Learn how to create a surreal photo manipulation with an invisible man. This tutorial will teach you how to blend different images together, create realistic shadows, and paint light reflections in your image.

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Preview of Final Results

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Surreal Scene Photoshop Tutorial

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Tutorial Resources

• Underwater Bubble Brushes – morganbw
• Light Beam Brushes – redheadstock
• Cave – evelivesey
• Desert – timewizardstock
• Underwater –acaca shtraumf
• Underwater 2 – winkstock
• Fish Pack – kuschelirmel-stock
• Water Lily 1 – twins72
• Water Lily 2 – sadakokuramizu-stock
• Water Lily 3 – fa-stock
• Water Lily 4 – pixstixstock
• Tropical Plant – ingwellritter-stock
• Hummingbird – pixievamp-stock
• Pirate Ship – moonchilde-stock
• Planet – stock7000
• Sky – vividlight
• Torch – gorilla-ink
• Pedestal – mysticrainbowstock
• Tree Stump – pockystock
• Girl 1 – spindlegoats-stock
• Girl 2 – faestock
• Invisible Man – sxc.hu

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Step 1: Create a new Photoshop File

Create a new file in photoshop using these settings:

• Width: 2835px
• Height: 1950px
• Resolution: 300px/inch

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Step 2: Add the Cave

Open the cave stock and select the cave using the Quick Selection Tool (Shortcut: W). Here’s a few tips on how to make selections with the Quick Selection Tool, you’ll use them a lot throughout the tutorial:

• Clicking anywhere in the canvas with the Quick Selection Tool will add to the selection
• Holding Alt/Option and clicking will subtract the selection
• You can quickly change the size of your brush holding Alt/Option, clicking anywhere in the canvas with the right mouse button, and dragging to the left to decrease the size of the brush, and to the right to increase it (you can use this technique with any tool that uses a brush)
• To quickly use the Zoom Tool, hold the Z key, click with the left mouse button in the canvas and drag the mouse to the left to zoom out and to the right to zoom in. When you stop holding Z, you’ll return to the tool you were using before

The result of my selection is painted with red in the image below (I’ll always show my selections painted in light red).

Copy and paste the cave into our project and use the Free Transform Tool (Shortcut: Ctrl/Cmd+T) to adjust it in our project (see image below).

• You can also use the Move Tool (Shortcut: V) to move the cave, but if you use the Free Transform Tool you can use the image below as reference.

Now select the Rectangular/Marquee Tool (Shortcut: M) and make a selection on the top blank space of our image (see image below for reference).

Press Shift+F5 to open the Fill window and select Content-Aware.

• After you’re done with your selection, press Ctrl/Cmd+D to deselect your current selection

And here is the result:

To fix some problems with the edges, Hold Ctrl/Cmd and click in the thumbnail of the Layer 1.

Then go to Select > Modify > Contract and set the contract value to 5px.

Reverse the selection by pressing Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+I and then hit Delete to erase a little bit of the edges. You probably won’t be able to see the results in the image below, but If you followed the steps correctly your edges should be fixed now.

Now make a selection of the left side of the cave using the Quick Selection Tool (Shortcut: W), then copy (Ctrl/Cmd+C) and paste (Ctrl/Cmd+V) into our project.

With the Layer 2 selected, go to Edit > Tranform > Flip Horizontal.

Select the Move Tool (Shotcut: V) and move the cave part (Layer 2) to the right side of our image.

Now let’s erase the part of the cave we don’t want. To do that, select the Layer 1 and use the eraser (Shortcut: E) to delete the red part of the cave in the image below. Here are some notes when dealing with brushs:

• To change the hardness of a brush, click with the right mouse button anywhere in your project and change the Hardness value
• To change the opacity of a brush, just change the Opacity value on the toolbar at the top of your screen (it will only appear when you are using a brush)

Go back to the Layer 2 and erase some areas as well (see image below for reference).

Your result should be similar to this:

Select both cave layers (Hold Shift and left click on them) and merge them in one layer (Ctrl/Cmd+E). Then, double click the name of the new layer and change it to Cave.

Let’s fix the colors of our cave now. In the Layers pannel, click in ‘Create a new Fill or Adjustment Layer’ and select Curves.

Adjust the curves like this:

You can also use the Output values in the image below as reference while adjusting the curves

And the cave is done! It should look like this now:

Everytime you add an adjustment layer that you don’t want to affect all of your layers (just the first layer below it), you need to clip it to the that layer, like this:

Now to clean our workspace a little bit, select the Cave and the Curves layer and add them to a new group by pressing Ctrl/Cmd+G. Name the new group Cave.

