Today’s advanced Photoshop tutorial will teach you digital portrait painting by showing you how to draw a beautiful woman from scratch using Photoshop.

Final Image

As always, this is the final image that we’ll be creating:

Step 1

This image is painted in photoshop by using graphic pen tablet in which several digital painting techniques and fundamentals are involved.

Hence, before we start painting let’s have a look about some basic fundamentals. In a digital painting three basic elements are:

Light: To add lightness to the scene.

Shadow: To add depth and shadows to the scene.

Blending: To add smooth blending to the scene.

Step 2

Create a new document of dimension 1920 x 1080 pixels, select a brush of size 2 pixels, press F5 and change the brush setting mentioned below:

Other Dynamics; Opacity Jitter – 0%, Flow Jitter – 0%.

Step 3

Start drawing outline of the face, you can take any image for reference for it. Don’t spend too much time to add details, a rough sketch will work and we will get enough time to add details. Set background color other than grey like #a49a92.

Step 4

Select a large brush of color #e6cbb0 and fill the color in the face. Next, select a brush of size 30 pixels & color #62463b and start adding shadows to the face. Now change the brush color to #f6e7c8 and add lights to the face.

Step 5

Now select a brush of size 35 pixels with following settings:

Shape Dynamics:

minimum diameter – 70%, Control – Pen Pressure. Set size jitter, angle jitter and roundness to 0%.

Next start blending lights and shadows, change the brush size when needed to get smooth skin shading. The result may look like this:

That’s the end of the preview!

• Join our FanExtra members community to access this full tutorial.
• Existing members can login here to access this tutorial.

As always, this is the final image that we’ll be creating:

Step 1

So let’s start with a new document of 2000 px width and 1600 px height at 300 resolutions. Actually size doesn’t matter here; you can keep any size according to your preferences.

Step 2

Press G to select gradient tool and choose color b91414 & ffc600.

Drag from top of document to centre. The result will be look like this.

Step 3

Now select gradient tool by pressing G and select white color and gradient type “Foreground to Transparent”.

Step 4

Now open the green crop image and remove the sky and clouds from image and name this layer “Crop”.

Step 5

Drag Crop layer to our main document. Press Ctrl + T to transform layer and increase its height according to scene.

Step 6

Now create a color balance adjustment layer and put these settings:

Midtone ; Cyan-Red = -43, Magenta-Green = +29, Yellow-Blue = 0.
Shadow; Cyan-Red = +10, Magenta-Green = 0, Yellow-Blue = -17.

Your result will look like this:

Step 7

Now open a forest image and hide its unwanted area to fit in our scene.

If everything goes well then result will be like this.

Step 8

Now open Hill layer and press P to select pen tool. Remove all the unwanted area from image.

Step 9

Drag this image to our scene and transform it to fit proportionally in our perspective.

Step 10

Open Tree image now if you’ll isolate it with pen toll then it will consume your too much time. So to save that time there is a short method of quickly isolating such images. To isolate tree go to channel palate and duplicate blue channel because in this channel, tree is darker and can be easily isolated. Rename it “Tree”. Now select “Tree” channel and press Ctrl + L to adjust level and put these settings; 0, 0.10, 255.

Ctrl + Click “Tree” channel and you’ll get a fine selection of tree to isolate.

Step 11

Now remove tree’s steam and keep only leaves to use it for grass near hill layer. Open another tree layer, isolate it same as in step 10 and name it Tree 2. Use its upper leafy part as grass near hill.

Step 12

Select a soft brush of size 30 px and color black. Paint the grass base from right to left to give it shadow.

Step 13

Now it’s time to add some tree in scene. Open Tree 2 file and drag isolated tree to scene. Transform and resize it to near hill perceptively. Hide the bottom part of tree and add shadow to give it natural look.

Step 14

Put few more trees to give it a more natural look. I want a red tree to enhance my scene for this open Tree 1 file and repeat step 13 to add another tree. Add Hue/Saturation adjustment layer of these values Hue -78, saturation 0, Lightness 0. Press Alt + click between Tree 1 layer and adjustment layer to clip mask it.

Step 15

Now open the background hill image and remove its sky. Drag it to our scene and place according to perspective. Create a color balance adjustment layer with these settings; Midtones -3, +62, +32, Shadows +7, +22, +15.

