1 – Deciding What Clock Gears to Use

I think the hardest part of building a composition like this is deciding what pieces to extract and composite into the the piece. In this image it was a matter of what gears and pieces would work on the bee’s body, and which of those pieces would fit well together and look like something someone would actually build.

On the two clock gear images I used the following pieces.

I used the Quick Mask Mode (Q) to extract these pieces, but you can use whatever selection method that you prefer.

Step 2 – Adding the Extracted Images to the Main Composition

This is where the blending and color matching comes into play. The idea is to make these pieces look as natural as possible in the composition, so that your eye does not get automatically drawn to an area that looks distracting or unnatural. To start, I created a new document 1500×1500 at 72 dpi, and pasted the bee image onto it.

I added the first piece, and positioned it in a way that I felt it looked natural. I decided this seemed like a starting point that I could build onto with other mechanical parts.

From there I began adding other pieces, and positioned  them like puzzle pieces. “This fits here. That fits there… etc”. As I was positioning the mechanical parts I realized that the arms sticking out sort of aligned with the bee’s wings, so I knew I wanted to accent that a little more. In comes the coil springs. I used the Puppet Warp Tool to bend the springs in the direction I wanted. If you’ve never used the Puppet Warp Tool

I felt like the metal on the arms was a little too clean compared to the first piece. So decided to overlay a texture just on that layer. Any good metal grunge texture will work well.

Next up, I painted some subtle shadows using a soft black brush at 30% opacity. The idea is to start light and build up the shadows.

Step 3 – More Detail

I like how this is looking so far. But I feel like something more is needed.

Looking at the clock gear images, I decided it might be cool if there was a little hatch or opening in the bee where the viewer could get a glimpse at some of the inner mechanisms of the bee. In order to do that I made a vector shape in the spot I felt the hatch should appear.

I made a selection using this shape and copied and pasted the bee’s back to make a separate hatch piece laying off to the side. I used the distort transform tool (Edit | Transform | Distort) to warp the hatch slightly so that the angle looked natural. Then I painted some shadows on a layer underneath.

As for the exposed mechanisms inside the view port, I coped and pasted another section of the clock gears, and used the vector shape as a guide to remove the portions I didn’t want.

Now it’s just a matter of shading the area to look a bit more natural. I used the soft black brush at 30% again.

Step 4 – Final Tweak

Before calling it complete, I noticed that one of the gear images has a small dial. So I decide that I have to use it somewhere. After a bit of trial and error, I decide to simply place on the side of the bee next to the exposed hatch.

Step 5 – Adjusting the Final Lighting

To blend the colors and light a little better, I added a Gradient Map adjustment layer. I set the layer’s blend mode to opacity, and used the following gradient.

Below is the final piece.

I hope this overview has given you an idea of my thought process as I worked through this piece, and some of the ideas that I applied while designing. Gather some photos up and give it a try. Steampunk styled compositions can be incredibly detailed and a lot of fun to build.

A lot of times gig posters will be illustration based. But since we don’t have the time to create a custom illustration, our poster will be photo based. Lets gather some interesting photos and textures that might work well together. Here’s what I found.

- Dead Tree
- Black Birds
- Single Tree
- Grunge Texture

Note: When using images for printed commercial work, be sure to check licenses and ask permission from the photographer before using.

And here’s a look at what we’ll be creating with these resources.

Step 1

Create a new document 11×17 at 300 dpi. Then grab the image of the single tree. To convert it to a solid black shape, we’ll desaturate it (Cmd+Shift+u), and then apply the Threshold setting (Image | Adjust | Threshold). You’ll need to bump the setting up just a bit to get enough black.

Now with the Magic Wand Tool (W) select the black area and copy and paste it to the poster document. We want the tree to be more gray than solid black, so select (Image | Adjust| Hue/Saturation), and bump the Lightness slide up a touch.

Lets repeat the exact steps for the dead tree / roots photo. We’ll place it on the canvas and flip it to position the image as tree roots.

