PSDFan Extra

Creating the Terrifying Photo-Manipulation ‘Wrath’

Final Image

Here is a preview of the image that we are going to be creating:

Step 1

Create a new document (800X900px). Fill your canvas with 000000 and then drag out a radial gradient from roughly the center of your canvas, ranging from 313131 to 000000.

Step 2

Now paste in your burnt wood texture, resizing it to fit nicely over your background.

Then reduce this layer’s opacity to around 6%, giving a subtle background texture.

Step 3

Now select your ‘Flame 1′ image from the resources for this tutorial.

Paste it into your canvas, and change the layer blend mode to ‘screen’. This will hide the black background of your flame image, letting the main background show through.

Step 4

Now apply a levels adjustment layer (settings below). Then go to layer>apply clipping mask. This ensures that your levels adjustments only effect your flame image, not your entire image.

Levels Adjustment Layer Settings:

54 / 0.96 / 243

Step 5

Now go to edit>transform>warp. Warp your flame to ensure that it has more of a curve and appears more natural:

Step 6

Now repeat the previous step, adding all of the flames from the resources section to this tutorial.

Remember with each flame to set it’s blend mode to ‘screen’ and to apply a levels adjustment layer and clipping mask.

Step 7

Now paste in your screaming man photo, positioning him centrally over your ring of flames.

I cut the man out from his background using the lasso tool, but use whichever tool you’re more familiar with. No need to be too careful cutting out his hair, as this will be mostly hidden later.

Once you’ve pasted in your man, go to layer>layer mask>reveal all. Use a medium sized, soft black paintbrush to mask off the top of his hair, and the bottoms of his arms/torso:

Step 8

Now apply a hue/saturation and levels adjustment layer. With each layer apply a clipping mask, ensuring that they only effect your man layer.

Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer Settings:

Hue: 0
Saturation: -100
Lightness: 0

Levels Adjustment Layer Settings:

34 / 0.70 / 234

Step 9

Paste in your ‘lion mouth open’ photo from the resources for this tutorial.

You’ll notice that the mouth isn’t quite straight on. To try and fix this go to edit>transform>warp and warp your mouth into a more straight-on shape.

Step 10

Now we want to blend this lion mouth with the man photo. Start by applying a hue/saturation and levels adjustment layer. With each adjustment layer remember to apply a clipping mask.

Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer Settings:

Hue: 0
Saturation: -100
Lightness: 0

Levels Adjustment Layer Settings:

8 / 0.86 / 233

Once you’ve corrected the color/tone of your image, apply a layer mask, and mask off the edges of your lion mouth photo until it blends smoothly with your underlying man’s face. For the trick areas of hair, I went in with a 1px black paintbrush and masked that way, to give the impression of stray hairs etc…

Step 11

Use the exact same technique to add a mane of lion hair to your screaming man:

For this main the technique of masking off fine details using a soft, 1px black paintbrush was invaluable.

Step 12

Now download your 3D paint splatters from the resources for this tutorial.

Paste one of them into a new document.

Now duplicate this layer, and up the contrast of your duplicate paint splatter by applying the following levels adjustment settings: 32 / 0.80 / 183

Now go to select>color range. With your color range window open, use your eye dropper tool to click on your black background. This will display as white in your color range window, and will be what is selected. This is why we applied the levels adjustments, so that the background was totally black. Hit ‘OK’.

Now that your black background is selected, go to select>inverse. This will invert your selection and your paint splatter will be selected. Then go to select>modify>contrast and contract your selection by 1px. This will ensure that your paint splatter doesn’t have an ugly black border when shown against another backdrop.

Finally, paste your paint splatter into your original document, resizing, rotating and warping it until it fits nicely into your composition:

Step 13

Now mask off the top of your paint splatter so that it blends seamlessly into your man’s arm. Then apply a hue/saturation adjustment layer and levels adjustment layer (applying a clipping mask to each of these).

Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer Settings:

Hue: 0
Saturation: -100
Lightness: 0

Levels Adjustment Layer Settings:

14 / 1.04 / 179

Step 14

Now repeat the last step, pasting in several more paint splatters, and fitting them into your composition:

Step 15

Now we want to paste in some more flames that entwine around our figure.

Using the ‘screen’ layer mode won’t work for this step, as this will make the flames more transparent than we want. Therefore use the color range extraction option again to isolate your flame image:

Step 16

Paste your extracted flame image into your original document. Then resize/transform it to be much more narrow, and then mask off the edges so that it appears to be wrapping around the torso of your figure:

Step 17

Now apply an outer glow blending option to your flame layer.

Outer Glow Settings:

Blend Mode: Normal
Opacity: 34%
Color: ff8a00
Spread: 0%
Size: 16px

Then duplicate your flame layer, to make the effect more intense. Repeat this step to create another flame winding around the top-left of your figures head:

Step 18

Create a layer called ‘dodge/burn’.

Go to edit>fill and fill your layer with 50% gray. Then change this layer’s blend mode to ‘overlay’. This will allow you to paint on black/white to act as shadows/highlights for your image. Be sure to use a soft paintbrush, at around 10% opacity to dodge/burn your image:

The images below show your dodge/burn layer at ‘normal’ blend mode and ‘overlay’ blend mode.

Step 19

It’s time to add some final highlights. These will help illuminate your image, but will also give the impression of color/light being cast on your main figure from the surrounding flames:

Drag out a white to transparent radial gradient. Then on a new layer drag out yellow-transparent radial gradients, and finally on another new layer drag out orange-transparent radial gradients. With each of these layers, reduce their opacity to around 10%. This should just give a subtle glow effect.

Below you can see all of your radial gradients at 100%, and then at around 10%.

Step 20

Now apply a gradient map, levels and curves adjustment layer (settings below):

Gradient Map Adjustment Layer Settings:

Gradient Ranging From: 2179cb to 7b08b1.
Layer Opacity: 7%

Levels Adjustment Layer Settings:

Levels: 8 / 1.00 / 243
Layer Opacity: 100%

Curves Adjustment Layer Settings:

(see below)

Step 21

To finish apply some text to the top center of your canvas.

Font Settings:

Font Face: Trajan Pro
Size: 60pt
Kerning: -50
Color: ffffff

Then apply an outer glow blending option to this layer to give a subtle glow:

Outer Glow Settings:

Blend Mode: Screen
Opacity: 57%
Color: ffa800
Spread: 0%
Size: 8px

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.

Click on the image below to view the full-sized outcome:

Download Source File for this Tutorial

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