Your result will look like this.

Step 16

Now we need to add sun in our scene. Select a brush of size 250 px and 50% hardness. Click once to make soft circle, this is our basic shape of sun.

Step 17

Select another brush of size 400 px and 0% hardness. Click once on sun to give it a light glow.

Step 18

Select another brush of size 600 px with 0% hardness. Choose color fced9e and click once behind the sun to give it warm glow.

Step 19

Select light rays brush of size 1200 px with 80% opacity and create rays on left side near to hill.

Step 20

Select another ray brush of size 1200 px and create rays right side and middle part of crop.

Step 21

Select another brush of size 900 px with 48% opacity and create few more rays to sun. Mask unwanted area of rays to give it perfect natural look. Group all rays layer and sun layers and name group SUN.

Step 22

Now add some clouds from cloud brushes to give life to the sky. There are many websites where you can download free brushes.

Step 23

Looking good but need more touch up? Ok, give some lighting to the scene by adding some adjustment layers below sun layer group. Create a Selective color adjustment layer and apply these settings;

Step 24

Create a level adjustment layer with these settings:

Apply layer masking in this way to get desired effect.

Step 25

Now create a curve adjustment layer with these setting; and use same layer mask as in Step 24.

Step 26

Create a color balance adjustment layer and put these settings; Highlights +59, 0, -58.

Press Ctrl + I to hide all effect and select brush tool for masking. Select soft brush of white color and apply this layer mask.

Your result will look like this;

Step 27

We are nearly finished. Now duplicate all layers and merge them. Go to filter menu and apply lighting effects with these settings;
Spotlight
Intensity; Full 32
Focus : Wide 85

Properties
Gloss: 0
Material : Metallic 71
Exposure : 0
Ambience : Positive 10

Choose soft brush and apply layer mask like this:

And We’re Done!

That’s the tutorial finished! I hope you’ve enjoyed it and learnt something useful.

Download Source File for this Tutorial

Final Image

The result of this tutorial is shown below:

What You Will Learn

This tutorial is very in depth, and covers the design techniques listed below:

• Learn how to correctly implement blending options in order to build up a base structure for your object.
• Learn how to pay close attention to the details of your composition, and how to create an accurate, realistic outcome.
• Learn how to remove the need for pre-made textures, and instead create your own custom textures and brushes from scratch.
• Learn how to build up a variety of lighting effects, using multiple techniques, for a multi-layered, richer outcome.
• & Much More!

Learn how to correctly implement blending options in order to build up a base structure for your object.

Learn how to pay close attention to the details of your composition, and how to create an accurate, realistic outcome.

Learn how to remove the need for pre-made textures, and instead create your own custom textures and brushes from scratch.

Final Image

As always, this is the final image that we’ll be creating:

Step 1

So let’s start with a new document of 3300 px width and 2336 px height at 300 resolutions. I created large document because I wanted to print it on A4 size.

Step 2

Press U and select rectangle tool and create a rectangle of document size and apply gradient overlay with colors 890000 & ffb400. Now select transform tool and increase rectangle size from document size to 4515 px width and 3196px height.

Duplicate the rectangle and apply 10% transparency with normal mode. Your gradient will automatically transform and results will be like this.

Step 3

Now select type tool and write letter “H”. Font is your choice but I used here font Akashi of 180 pt weight. Go to the layer style option and reduce the Fill Opacity to zero in Advanced Blending. Now apply these layer styles.

Gradient overlay: color c00000 & ec7272

Inner glow: color fba8a8, opacity 76%, blending mode screen.

Inner shadow: color ffc7c7, 65% opacity and size 13px.

Step 4

Now duplicate the letter H and name it emboss. Remove all layer style and fill opacity to 100%. Shift it slightly right and down to give it emboss look. Now ctrl + click on text layer “H” and press delete to remove unwanted area.

Ctrl + click emboss layer, right click and click on “Make Work Path”. Now select direct selection tool by pressing A and select anchor points. Adjust them and fill it with color d90000 to give it a real 3d look.

Step 5

Now isolate all the faces of emboss layer like right face, bottom faces, and apply these layer style.

Step 6

Apply layer style same as in step 5 here.

Step 7

Now select the bottom of letter H and apply gradient overlay same as in step 5 with 90 degree angle.