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Step 3: Add the Desert

Open the Desert stock and use the Quick Selection Tool (Shortcut: W) to select it.

Copy (Ctrl/Cmd+C) and paste (Ctrl/Cmd+V) the desert into our project and place its layer below the Cave group.

Use the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T) to resize the desert without losing the proportion. Here are some tips for this tool:

• To increase or decrease the size, click and drag one of those little squares on the edges
• To increase or decrease the size of the image maintaining proportion, hold the Shift key while doing it
• To see your entire selection, press Ctrl/Cmd+0 and the zoom will be adjusted automatically

Add a Curves adjustment layer like we did with the cave and see the image below for the input values. Like we did before, clip this adjustment to the layer below (the desert layer).

Always remember to clip an adjustment layer to the layer below it (if you don’t want it to affect any other layer)

Here is the result of this curves adjustment:

Add a Color Balance Adjustment Layer and see the image below for the input values. Remember to also clip it to the desert layer.

Your image should look like this now:

Select the desert layer and its adjustment layers and add them to a new group called Desert (Ctrl/Cmd +G).

• You can also rename the desert layer (Layer 1) to Desert if you want to

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Step 4: Add the first underwater stock

Open the Underwater stock (first one on the list), press Ctrl/Cmd+A to select the whole image and copy (Ctrl/Cmd+C) and paste it (Ctrl/Cmd+V) into our project.

Use the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T) to resize and stretch the ocean. Just click and drag the squares in the edges (you don’t have to hold Shift this time) until you have something like this:

Now add a layer mask to this layer and start painting following the image below. Here are some tips when painting a layer mask:

• Press B on your keyboard to select the Brush Tool
• Press D on your keyboard to return the colors of your palette back to Black and White
• When painting a layer mask, black will hide the layer, and white will reveal it again
• If you make a mistake while painting a layer mask, you just have to paint the area where you made the mistake with the opposite color again (if you made a mistake while painting with white, paint with black to start over)
• You can quickly change between your background and foreground color by pressing X
• To hide a layer mask, hold the Shift key and click on the mask. Do the same thing if you want to reveal it again
• To view your layer mask hold Alt/Opt and click in the layer mask. Do the same thing to return it to normal

And here is the result:

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Step 5: Add the second underwater stock

Open the underwater stock 2, press Ctrl/Cmd+A to select it all, copy (Ctrl/Cmd+C) and paste it(Ctrl/Cmd+V) into our project.

Press Ctrl/Cmd+T to resize and stretch this new underwater stock like we did with the last one.

Like we did with the other underwater image, create a layer mask to this layer and paint (Shortcut to the Brush Tool: B) it following the image below.

Here is the result:

There are some stains in this stock image and we’re going to fix it now. Select the Spot Healing Brush Tool (Shortcut: J) and just start clicking the areas you want to fix.

• Remember to select the actual image rather than the layer mask before you start

Here is the clean image:

To add the surface of the water, we’re going to go back to the second underwater stock we used and make another selection. Use the Rectangular Marquee Tool (Shortcut: M) to draw this rectangle:

Copy and paste it into our project. Place this layer right below the Cave group and use the Free Transform Tool (Shortcut: Ctrl/Cmd+T) to resize and stretch it.

Here is what your ocean should look like now:

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Step 6: Adding the sky

Open the sky stock, select all of it (Ctrl/Cmd+A) and copy and paste it into our project.

Place the sky below all the underwater layers and resize it with the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T). Remember to hold Shift while doing it.

To finish off, add these four layers to a new group called Ocean+Sky (Ctrl/Cmd+G).

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Step 7: Adding some shadows

Create a new layer and place it below our Cave group.

With a hard brush (Shortcut: B), draw a straight line right where the ocean starts after the desert.

Now go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set the radius to 40px.

Here is the result:

Now that the main shadow is done, select a soft brush (Shortcut: B) and start painting some more shadows in the image (see image below for reference).

Here is my image with the shadow layer done:

Rename this layer to Ocean/Desert Shadow and we’re done.

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Step 8: Adding the fishes

Open the fish pack and select them with the Quick Selection Tool (Shortcut: W). We’re going to use three of them, the smaller one (Underwater_(03)) won’t be used.

Don’t worry too much about the details because they will be really small in our final image. Here’s how I extracted them.