Step 2

Now we’ll add some secondary elements. For the image of the birds, desaturate it (Cmd+Shift+u) then adjust the Levels (Image | Adjust | Levels) to remove the gray sky area.

Place the image on the canvas above the tree, and rotate it to appear as though the birds are flying from the tree. Set the layers blending mode to Multiply to hide the white background behind the birds.

Now using the Ellipitcal Marque Tool (M), hold the shift key and draw a circle selection on a layer behind the tree layer. Fill that layer with a medium gray (#919191), to create a moon.

Step 3

Next up, lets add the background texture. The texture I chose was not quite large enough to fill the background of an 11×17 poster. So I duplicated the texture 4 times and positioned each copy to fill the document. Then I merged all four layers and used the Clone Stamp Tool (S) to hide the seams.

Next I created a border by using the Rectangle Marque Tool (M) to draw a selection around the edge of the document. Then I inverted the selection and filled it with a light gray (#efefef) on a layer above all others.

On a layer between the tree and moon, use a large soft white brush to paint a highlight behind the tree. Set that layer’s blend mode to Overlay.

Step 4

Now lets add some text. I chose two font faces for this poster. For the main title font I used League Gothic. This is one of my favorite type faces. It’s bold and condensed, and works great for titles and headlines. For the secondary font I used Myriad Pro Condensed Bold. This font comes with most Adobe applications so you should already have it. If not, choose a condensed font that compliments League Gothic.

I placed the type as follows.

Step 5

Now it’s time to add some color. To do this add a Gradient Map Adjustment Layer above all other layers in the composition. Set the adjustment layer’s blend mode to Overlay, and use the following gradient.

There you have it… A finished gig poster done very quickly. I hope you picked up some new techniques from this tutorial and can apply them in your next project.

Step 1 – Drawing the Bat Symbol

I used the pen tool in  Illustrator to draw my bat symbol. If you’re an Illustrator guru, jump in and draw a similar shape, or feel free to embellish it a bit with your own creative flare. If you’re not familiar with drawing in Illustrator, you can download my vector bat symbol here.

Hint: If you are drawing your own symbol, only draw one side, and then duplicate and flip it so that both sides are identical.

Create a new Photoshop document at 1920×1200 (or whatever screen resolution you are targeting). Set the background color to #2e3943. Copy and paste the bat symbol vector on a new layer within the document and scale it to the center.

Step 2 – Applying Texture and Lighting to the Bat Symbol

Next up, apply the following layer styles to the bat symbol layer.

For the textures, I combined two different files. The first is from a collection called Scratched Metal here at WeGraphics. If you’re not a member of WeGraphics any good metal texture will give a similar effect. The second texture is by wojtar-stock and can be found here.

Place the first texture on a layer above the symbol, scale it down so that it just covers the symbol, desaturate it (Cmd+Shift+U) and then (Cmd+click) the bat symbol’s layer thumbnail to load the layer as a selection. Press (Cmd+Shift+i) to invert the selection and press the delete key to remove any texture outside the bat symbol shape. Now set the texture’s layer blend mode to Overlay.

Now do the exact same thing with the second texture file.

To create the highlights, I simply took a soft white brush set to 30% opacity and used different brush sizes to paint these highlights.

I placed these highlight in areas that I felt the light source may be hitting. I also used a dark brush to paint some shadows.

The image below shows the areas where I painted shadows and highlightghts.

Step 3 – Adding a Background Texture and Lighting

Last up, we’ll add a background texture with a little bit of subtle lighting. For the background texture I used a selection from the White Grunge collection here at WeGraphics. Again, if you’re not a member of WeGraphics (you should be) you can use any other subtle gray or white texture. It needs to be high resolution and no too busy that it distracts from the bat symbol.

I placed the texture on a background layer and inverted it (Cmd+i) and then set the layer’s blend mode to Opacity.

Finally, I used a large soft white brush with a low opacity to paint subtle light on a layer above the background texture. I painted this light at a slight diagonal.

