PSDFan Extra

Photo Manipulate a Falling Angel

Final Image

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

Resources Used In This Tutorial

Step 1

Create a new document (600X700px).

Paste in a rough looking texture. I chose one of the ‘color fog’ textures available right here at PSDFAN. You can download the entire texture set here: Colored Fog Texture Set. Stretch your texture to fit your canvas perfectly, and then call this layer ‘background texture’.

Step 2

Now go to image>adjustments>hue/saturation. Reduce this layer’s saturation to -80.

Step 3

Now go to image>adjustments>levels and apply the settings shown below. Reduce the layer’s opacity to around 20%.

Step 4

Now paste in a photo of some clouds, and place them at the top of your canvas. Remove the original sky background using the pen tool (or magic wand tool if it’s a solid color). This leaves only the cloud. Then duplicate this layer, and go to edit>rotate>rotate 180 degrees. Move this rotated cloud to the bottom of your canvas. Then merge these two layers together, and call the merged layer ‘clouds’.

Step 5

Now change your ‘clouds’ layer’s blend mode to ‘hard light’. Then duplicate this hard light layer and merge the two layers together. Reduce the opacity of this merged layer to 85%. Then go to image>adjustments>desaturate to grayscale the layer.

Step 6

Now select a texture from our Concrete Textures Set and paste it onto a new top layer.

Then change this layer’s blend mode to ‘multiply’ and reduce it’s opacity to 20%. Go to image>adjustments>hue/saturation and reduce your saturation to -85. If you feel that it’s necessary, go to filter>sharpen>sharpen, just to really bring out the details of the texture.

Step 7

Now create a new layer called ‘color gradient overlay’. Drag a linear gradient down vertically across your canvas. You can see the gradient that I used below. Then change this layer’s blend mode to ‘soft light’.

Step 8

Now create a new layer called ‘gradient fade’. Use your rectangular marquee selection tool to create a thin, rectangular selection. Then fill this selection with a white to transparent linear gradient (going across the narrow width of the selection). Then change this layer’s blend mode to ‘overlay’. Go to edit>transform>rotate and rotate the gradient to fit nicely across the top clouds in your canvas.

Step 9

Now duplicate this layer twice, moving each duplicate to a different part of your canvas, and rotating it, to make the gradients positioning appear random. Finally, merge all of your ‘gradient fade’ layers together, and use a large, soft eraser brush at a low opacity to erase their harsh edges (letting the end of each shape fade naturally into the main background).

Step 10

Now paste in an image of a girl jumping. This image was quite time-consuming to cut out, but it’s worth spending the extra time to get a good cut out. You can use either the lasso tool or pen tool to cut out your woman.

Step 11

Go to image>adjustments>levels and apply the settings shown below:

Step 12

Now go to image>adjustments>color balance and apply the settings shown below. This should help your woman blend better with your background.


Step 13

Now go to image>adjustments>hue/saturation and reduce your woman’s saturation to -25.

Step 14

Now cut out a photo of a bird wing, and paste this over your woman, joining the wing to her back. I also rotated the wing to make the angle more realistic, and went to filter>sharpen>sharpen to bring out the detail of the wing, as the original photo was a little blurred.

Step 15

Now use your eraser brush, and smudge brush, to gently blend the wing into the woman’s back. Then reduce your wing layer’s opacity to 0%, and use your lasso tool to cut away parts of the wing that are overlapping the woman’s hair. Then, with your hair selection in place, bring the wing layer’s opacity back up to 100%, and hit delete. This will give the impression that the woman’s hair is in front of the wing.

Step 16

Now go to image>adjustments>levels and apply the settings shown below. This will make the wings more intense.

Step 17

Go to image>adjustments>color balance and apply the settings shown below:

Step 18

Now duplicate your wing layer, and move the duplicate below your ‘woman’ layer. Go to edit>transform>rotate and rotate it so that it appears to be behind/beneath your original wing. Then go to image>adjustments>brightness/contrast and reduce your brightness to -60, and your contrast to -40.

Step 19

Now select your original wing layer and go to blending options. Apply a subtle drop shadow (settings below), in order to help give your piece depth.

Step 20

Now paste in a photo of a feather. In this example, the feather has a plain black background. There is far too much detail in the feather to cut it out using the magic wand, or pen tools, so we must use the color range tool.

First hide all layers apart from your feather layer. Then go to select>color range. And choose ‘reds’ and your color range. This will select only the red parts of your layer (i.e.: your feather).

Now hit ‘OK’ and then copy/paste your selection onto a new layer called ‘feather’. I wanted to make my feather slightly more bold, so I duplicated this layer, and merged it down with the original.

Step 21

The feather is obviously the wrong color to match the rest of our piece, so I go to image>adjustments>hue/saturation and apply the settings below:

Step 22

Then I go to image>adjustments>levels and apply the settings below:

Step 23

To finish up, duplicate your feather layer MANY times, and resize/rotate each feather, to give the impression that feathers are falling from the wings. To create a cool perspective, make the feathers that are nearer to you much larger, and apply a gaussian blur effect. Apply a lesser blur to those feathers in the ‘mid range’ of perspective, and no blur to the smaller feathers that are nearest to the angels wings.

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


About the Author:

Tom is the founder of PSDFAN. He loves writing tutorials, learning more about design and interacting with the community. On a more interesting note he can also play guitar hero drunk with his teeth.

Leave a comment

65 Comments:

  1. Beaut of a tutorial! Good job :-)

  2. juliempg says:

    meh.