Fish 1:

Fish 2:

Fish 3:

Let’s start with fish number 3. Copy and paste it into our project and use the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T) while holding the Shift key to resize it.

Now go to fish number 1, copy and paste it two times into our project and resize them using the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T). Remember to hold Shift while resizing.

Flip one of them horizontally the same way we did before, go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal.

Copy and paste fish number 2 into our project two times. Resize them using the Free Transform Tool (while holding the Shift key) and flip one of them horizontally like we did with fish number 1 (Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal).

After all the fishes have been placed, select them and merge them (Ctrl/Cmd+E) in a new layer called Fishes.

To take off some of the redness of the fishes, create a new Curves Adjustment Layer like we did before (click in ‘Create a New Filter or Adjustment Layer’ and select ‘Curves’). Change the Blue and Red curves and clip this adjustment to the fishes layer by clicking in the button next to the little eye (you just have to click once to clip it).

To finish the fishes, select their layer and lower the opacity to around 30%.

Here is how your image should look like with the fishes added:

To clean our workspace, select the Fishes and the Curves adjustment layer and add them to a new group called Fishes (Ctrl/Cmd+G).

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Step 9: Add some light effects to the background

Create a new layer by hitting Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + N. In the New Layer window that appeared, change the name of the new layer to ‘Lighting’, the mode to Overlay and check the button to fill the layer with 50% gray.

Place the new layer right below the Cave group (it will affect all the layers below it).

Select the Dodge Tool (Shortcut: O), set Range to Midtones, the Exposure to 30% and start painting this layer.

This is an important and complicated step so here are some tips on how to use the Dodge/Burn Tool:

• The Dodge Tool will make the place you paint brighter
• The Burn Tool will make the place you paint darker
• To quickly change between them hold Alt/Option, this will change the tools as long as you hold the Alt/Option key
• If you made a mistake and it’s too late to undo the changes don’t worry, just select the Brush Tool and paint the area of the layer you want to “reset” with gray again (#808080)

And here is some tips on how to do the lighting of this scene:

• The main idea is to make the bright places brighter, and the dark places darker.
• Imagine a sun in the middle of the sky and think about how it would affect the fishes
• Use a really small brush and zoom in closely while dealing the fishes
• Try to use large brushes in the ocean to make it look more natural
• Make the left side of the sky darker, and the right side brighter
• Increase the shadow of the ‘ocean wall’ in the desert

Here is my Lighting layer in the Normal mode, so you can use as reference:

And here is the final result:

Now load the Light Beam Brushes in photoshop. If you don’t know how to do this read the step-by-step below, if you already know how to do this you can skip to the next part.

• Download the .rar file and unpack it anywhere in your computer
• Take the .abr you just extracted and move it to your Adobe/Adobe Photoshop(…)/Presets/Brushes folder
• Go back to photoshop, select the brush tool and right click anywhere in your canvas
• To select your brush, click in the little arrow in the top right corner and check to see if the brush is on the list
• If it is, just select it and click in Append

• If it isn’t, you’ll have to click in ‘Load Brushes’ and search for the brush in your computer. Once you found it, the brushes will be appended to your current list of brushes automatically

After you loaded the Light Beam Brushes in photoshop, create a new layer above the Lighting layer and name it ‘Light Beams’.

Select the brush highlighted in the image below, select the white color, and click on the top center of the image to make some light beams.

Resize the brush if needed

Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set the radius to 35px.

The result:

Create a new layer to add more light beams just like we did with the other one. Place it above our previous Light Beam layer and also name it ‘Light Beams’.

Select the brush highlighted below and hit F5 to bring the Brush panel. Change the angle of the brush to -35º.

Now do the exact same thing we did before, click in the screen just once with these settings.

• Again, change the size of the brush if you have to

Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur again and set the radius to 25px this time.

And here is the result:

To finish the light beams, create a new layer by pressing Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+N, change the name of the new layer to ‘Light Beams’ again, set the mode to Screen and check the button to fill the screen with black.

Make sure this layer is above the other light beams.

Go to Filter > Render > Lens Flare.

Set the Brightness to 75%, select 105mm Prime and click on the top of the black box, in the center, like this:

Here is the result:

Now group the three Light Beams layers in a new group called Light Beams (really original) and set the opacity of this group to around 85%.

The last thing to do here is to add a layer mask to this group and paint the left side of the sky with black.

And here is the result:

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Step 10: Adding the Ship

Download the ship pack and open the ‘pship3’ file in photoshop. To select it, hold Ctrl/Cmd and click in the thumbnail of the image.