That’s it! If you’d like to download my version as a 1920×1200 desktop wallpaper, I’ve made it available here.

The main post list will display differently based on post type. The sidebar includes a custom Widget to display the latest portfolio entries.

The portfolio can be displayed as 2, 3 or 4 columns. The theme utilizes PrettyPhoto pop-ups for displaying full image views.

The theme takes advantage of the the WeGraphics WP admin panel. From this panel you can control and customize a multitude of options.

From the style and layout tab, you can control everything from post options to fonts and colors. You can also swap out the large background image that appears on each page from this panel.

Bello also features a Portfolio custom post type. This allows you to view and manage your portfolio items separately from other posts.

Download the Free Bello theme from WeGraphics and give these features a test run.

View a live demo of Below here
View the theme documentation here

If you have questions or would like to see new features added to upcoming releases of Bello, feel free to post those in the comments field below.

Here is a look at my finished piece.

Here is the promo artwork that inspired the tutorial.

Gathering Photos

First up, I new I needed some pretty specific photos to complete this illustration. After searching far and wide, I came up with the following:

Untitled by John Steven Fernandez
imgp3750 by *ljon
São Paulo by Rodrigo_Soldon
Confusion by born1945
Tree trunk texture by OntologicalDoubt
Roots by SFB579

Creating the Blade

The most prominent item in the composition is the blade. I knew that I couldn’t find blade photo because the overall shape of the blade is too ornate and unlike any knife that you typically see. To create the shape of the blade I went over to Adobe Illustrator and drew the shape with the pen tool. There’s no real way to teach you how to create this shape, but if you’re familiar with the pen tool and how it works then it should be a snap. If not, I suggest taking some time to learn the basics of using the pen tool to draw basic shapes in Illustrator. It’s well worth it, and you’ll never look back.

Once you’ve created the blade you can copy and paste it over to a new PS document sized 865×865 at 72 dpi. You’ll need to tilt it to the left slightly, and keep it large enough to allow some of the blade to extend beyond the frame edge.

Lets add a very slight drop shadow to the blade shape.

Next, lets add a bit of texture to the blade. I used the blue image from the Scratched Metallic Textures here at WeGraphics, but you can use any good metal texture. Lay the texture in a layer above the blade shape, then make a selection of the blade shape by Cmd+Clicking on the layer’s thumbnail. Invert the selection (Cmd+Shift+i) and delete the texture that extends beyond the blade’s edge. Now desaturate the blade texture (Cmd+Shift+u), then use the Burn Tool (O) to darken some of the middle.

Now make a selection from the blade shape layer again, and on a new layer, use a soft white brush to trace the edges of the blade. This is to make it look like it has a sharpened edge. Note that I used a slightly darker gray brush on the opposite sides of points on the blade.

Grab these layers and drop them into a new layer group. We’re done with the blade for now.

Adding the Figure Behind the Blade

Next up, we need to extract the guy from the background, using whatever selection method you prefer, and drop him on a layer behind the blade layer group.

I used a couple of methods to sharpen him up with a bit of contrast. I duplicated the layer, and set the blend mode to opacity, then blurred it a little with a Gaussian blur. I made another duplicate layer and used the old high pass trick. Click (Filter | Other | High Pass), and then set that layer’s blend mode to Opacity.

On a new layer above the guy, I drew some dark gray clothes on him and set that layer’s blend mode to Multiply. With the brush I enlarged his collar.

Adding The Fibers Attached to the Blade

Now it’s time to start adding some of the fibers that attach the blade to the guy’s arm. I used images of tree roots to accomplish this. Open up the tree roots image and make a crude selection in Quick Mask Mode (Q). It doesn’t have to be perfect.

Copy and paste the selected roots to a layer above the blade. Convert the roots to black and white (Cmd+Shift+u), then darken them using a levels adjustment (Cmd+l), and finally use a soft edge eraser tool (E) to remove the hard edges.

Next duplicate the roots layer 3 times and move them around similar to the example below.