Step 8

Repeat step 3,4,5,6 & 7 in letter O and T. The result will look like this.

Step 9

Merge all layers of text HOT and name it hot. Change its blending mode to overlay. Duplicate the HOT layer and change blending mode to darken name it HOT 1. Duplicate this HOT1 layer.

Step 10

Ctrl + click HOT1 layer, select a soft brush of color black and size 100 px and paint the shadow of text considering the source of light on top left. Change its opacity to 10% and blending mode to multiply.

Step 11

Now ctrl + click letter H, O, and T and save this selection to HOT and apply layer mask. Create new layer & name it shadow, load selection HOT and fill it with black color. Apply motion blur of -36 degree and decrease its opacity to 25% with multiply mode.

Step 12

Copy HOT layer and change its blending mode to dissolve. Create a new Hue/Saturation adjustment layer with setting; Hue 6, Saturation 3, Lightness 0. Create clip mask by pressing alt + click on between the adjustment layer & HOT layer.

Step 13

Duplicate HOT layer again and keep it on top go to Filter gallery choose Reticulation filter with these settings:

Density: 3
Foreground Level: 40
Background Level: 5

Change its blending mode to soft light. Name it R filter.

Step 14

Looks good! Now select brush of 15 px size and 100% hardness, press F5 to access brush option and increase size jitter to 100% on Shape Dynamics. On the scattering option keep scatter 90%. Now click layer mask button bottom to layer pallet. Click on the layer mask, choose black color and hide the area where we’ll burn it.

In this tutorial you will learn how to create an elegant hourglass in Photoshop. While using simple techniques and paying a little attention to the lights, shadows and reflection you can achieve perfect result with photorealistic details.

Final Image

As always, this is the final image that we’ll be creating:

What you will need to create this.

Wood Texture

Step 1

Create a new document of dimension 1900 x 1440 pixel and fill the background with color # ededed. Select pen tool and create the upper shape of hourglass. Make sure to turn shape layer on.

Step 2

Change the ‘Fill’ to 0% just below the ‘Opacity’ option in layer palate. Apply inner glow layer style with color #bdc1c2 and opacity 50%. Name this layer to “outer glass”.

Step 3

Duplicate “outer glass” layer, right click on the layer and choose ‘clear layer style’ to remove all layer styles. Press ctrl + t to transform layer, click on ‘Maintain Aspect ratio’ icon between width & height option and set the height to 98%. Name this layer to “inner glass” and apply inner glow layer style with these settings;

Step 4

Duplicate “inner glass” layer, group all layers and merge the group into a single layer. Name the group to “upper glass”. Now create another shape inside upper glass, make sure to turn shape layer on and apply inner glow layer style of color # 43494a, size 125px and opacity 75%. Name this layer to “glass shadow”.

Step 5

Now we will create some lights and reflections, to do this create a new shape with the help of pen tool. Set its color to white, change its blending mode to soft light & opacity to 40%. Name this layer to “reflection top”.

Step 6

Create two more shapes to create other reflections, set their color to white and rename both layers to “reflection top left” & “reflection top right”.

Step 7

Create lower glass by following steps 1 – 4 and step 6. Create another shape to create reflection on the top of lower glass. Change its color to white and set its blending mode to soft light with opacity to 40%.

Step 8

Now we are going to create middle part of hourglass for this, press P to select pen tool and create a shape with ‘Fill’ 0%. Ctrl + click on the layer to get its selection, select a soft brush of color #d2d2d2 and paint along the left and right edges. Name this layer to “middle”.

Step 9

Now merge “outer glass” layer into “inner glass” layer in both upper and lower glass. Create a layer mask and hide the edges in the centre part. The hourglass will look like this:

Step 10

Now we will create the sand inside the hourglass for this, create a new document of 1000 X 1000 pixels and fill it with color #b0926c. Go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and add 28% noise to the layer, name this layer to “noise”.

Step 11

Import “noise” layer to our document, select pen too and create a shape for sand in lower glass. Don’t forget to set ‘Fill’ to 100%. Change this shape layer’s color to # b0926 and rename this shape layer to “lower sand”. Select the “noise” layer and keep it just above the “lower sand” layer now press ‘Alt + Ctrl + G’ to create a clip mask. You can also create a clip mask by going to Layer > Create Clip Mask.