Copy and paste the ship into our project and rename this layer to Ship. Place it above the Light Beams group.

Flip it horizontally by going to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal. Then resize it using the Free Transform Tool (remember to hold Shift) and place it on the left side of our image.

While in the Free Transform Mode, set the Rotate value to -3,5º (the Rotate tool is located at the top toolbar).

Create a new layer mask to the Ship layer.

Grab a soft brush, select the layer mask of the ship and start painting with black to hide the lower part of the ship.

The result:

Let’s create some reflections in the water, duplicate the ship layer by selecting it and pressing Ctrl/Cmd+J.

With the duplicated layer selected, go to Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical.

Use the Move Tool (Shortcut: V) to move this layer below the ship.

Rename this layer to Shadow and place it below the ship layer.

Now select the Shadow layer and go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. Set the angle to 0 and the distance to 12px.

Here is the result:

Select the layer mask of the Shadow layer and paint it with black to hide some areas. After you’re done, set the opacity of this layer to around 85%.

• In the image below, paint more times in the areas where the red is stronger

Here is the result:

With the Ship layer selected, create a new layer pressing Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+N and input the following values.

Now select the Dodge Tool (Shortcut: O) again, set the Exposure to 50% and paint the ship to make it look like the sun is on the right side of the ship.

Here is my Lighting layer at Normal mode for reference.

And here is the result of this effect:

To finish this step, select these three layers we created and add them to a new group called Ship.

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Step 11: Adding some bubbles

Download the bubbles brushes and load them into photoshop just like we did with the light beam brushes. After that, create a new layer below the lighting layer and name it Bubbles.

Then select one of the bubble brushes and start adding some bubbles into the ocean.

Result:

To make the bubbles look more natural we’re going to add a Layer style to it. Double click the bubbles layer to open the style panel and check the images below for the input values.

Here is my final result with the bubbles layer.

And we’re finally done with the background of our image. To clean the workspace, select all the layers and groups below the Cave group and add them to a new group called Background.

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Step 12: Adding some life to the cave

Let’s add some life to the cave now. Open the Lily 1 stock, use the Quick Selection Tool (Shortcut: W) to select it, and copy and paste it into our project. Make sure that you paste all the elements of this step between the Cave and the Background group.

Use the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T) as usual to resize it. Remember to hold Shift while resizing to maintain proportion (we don’t wanna lose the proportions in this step).

• You can also use the Free Transform Tool to rotate the image, just click outside the image and drag the mouse around to rotate it
• If you hold the Shift key while rotating, you will increase/decrease 15º each time
• The Width/Height/Rotate values highlighted in the images below are not exact, they are just for reference

Now open the second lily stock and select the middle one using the Quick Selection Tool (Shortcut: W). Then copy and paste it two times into our project.

Use the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T) to resize and rotate the lilies, see the images below for the placement place.

Open the third lily stock and do the same steps we did before, select the lily with the Quick Selection Tool (Shortcut: W), copy and paste it into our project.

Now use the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T) again to resize and rotate this lily. Place it on the bottom of our image.

Open the last lily stock (lily 4) and select it with the Quick Selection Tool (Shortcut: W)

Copy and paste it into our project.

Use the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T) to resize and rotate this last lily. See the image below for the placement place.

Open the tropical plant stock and make a selection using the Quick Selection Tool (Shortcut: W).

Now go to Select > Modify > Contract to fix some of the edges.

Set the Contract value to 3px.

After that, copy and paste the plant two times into our project.

Use the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T) to resize one of the plants and place it on the right side of our image (You don’t need to rotate them).

Select the other plant and flip it horizontally by going to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal.

After that, resize it using the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T) and place it on the left side of our image like this:

To finish this step, let’s add a hummingbird in one of our lilies. Open the hummingbird stock in photoshop and select it like we did with the ship (Ctrl/Cmd click the thumbnail of the image).

Copy and paste it into our project and flip it horizontally like we did with the plant above (Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal).

Now resize it using the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T) and place it on the left side of our image.

Here is our final image with the bird and the plants added:

Now merge all these layers in one (select them and press Ctrl/Cmd+E). Name this new layer ‘Plants and bird’.

To finish this step, let’s add some lighting to the elements we just added. As usual, select the layer we just created and hit Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+N to create a new layer with the following settings:

Now grab the Dodge Tool (Shortcut: O), set the range to midtones, the exposure to 50% and start adding some shadows and lighting to our plants.

