How to Paint a Lovely Pair of Birds in Photoshop

How to Paint a Lovely Pair of Birds in Photoshop
How to Paint a Lovely Pair of Birds in Photoshop

Learn how to create this painting of a beautiful pair of birds. You will learn how to extract photos and give them a beautiful painting-like look.

Preview of Final Results

final result

Pair of Birds Painting Photoshop Tutorial

Tutorial Resources

Step 1 (Preparing Stock)

Firstly, open the picture provided :

step1

Next, activate the pen tool in the tool panel. We will crop the umbrella from the picture. All we have to do is click on the edge of the umbrella to make a starting point anchor. Trace the edges of the umbrella with the pen tool by keeping on clicking until the path is closed. When the path is closed, right click on it to show path command option box. Choose make path selection to change the path into selection. Hit Shift+Ctrl+I to inverse the selection and then hit Del to clean the background.

step2

Step 2 (Creating Flowers)

Now we have the umbrella with which we will create some shapes needed. In this step we will create flowers. Duplicate the umbrella. Hit Ctrl+T to activate free transform tool which is indicated by small squares as transforming points around the selected picture. Now right click on the duplicated umbrella to show transform command option window and choose Warp. Let's tweak the umbrella to alter the shape of it by clicking and dragging to the directions needed to find desired shape. Duplicate the umbrella again and do the similar step to find the other desired shapes. See the illustration picture to guide us what to do in this step.

step3

After finding the flower looking like shape, we need to give it some shadow and highlight. To do this, we just use the dodge tool. Please see the illustration picture to know the setting of the dodge tool. Dodge some parts of the shape to define the highlight.

step4

Now switch to burn tool to give some shadow to the shape. Please see the illustration picture :

step5

Do similar ways as in previous steps to give shadow and highlight to the other shape :

step6

Step 3 (Creating Twigs)

From this step on, we will create twigs for the flowers. To achieve this, firstly go to the cropped umbrella again and cut out the stick of it. Duplicate the cut out two times and then merge them into a single layer. Duplicate this new single layer as many times as needed.

step7

Select one of the duplications and then go to filter > liquify. Choose forward warp tool and tweak the shape of picture:

step8

Next, do similar ways to the other duplication pictures. Try to vary the shapes we are creating in order not to look uniform. Once we have created the shapes, arrange them in such position that they look like twigs of a tree. Then alter the color of the twigs by giving them an adjustment layer: hue/saturation.

step9

Step 4 (Creating Birds)

In this step on, we will still play around with warping to create a bird out of the umbrella. What we should do is duplicate again the umbrella. Warp the shape of the duplicated umbrella. Then, give it motion blur. Just name this layer blur shape.

step10

Duplicate the blur shape layer. With the duplication layer selected, hit again Ctrl+T to activate free transform tool. Choose warp and tweak it to alter its shape into a wing of a bird.

step11

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45 comments on “How to Paint a Lovely Pair of Birds in Photoshop”

  1. Do You have video tutorial of this post????

    This is really a outstanding work. I just loved it. Thanks :)

  2. This tutorial once again proves what can be done when the versatility and power of Photoshop and the creativity of the human brain join forces. Great job! All of that splendor created with one umbrella.............Who would have imagined. The best part is that only basic tools were used to create the wonderful work of art. Adobe Instructors should use tutorials like this to illustrate what the tools are capable of...........Amazing. I love photoshop even more.

  3. Dek Wid, Really nice this is something new technique to draw objects for me. keep your good work.

  4. Mr.Dek Iam very happy to visit your site because I got new ideas from your wonderful work. so thank you, thank you very much. please continue tutorials like this.

  5. Awesome!

    Most tutorials on this site feel like it's basically the same techniques over and over again (no offense to the guys who write these)

    But this was really creative, great! I wish I would come up with ideas like that :) Thumbs up

  6. Wow! Not only is it the artwork nice, but how do did it with an umbrella picture. So creative. I wish I mastered Photoshop like that.

  7. i liked the umbrella twisting part. Really a creative one. Just got messed up in the last step. Great one indeed.

  8. w0w! i really like the way you use that umbrella and the color blending is awesome too.
    Thanks for this great tutorial.
    Keep up the good work!

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