Step 12

Now it’s time to add some shadows, to do this select a soft brush of color #a08d76 and brush the highlighted areas to create shadows.

If everything done properly your result will look like this:

Step 13

To create lights, select a soft brush of color # c7b59d & opacity to 60% and paint the highlighted area to create light at that part. Create another layer and paint the upper part of sand, set the blending mode of the layer to screen.

Step 14

Repeat step 11 – 13 to create sand for upper glass, create the upper surface of sand to give it natural look. Create another sand layer in middle part of hourglass in the same way as you created in step 11 – 13.

Step 15

Now to create falling sand, select the “noise” layer and select an area by rectangular marquee tool. Press Ctrl + J to isolate the selection, press Ctrl + T to transform layer and stretch it vertically, again transform layer, right click and select ‘warp’ then transform it to create falling sand. Apply some shadow to match with sand and result will look like this;

Step 16

To create reflections on middle part of hourglass, select pen tool and create reflections carefully. Group these layers and name the group to “white reflections”. Create a new group and rename it to “shadows”, now create some dark shadows in the middle part by pen tool and change its color to # 282828.

Step 17

Now we will create reflection of sand on upper and lower glasses. For this, select pen tool and create a shape of color # ccc3b5. Change its blending mode to color and opacity to 20%.

Step 18

Create another shape of color # 543f25 by pen tool and set its opacity to 30%. Hide the unwanted area by masking; name this shape layer to “lower sand reflection”. Duplicate this layer, transform it to make a little small and set its blending mode to hard light and opacity 20%. Create another shape of color white, change its opacity to 5% and name it “sand reflection white”.

Step 19

We have nearly completed hourglass just need to add some more details or shadows. Reflection in the middle part is quite complicated so pay more attention to this part. Create some more shadows and reflection in the same as in step 16. Change the opacity of layers wherever you feel needed.

Step 20

Create the lights for hourglass, make a selection of hourglass and brush the highlighted areas with color white with opacity 10%.

Step 21

Now we will create the wooden base of hourglass. For this, create a shape layer of color # 766044, name this shape layer to “base”. Open “woodtexture.jpg” and clip mask it to “base” layer, set its blending mode to ‘overlay’. Select a large soft brush of color black and create shadow to base.

Step 22

Next create an ellipse of color # 85643d, name this layer to “base surface” and apply inner glow layer style. Open “woodtexture.jpg”, go to Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates and select ‘Rectangular to Polar’ option. Import this layer to our document, clip mask this layer to “base surface” layer. Rename this layer to “wood polar”, duplicate this layer and set its blending mode to overlay with opacity 60%.

Step 23

Our hourglass is nearly completed now add shadows to the base of hourglass. Select a soft brush of color black, press F5 to access brush options and set roundness to 30%. Create shadows on base of hourglass. Group all layers and name the group to “hourglass”.

Step 24

Next create the desk on which hourglass will be placed. Create a rectangle of color # d4b383, import “woodtexture.jpg” and set its opacity to 60%. Name this layer to “base wood texture”, duplicate the layer and set its blending mode to ‘soft light’ & opacity 60%. Duplicate “desk” layer, keep it to the top of texture layers and set its blending mode to ‘soft light’. Rename this layer to “wood color”. Wooden base would look like this. Group these layers and name the group “base”. Duplicate this group and merge all layers, go to Filter > Blur >Gaussian Blur and apply blur of 2.5 radius. Add layer mask and hide lower part of base.

Step 25

Now we are creating walls for this, create a gradient of color # bd4300 & # cb8602. Go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and apply noise to 4%.

Step 26

Create another radial gradient of color black and white, set its blending mode to ‘soft light’ and opacity to 40%. Select a large brush of color # b88d71 and brush around the corners of the scene to darken them.

Step 27

Next select rectangular marquee tool and create four rectangles of color white to create window. Group them and name the group to “window”, copy and merge this group and rename it to “window glass”. Press Ctrl + T and transform “window glass” layer, apply blur of radius 5 pixel and set its blending mode to ‘soft light ‘, set its opacity to 70%.