• We clipped this layer to our ‘Plants and Bird’ layer, so you don’t have to be so precise with your painting because it will only affect the plants and the bird, not the background
• Give the plants some lighting in the top (based on the position of the sun)
• Paint some dark areas in the bottom of the plants and the bird

Here is my Lighting layer in normal mode:

And here is the result of my lighting layer:

To finish this step, add these two layers we created into a new group called ‘Plants and Bird’.

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Step 13: Add some people to our scene

Let’s add the girls in our cave. Open the Girl 1 stock and select her using the Quick Selection Tool (Shortcut: W).

Copy and paste it into our project and place her layer above the Cave group.

Use the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T) as usual to resize her (remember to hold Shift). Then move her to the left side of our image.

Let’s add a torch in the hand of the girl. Open the photoshop file Old Torch and select it by holding Ctrl/Cmd and clicking in the thumbnail of the Layer 1 of this project.

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Now use the Free Transform Tool (holding Shift) to resize and rotate the torch like this:

Let’s improve the fire a little bit, select the Smudge Tool with a 1px brush and set the Strength to 80%. Then click and drag some areas of the fire to make it look more natural (see image below for reference).

Here is my result:

Now that this girl is ready, let’s add another one to the other side. Open the Girl 2 stock and select her using the Quick Selection Tool (Shortcut: W).

Don’t worry too much about little details over the hair because she will be really small in our final image

Copy and paste her into our project.

Now resize her using the Free Transform Tool (holding Shift) and place her on the right side of our image.

Now that the girls are in place, let’s add their shadows in the cave. Create a new layer, name it Shadow and place it above the Cave group.

Now grab a soft brush and start painting this layer with black following the image below:

To give the shadows a more natural look, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian blur and set the radius to 7px.

And here is the result:

Let’s add some lighting to the girls. First, merge (Ctrl/Cmd+E) the girls and the torch into a new layer called Girls.

Now create a new layer pressing Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+N and set the values below:

Select the Dodge Tool (Shortcut: O), set the Range to Midtones, the Exposure to 50%, and start painting the Lighting layer.

• Make it look like the sun is affecting the girls
• Make the torch brighter

Here is my lighting layer in normal blending mode for reference.

And here is the result:

To finish this step, select these three layers we just created and add them to a new group called Girls.

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Step 14: Add the invisible man

Let’s start the main part of our image. Open the tree stump stock and select it using the Quick Selection Tool.

Copy and paste the stump into our project and place its layer between the ‘Plants and Bird’ and the ‘Background’ group.

With the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T) , hold the Shift key and resize the stump. Place it on the bottom of our image.

Now open the invisible man and use the Quick Selection Tool to select only his body. We’ll come back for the hat later.

Copy and paste it into our image. Make sure his layer is above the stump layer.

Now use the Free Transform Tool (holding Shift) to make him smaller and place him above the stump.

Go back to the invisible man image and use the Quick Selection Tool to select his hat this time (we don’t want the glasses).

Copy and paste the hat into our project and use the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T) as usual to resize (holding Shift) and position it.

To add the light bulb, we’re going to press U to select the Custom Shape Tool.

Now select the light bulb from the toolbar at the top of the screen.

If you don’t see the light bulb, click in that little arrow on the top right corner and select Reset Shapes

Now select the white color and draw a small light bulb below the hat of the invisible man. Make sure you hold Shift while drawing to maintain the proportions and check to see if Shape layers is selected.

After that, use the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T) in this layer to rotate the light bulb a little bit. Set the rotation to -8,5º.

Double click this Shape 1 layer to add some Layer Style. Add an Outer Glow like this:

To change the Contour don’t click in the thumbnail, click in the arrow on the right

The result:

Let’s add the shadow of the man in the stump. Create a new layer called Shadow and place it between the man and the stump layer.

Select a soft brush (Shortcut: B) and start painting with black some contact shadows in the stump and the desert (see image below).

Then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set the radius to 6px.

Here is the result:

Now let’s add some lighting to these layers. Merge (Ctrl/Cmd+E) them into one new layer called ‘Invisible Man’.

Create a new layer hitting Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+N and set this values:

Select the Dodge Tool (Shortcut: O) with Range at Midtones and Exposure at 50% and start making the lighting of the invisible man.

• Think about how the sun would affect him
• Improve the contact shadows of the man in the stump

Here is my finished lighting of the invisible man in normal mode for reference.

