Learn how to this emotional photo manipulation of a girl in a dreamy background. In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a dramatic light effect, create motion in leaves, and create a focal point through lighting and elements. Besides that, you will learn non-destructive techniques that will help make your workflow easier and more efficient.

This image was created to represent the concept of the seven deadly sins, the girl represents Eve, she looks ashamed of what she's done. To create this image you will start with a forest background, then you will add the model and some details of bushes and trees to create depth, also leaves will give a motion feeling to the image. To finish the art you will learn how to apply texture and color adjustments to create dramatic lighting. You can use photoshop CS6 or CC to follow this tutorial. Also will help you if you have a digital tablet.

Preview of Final Results

Tutorial Resources

• Model - Dazzle-Stock
• Forest - Dragoroth-stock
• Clouds - Missstark (Alternative)
• Texture - Marcela Bolivar
• Apple Tree - Cindysart-stock
• Bush - moonglowlilly
• Leaves - frozenstocks
• Flying Leaves - maureenolde

Step 1

The base image for this manipulation is going to be some woods, the resolution this work is done is Width: 3000 and Height: 3503 pixels.

Step 2

To make a dramatic lighting to the background in a new layer (Shift- Control+N) paint the center with a light gray (#deded8) and in the borders with a darker gray (#545563) should look like the image in the left. Blur: add some blur to make it look softer (Menu Filter - Blur - Gaussian Blur) add 180 px of blur.

Step 3

Change layer mode from normal to soft light. As you can see in the picture below now the light looks lighter in the middle and darker on the sides.

Step 4

Place the model in the background

Step 5

Use the pen tool to crop the model out of the background. Select the pen tool and make sure that the menu that is in the top show the option "Path" and not "Shape". Click in the image and star to select all the borders of the image you like to keep. Be patient to achieve an accurate selection.

After you complete the path press right click then a menu will appear, choose the option Make Selection. Then click ok and you will have your selection.

Step 6

Add a layer mask by clicking on the Add Layer Mask button in the layers panel or by going to Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal Selection.

Step 7

If your selection have some inaccurate parts you can fix them now with a small brush. You have to paint over the layer mask with the black brush.

Step 8

Go to the menu Filter - Liquify. Use the Forward Warp Tool to make her dress smaller. The size of the brush is 70 and the Pressure can be set at 20 to 25.

Step 9

To make the model less saturated go to the menu "create a new fill or adjustment layer" and select the option "Hue/Saturation" reduce the Saturation to -48.

Step 10

A clipping mask is very useful to affect just an element of the composition. Since you are working with the model creating a clipping mask will help you to make the changes only to the selected layer. To do this press right click over the layer you create before "hue/saturation" press right click in the thumbnail and choose the option "Create Clipping Mask" then you will have something like this, that means that this layer is only going to be affecting the one that is underlined.