Step 28

We are about to finish this tutorial now we will add some lighting. Copy all layers and merge them, rename this file to “hourglass scene”. Go to Filter > Render > Lighting effect and apply these settings;

Mask the desk area to remove lighting effect from desk and create the hourglass reflection on the desk.

And We’re Done!

You can view the final outcome below. I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial and would love to hear your feedback on the techniques and
outcome:

Download Source File for this Tutorial

This tutorial is available exclusively to our FanExtra members. In order to read the tutorial and download it’s original .psd source file you must sign up as a FanExtra member.

If you sign up today you get access to over 120 .psd source files, as well as our weekly members only tutorials and other content!

Create an Amazing 3d Text Effect

Final Image

The result of this tutorial is shown below:

What You Will Learn

This tutorial is very in depth, and covers design techniques listed below:

• Learn how to create 3d text from scratch
• Work with adjustment layers, and complex curves settings
• Create complex lighting effects from scratch
• Learn how to focus on the details of your composition, giving your design a polished, professional look.
• Create a complex background design
• Integrate custom brushes into your work, manipulating them to fit your composition
• & Much More!

Learn how to construct awesome 3d text from scratch.

Learn how to focus on the details of your text within Photoshop, including lighting, tone, and texture.

Learn how to integrate patterns into your typography, working with masking and layer adjustments.

Extra Bonuses

As an extra bonus, with this tutorial pack you will not only be downloading the original layered source file for this tutorial, but the custom brushes used in the piece, as well as an old paper texture and pattern set. Download the exclusive members-only tutorial pack today:

As always, this is the final image that we’ll be creating:

Step 1

We will start with importing a stock image named anger.jpeg taken from sxc.hu

Step 2

Press W to select magic wand tool, keep Tolerence 45 and select the black area around the face. Press Ctrl + I to invert the selection and press Ctrl + j to separate the face from its background.

Keep in mind that we are not removing black background but making a selection of face. Hence don’t delete the original background.

Step 3

Now it’s time to add crack. You can download crack brushes from any websites like brusheezy.com or in inspiration category in psdfan.com. Or use brush which I downloaded it from http://hawksmont.com and http://hawksmont.deviantart.com

So let’s start to add crack brush.

The crack will look like this;

Now choose another brush and create second crack like this;

And it will look like this;

Step 4

I think this is enough to explain the method by which I created crack. Feel free to experiment with more brushes and use brushes carefully to make crack more natural and original. I used these brushes.

And our crack will look like this;

Step 5

Select all crack layers and merge them into single layer and name it “crack”. Fill this crack layer with dark red color 8e0f0c. Set blending mode to linear burn.

Step 6

Duplicate the crack layer and set blending mode to pin light. Again duplicate this layer and change the blending mode to pin light. The crack will look like this;

Step 7

Merge all the layers and name it “destroy”. Always keep a copy of all layers so that you can go back to any step and access all layers. Duplicate the “destroy” layer and set the blending mode to multiply. Rename this layer to “multiply”

Step 8

Now the image looks too saturated and reddish but crack looks perfect. So we will mask all area of face which don’t looks impressive and will show only area of crack. Now keep selected the “multiply” layer and Ctrl + click the “crack” layer which we created in step 4. This will create a selection of crack.

Step 9

Now click on the “Add vector mask” button at the bottom in the layer panel to add layer mask.

Now crack will look more realistic.

Step 10

Now it’s time to make some color correction to give it dramatic & bold look. Create an curve adjustment layer with these settings;

R = Output – 134, input – 147;
G = Output – 136, input – 129;
B = Output – 123, input – 139

Step 11

Create a vibrance adjustment layer with these settings; vibrance = -10, Saturation = +1.

Create a hue saturation adjustment layer with saturation -5

The image will look like this;

Step 12

We are in last step to complete this tutorial. Image and crack are looking more impressive and realistic but you can add some more depth to the image. Duplicate all the layers and name it “destroyed anger”, duplicate this layer and name it “black and white”. Apply black and white adjustment layer with these settings;

Select the “black & white” layer and black and white adjustment layer and merge them. Apply Gaussian blur of radius 2 pixel and set the blending mode to multiply with 20% opacity. And this is the final result.

And We’re Done!

You can view the final outcome below. I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial and would love to hear your feedback on the techniques and outcome:

Download Source File for this Tutorial