With the second roots image titled “Confusion”… do the same thing. Crude selection, copy and paste, and bump the contrast with levels. Place these roots on a layer above the first group of roots.

That’s starting to look pretty interesting, but I want to add some larger more prominent roots above these. To do this, I used a selection from the tree bark texture. I copied it and pasted it on a layer above all others, then used the Puppet Warp Tool (Edit | Puppet Warp) to bend and shape them. If you’re not familiar with the Puppet Warp Tool, check out our tutorial.

You’ll also need to use a levels adjustment to darken the tree bark selections. Once you’ve bent them into the right positions, you can use the dodge and burn tools to create highlights and shadows. Also, I used the eraser t soften the ends a bit

Once you’ve duplicated this process 5 or 6 times you should have something that looks like the following. Note: I erased portions of the fibers to make it look like they are overlapping.

Adding Light to the Composition

If you refer back to the inspiration piece you’ll see that there are several spots on the blade where light is peaking through cracks and openings. To create these lighted cracks will use a soft red brush (#e5431c). We’ll start from the largest light portion down to the smallest cracks.

First up, on a layer underneath the blade, we want to use a large soft brush and paint some light as follows.

Basically we’re just lighting the area behind the blade. We also need to add some light reflecting from the guy’s face.

Now, a large spot of light on a layer below the tree branch fibers.

With a small 2pt brush with an outer glow layer style, I painted small cracks near shadows in the blade.

Here are the settings for the layer style.

Creating a Background Scene

For the background, I used a radial gradient from white to light gray (#a7a5a6) starting over the guy’s left shoulder. This gradient is on a new layer at the bottom of the stack.

On a new layer above this one, I added one of the Seamless Grunge Canvas Patterns released earlier this week on WeGraphics. This step is subtle and not required if you want to skip the texture.

Next, we need to copy and paste the cityscape image above the texture layer. Set the cityscape layer’s blend mode to Soft Light. Copy it 2 times and set the top most layer’s blend mode to Vivid Light.

Lastly, I added some helicopters from our stock image. These were simply copied and pasted and then set to Multiply. You may have to lighten them a bit with a levels adjustment. Also, the further helicopters should have a lower opacity than ones that are closer to view.

Adding the Type Treatment

For the title font, I chose a font face called Codec, available here at WeGraphics. If you’re not a WG member, any good grungy type face will work. I suggest Capture It as an alternative. I placed the font on a layer between some of the tree bark fibers, so that it looks like some of them are overlapping the type.

The type has a couple of layer effects applied.

Also, I used a free brush set called Dust Particles to add a bit more grunge to the type face.

Final Tweaks and Adjustments

If you’re still with me, congrats! We’re almost there. Next up, I want to add two Gradient Map adjustment layers to the very top of the stack.

Here are the settings for those two gradients.

Lastly, I want to take a soft white brush and add a highlight just above the guy’s head. This needs to be on a new layer above the guy.

That’s it! There was a lot of steps to this one, but I’m pretty happy with the final result. I hope you were able to pick up some new ideas and techniques from this one. If anyone follows along, I’d love to see your results in the comments below.

I recently set out to see if I could mimic this look in Photoshop using a photograph. What I found was that with the help of Adobe Illustrator, the look can be achieved very easily. Lets take a look.

Here is what we’ll be creating.

And here is the original photo that I used. I love this photo! It’s titled “baavla, the charmer” and is by nandadevieast.

Step 1 Creating the Engraved Lines

First up, we need to do some file prep before we add our photo. We’ll use Adobe Illustrator to create the wavy engraved lines. If you’re more comfortable drawing with the pen tool in Photoshop you can stay within the program. But I prefer Illustrator because it’s the vector tool that I’m used to.

In Illustrator create a new file 1000×1000 pixels. You’ll then use the Pen Tool (P) to create a wavy line with a 1 pixel stroke. My line has four evenly spaced points that I moved and edited to create this line.

