Dreamy Photo Manipulation of a Girl Looking Out a Window

Preview of Final Results

Dreamy Photo Manipulation of a Girl Looking Out a Window Photoshop Tutorial

Resources

By the Window II - Eirian stock
Snowy weather stock 11 - SimplyBackgrounds
Clouds II Photoshop Brushes - redheadstock
FREE STOCK Swing - mariamurphy
Bear - kristal29
Fish Stock 0008 - phantompanther stock
Metal Texture 15 - Wojtar stock
Paper Texture 1 - Wojtar stock

Step 1: Create a New Photoshop Image File

Let's start by creating a new image file, go to the Menu bar and click File > New, and then input the following values on their respective fields:

Presets: International Paper
Size: A4
Width: 2480 pixels
Height: 3508 pixels
Resolution: 300 pixels/inch
Color Mode: RGB Color; 8 bit
Background Contents: White

Step 2: Create the Background

In this step, we will be creating the background. To start, let's open "By the Window II" by Eirian stock. Once open, activate the Rectangular Marquee Tool by pressing M on your keyboard and create a selection area around the image, but disregard the little black border. See image below:

Move tool by pressing V on your keyboard. Now, drag that image into our canvas. It should appear like this:

Once on the canvas, we would need to rename the layer to Background. To rename a layer, simply double-click on the words: "layer 1" (which is our layer - "By the window II") to prompt a text box to appear. Once that appears, you may now rename the layer. See sample below:

Next, activate the Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd + T) and resize that image as shown below:

The result of that should be like this:

Next, we will be removing the view through her window. Let's start by activating the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L).

Once you've activated the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) we will now create a selection area around the windows. To do that, follow the instructions shown on the image below:

Now, after you've created the selection area, press Delete to remove the views through the windows. The result should be like this:

Before we proceed to adding another image through her window, there is something we need to remove. Look carefully at the image below:

Now, how do we remove that? We can't use the Eraser tool (E) since it would look fake through the white background. So, what we will do is, we will paint on it! To start, make sure that the Background layer is active and then create a new layer (Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + N), this will automatically put the layer above the Background layer - when the New Layer box opens, input "Gray" on the name field.

When you're done, activate the Brush tool (B), make sure that the brushes are the default Photoshop brushes. See image below:

To make sure that you're using that, simply right click the canvas while a layer is selected and while the Brush tool (B) is activated and then click on the button highlighted below:

Then click on "Reset Brushes" from the contextual menu.

Now, that that is done input the following settings for our Brush tool (B):

Brush size: 15px
Hardness: 0%
Opacity: 100%
Flow: 100%
#: 898989
Zoom: 400%

Note: #: 898989 is the Brush's color. To set that, simply follow the instructions below: The #: 898989 is the color of the Brush tool (B), so this means it is colored black. To set the brush color, follow the instructions below:

After clicking the Foreground tool, the Color Picker box would open. Once open, input the following on the # space:

Once you're done, you'd see that the Foreground Color has changed as well.