  3. Adam says:

    Ah, I thought I recognized the background as the colored fog texture… The angle of the wings is perfect in relation to the person and you’ve blended them terrifically.

    I think the feathers should be above her though, unless she’s falling up!

  4. T-Law says:

    Another Great tutorial, thanks.

  5. Tom says:

    Thanks a lot guys :)

  6. Tom says:

    Btw Adam: Good point about the feathers lol, hadn’t thought of that ;)

  7. CgBaran Tuts says:

    She or he looks lie rising up in a strange way:) but i like this tutorial good job

  8. G.lo says:

    thanks!

    several versions here:

    http://genelocklin.deviantart.com/gallery/

    my favorite:

    http://genelocklin.deviantart.com/art/Fallen-Final-127223625

    i reversed the focus on mine.

  9. [...] Photo Manipulate a Falling Angel – Learn how to combine several photos to create a dramatic ‘fallen angel’ scene. [...]

    • Tom says:

      Hi T. I do read PSDTUTS sometimes, but I’d honestly never seen that article. It does have a similar result, and I really love the effects they have going on there, but it wasn’t actually inspiration for my piece.

  10. Samuel burns says:

    Interesting effect, enjoy the textures.

    Thanks.

  11. Mehrdad Sharif says:

    Good job thank you.

  12. Tommy Dementry says:

    hmm… so the feathers are falling faster then the angel…. how intresting…

  13. /root says:

    woow 8O , cool and beatufull !!

    great !!

  14. I agree with Tommy … The feathers are in a little bit wrong orientation …………… Any way the presentation is good … Nice sharing :)

  15. CMYK says:

    Nice Tutooooo Thanksss

  16. Very nice Post! Really love it your post! thank you very much for your Information

  17. Ali says:

    l want to be able do this bec looks very good.

  18. sunnil dholani says:

    Beaut of a tutorial! Good job

  19. Saddam says:

    Nice creativity

  20. Maurice74 says:

    Thank you very much this very good tutorial, I made this picture with it:

    http://www.demonbonnie.hu/galeria.php?kat=53

  21. Excellent tutorial! Certainly apply the concepts discussed in other ideas. Thank you very much!

  22. Thanks for sharing your info! The texture is amazing!
    Congrats.

  23. Excellent tutorial! Certainly apply the concepts discussed in other ideas.
    Thank you very much!

  24. Wallpapers says:

    Angels are bright still, kewl article

  25. Wallpapers says:

    Keep them coming… you do such a great job at such Concepts

  26. Web Design says:

    intersting effect..thanks for sharing

  27. cd says:

    wow!it’s amazing!thanks so much!

  28. shellyeve says:

    great job! :) thanks for sharing.

  29. Anax says:

    very nice and helpful

  30. Ginna says:

    wooow, I love it!
    nice job, my friend xD

  31. PSDDude says:

    Great image one of my favorites :) i have written a tut with the same theme http://www.psd-dude.com/tutorials/photoshop.aspx?t=beautiful-fallen-angel hope u like it!

  32. NCR Pads says:

    great work, this will make me a real artist, thanks

  33. Rachel says:

    Absolutely awesome!!!

  34. 1skyliner says:

    very nice and helpful,Thanks for the article. I liked reading it

  35. machiaj says:

    hmm… so the feathers are falling faster then the angel…. how intresting…

  36. sosbuys says:

    Thanks for sharing your info! The texture is amazing!
    Congrats.

  37. custom logo says:

    Excellent tutorial! Certainly apply the concepts discussed in other ideas.
    Thank you very much!

  38. Absolutely great, and extremely well-written. Thanks for sharing your talent and providing so much helpful info!

  39. dresses says:

    Nice resource. Good to see an alternative to the usual suspects of smashing / noupe etc.

  40. wonderful, I’m speechless now! thx for share

  41. Acer Aspire says:

    This is awesome Tom, a good, detailed walk through, thank you.

  42. Chris says:

    Great tutorial, lot of fairly simple steps to make a really nice final result!

  43. Great tutorial. What is more beautiful, white wing or black wing for this design?

  44. Ashish says:

    Wow, that’s nice….

  45. Güncel Blog says:

    nice shop thanks.

  46. Richey says:

    That was a great tutorial. You break it down so well even I feel I could do it!

  47. shop cart says:

    HI:
    First hide all layers apart from your feather layer. Then go to select>color range. And choose ‘reds’ and your color range. This will select only the red parts of your layer (i.e.: your feather).

  48. Güncel Blog says:

    Thanks for this photos shop. They are very nice.

  49. This is what I call awesome.Thank you so much for sharing this post.I will definitely visit your site again.

  50. williams says:

    it looks great tanx… u are really good on editing

  51. wiwin says:

    Thx for tutorial :)

  52. Logo My Gosh says:

    Used this tut today to make a killer poster, most excellent. Thanks!!

  53. baju senam says:

    You’re great in design. Thanks for sharing this good tutorial.

  54. Noroz Mayar says:

    hi there my name is Noroz Mayar I am a web and graphic designer, i like your work , tutorial is fantastic and the work great, thumbs up man..

  55. thitannia says:

    what’s the color for the gradient? would you like to give the code for the color please?

  56. Ronald EM says:

    Excellent tutorial

Leave a Comment:

Cancel reply

Related Posts

Your Design Work, But More Awesome:

Do you know the basic tools in Photoshop but feel that your work is still looking average? Join our creative community at FanExtra and get the direction you need to take your work to the next level.

JOIN OUR FANEXTRA COMMUNITY TODAY