Next we’ll need to duplicate this line (Copy and Paste) and move it down below the canvas. Select both lines and angle them so that they are over the canvas like I have below.

Now select (Object | Blend | Blend Options). Choose “Specified Steps” and enter 150.

Select (Object | Blend | Make). Now we have a set of evenly spaced lines that will work as in our engraving.

Step 2 Add Engraved Lines to the Document

Back over in Photoshop, lets create a new document at 1000×1000 pixels. From Illustrator, we need to copy and paste our set of lines. When you copy them over Photoshop will ask how you want to paste them. Select “Pixels” from the available options. Move the newly pasted lines to the center of the document and press enter.

We’ll need to repeat this process six times, and each time we’ll need to increase the stroke of our set of lines back in Illustrator. I used stoke widths of (1, 3, 6, 7, 8) for my lines.

When you’re done your layers panel should look like this, with each set of lines gradually getting thicker.

NOTE: On the 4th layer turn your lines 90 degrees clockwise to create some vertical line variation.

Step 3 Adding the Photo

Turn off all of your lines layers. On the bottom most layer, paste the photo the man. I used a Levels adjustment to bring out the contrast a bit.

Make a copy of the layer (Cmd+J) and click (Image | Adjust | Threshold) and enter 200 for the level.

Next, we’ll be making a selection of all of the black areas. To do this click (Select | Color Range), and choose “Shadows” from the drop down.

Once you click “Okay” a selection of all of the black areas will be made. Back over on the layers panel, click to turn the visibility on for layer 1 (the layer containing the thinnest stroke lines), and click the “Add layer mask” icon at the bottom of the panel.

This will create a mask of the engraved lines for layer 1.

We’ll need to repeat this step for each of our engraved lines layers. Make a copy of the original photo each time, and reduce the threshold amount. I used 200, 160, 120, 100, 80, 60 for each of my threshold settings.

When you’re done you should have a file that looks similar to this:

Step 4 Final Adjustments

You could call this complete at this point, but I like to to tweak things a bit. For my final image I duplicated layer 4 (middle stroke weight, vertical lines), removed the mask and inverted it to white. This broke up the lines a little further. Then I moved it down a couple of layers.

For the final adjustment, I had to add a texture. You know how I roll? I chose a texture from the Old Papers Texture Set here at WeGraphics. I used a color adjustment layer to tint the black lines to a brown.

That’s it! I love this effect. Try it out on some different photos, adjust the line weights and threshold amounts for different looks. Experiment and have fun!

Preview

First, take a look at the image we’ll be creating.

Step 1

Open up Adobe Photoshop and create a document with your desired poster dimensions. Fill background with white color. Remember to use a high DPI (between 150-300 dpi) and CMYK Color Mode if you are planning on sending your work to the press. For this tutorial, I created a document sized at 842x1190px, RGB Color at 72dpi for web use.

Step 2

Download and import onto our canvas Mont Blanc mountain and ski photo. Use image below as reference.

Add Layer Mask (Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All), pick up Gradient Tool (G), make sure that Foreground color is black (#000000), choose Foreground to Transparent gradient, and draw few gradients, starting from the bottom of the picture, to soften edges and blend image to the white background.

Step 3

Sky is just too plain so we will add some clouds to our composition. Download and insert onto our canvas Swept Sky stock photo. Scale it down a bit and position like on the image below.

Desaturate Swept Sky photo (Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + U),

change Blend mode to Overlay,

and like in the previous step, use Layer Mask and Foreground to Transparent gradient to soften edge of the sky and blend perfectly with background.

Step 4

Grab Snowboard Jump Series 1 stock photo from sxc.hu, open it in Photoshop and isolate snowboarder using Pen Tool (P).

Copy and paste snowboarder in our canvas, scale it down and position using the image below as reference.

Step 5

Install Free Hi-Res Splatter Photoshop Brushes, set Foreground color to white (#ffffff), create new layer on top, and using splatter brushes you just downloaded create snow around and below snowboarder.

Apply Layer Mask, and with Soft Round Brush, using black color, mask out some parts of the snow, to blend this layer perfectly into our composition.

Step 6

Slect all layers in group them (Cmd/Ctrl + G). Duplicate this group and then Merge Group (right mouse click on group and choose Merge Group). Finally hide Group 1 (turn off eye icon).

Duplicate merged image twice, hide topmost layer, select layer just below topmost layer, and apply Gaussian Blur with Radius set to 5px.

Set Blend Mode to Multiply.

Unhide and select the layer on top, desaturate it (Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + U),

go to Filter > Other > High Pass and set Radius to 10px.

Change Blend Mode to Soft Light.

Step 7

Again select those 3 layers, duplicate them and merge them in one layer. Give this layer Gaussian Blur with Radius set to 5px.

Apply Layer Mask to this layer, pick up Brush Tool (B), and using Large Soft Brush with Opacity set to 40% dub few spots over the snowboarder.

Lower the Opacity of this layer to around 70%.

Step 8

It’s time to add some text to our composition. You will need Franchise Bold font, so in case you don’t have it already go ahead download it and install. Let’s start with first line of text “CHAMONIX-MONT BLANC”. Change the Blend Mode to Linear Burn.

Next grab Grunge Brush Set Vol1, apply Layer Mask to text, pick up any brush from just downloaded set of brushes, make sure that Foreground color is set to Black, set Opacity to around 40%, and paint over the Layer Mask.

Add another block of text.

Set Blend Mode to Linear Burn, Opacity to 70%, add Layer Mask, and again using brushes from Grunge Brush Set Vol1 paint over the mask.

Pick up Olympic Games logo and place like on the image below. Set Blend Mode to Screen for both: logo and text.

Add air carrier branding as well. I used Air France logo.

Step 9

Download and import into our design Paper0048_2 texture. Scale it down to fit our canvas and change Blend Mode to Multiply.

Use Ellipse Tool (U) to draw red (#810000) circle.

Change Blend Mode to Overlay and lower the Opacity to 40%.

Import into our canvas metal texture 7 by ~wojtar-stock, scale down a bit, set Blend Mode to Soft Light and Opacity to 40%.

Step 10

Grab a free sample from Folded and Scratched Paper Textures Part II, import into our design, scale it down so it fits our canvas.

Change Blend Mode to Screen and lower the Opacity to 50%.

Let’s make a fold more intensive. Create new layer, with Polygnal Lasso Tool (L) create selection like on the image below,

make sure that Foreground color is set to white (#ffffff), and draw small Foreground to Transparent gradient using Gradient Tool (G).

Create new layer on top, inverse selection (Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + I), change Foreground color to black and draw small Foreground to Transparent gradient using Gradient Tool (G).

Let’s take a quick look at what we did now.

Next we will add vertical fold using the same method explained above.

At the end lower the Opacity of all fold layers to 60%.

Step 11

This is the final step of tutorial. Add an adjustment layer to give our entire composition the color theme we are going for. Go to Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Brightness/Contarast to add an adjustment layer above all the other layers.

Set Brightness to +10 and Contrast to +80 and we are done!

I chose this photo because the sun is setting in the background, and we have a good foreground subject for the light rays to wrap around. To start the process, lets switch over to the channels palette, and choose the channel with the most contrast.

In this case I felt the Red Channel contained the best contrast. So I duplicated that channel by dragging red layer to the “Create New Channel” icon.

Now we need to bump the contrast even more using Levels adjustment on the Red copy layer.

Now make a selection from this layer by (Cmd+Clicking) the Red copy layer’s thumbnail on the Channels palette.

Now, with the selection still active, switch back over to the Layers panel and create a new layer. Then choose (Edit | Fill) and make sure “White” is selected for use.

You can deselect the white area now, and choose (Filter | Blur | Radial Blur) using the settings below.

This looks good, but lets take it a step further.

On the white light rays layer, add an Outer Glow layer style with the following settings.

That’s it… We added some warmth to the light rays to match the original sunlight in the photo.