And here is my actual result:

To finish this step, let’s add more shadow in the desert. Create a new layer pressing Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Alt/Opt+N and place it below our ‘Invisible Man’ layer. Name this new layer Shadow.

Select a soft brush with the black color and start painting the areas shown below.

• Stronger arrows mean 100% opacity
• Lighter arrows mean 50% opacity

As usual, we’ll add a Gaussian Blur to make the shadows look more natural. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set the radius to 9px.

And here is the result:

Last thing to do here is to group the layers we created in this step in a new group called ‘Invisible Man’.

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Step 15: Add the pedestal

Open the pedestal stock and use the Quick Selection Tool to extract it. Then copy and paste it into our project.

Resize the pedestal with the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T) while holding the Shift key. Then place the pedestal layer between the ‘Invisible Man’ and the ‘Plants and Bird’ groups.

Create a new layer pressing the button in the Layers panel or using the shortcut Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Alt/Opt+N. Name this new layer Shadow and place it below the pedestal layer.

Select a soft brush (Shortcut: B) with the black color and start painting shadows like this:

Then add a Gaussian Blur by going to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set the Radius to 11px.

Here is the result:

To finish this step, group these two layers into a new group called Pedestal. We’ll return to this group later.

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Step 16: Add the planet

Open our last stock, the planet, and use the Elliptical Marquee Tool (Shortcut: M) to make a round selection on the planet in the left.

• Hold Shift to make a perfect circle
• While making the selection, press and hold the Space Bar to move the selection around

Copy and paste the planet into our project (place this layer below the ‘Plants and Bird’ group. Use the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T) to make it smaller and place it above the pedestal.

Double click the planet layer to add some layer style.

• To change the Contour don’t click in the thumbnail, click in the arrow on the right

The Gradient Editor:

Back to the Layer Style:

Here’s the result on the planet:

Create a new layer pressing the button in the Layers panel or using the shortcut Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Alt/Opt+N. Name this new layer ‘Planet Light’ and place it below the planet layer.

Load the Light Beam brushes again and select this one:

Select a light yellow (#ffff62) and click once behind the planet. Remember to adjust the size of the brush before you paint.

Now go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set the radius to 13px.

Here is the result:

To finish this step, group these two layers into a new group called Planet.

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Step 17: Adding the light chains

Create a new layer pressing the button in the Layers panel or using the shortcut Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Alt/Opt+N. Name this new layer ‘Chain’ and place it above the Planet group.

Grab the Pen Tool (Shortcut: P) and make the path shown below:

Then go back to the Brush Tool (Shortcut: B) and open the Brush Presets (you can go to Window > Brush Presets if you can’t see it). Set 12px for the brush size and select the highlighted brush.

Make sure the opacity of your brush is at 100%

Select a light blue for the color (#a0edee) and hit A to select the Path/Direct Selection Tool. Then right click the path we made and select Stroke Path.

Check Simulate Pressure and click OK.

Here is the result:

You can accept the path now (just click the check button on the upper toolbar). This will make the path go away. Now duplicate this layer two times (Shortcut: Ctrl/Cmd+J) and use the Move Tool (Shortcut: V) to place them like this:

If you’re not happy with the results you can use the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T) to stretch them a little bit

Double click the Chain layer and add an Outter Glow with these settings:

Now right click the Chain layer and click in ‘Copy Layer Style’.

Then right click ‘Chain copy’ and ‘Chain copy 2’ and click in ‘Paste Layer Style’. You should have something like this now:

Create a new layer pressing the button in the Layers panel or using the shortcut Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Alt/Opt+N. Name this new layer ‘Middle Chain’ and place it below the other Chain layers.

With the same type of brush, the same color and opacity, draw the path (Pen Tool shortcut: P) shown below and stroke it (Press A > Right Click the path > Stroke Path) without checking the ‘Simulate Pressure’ box this time.

Like we did before, right click in one of the three chain layers we created before and click in ‘Copy Layer Style’. Right click the Middle Chain layer and select ‘Paste Layer Style’. You should have something like this now:

Now create a new group with the layers ‘Chain’, ‘Chain copy’ and ‘Chain copy 2’. Name this new group ‘Right Chains’.

Create a new group called ‘Left Chains’ and create a new layer inside it called ‘Chain’. Place this new group above the Right Chains group.

We’re going to repeat the exact same steps we did with the chains in the leg of the invisible man, so I’m just going to add all the images of the process and you can follow along.

• Copy the Layer Style of any of those chains we already did

After I created ‘Chain copy 3’ and ‘Chain copy 4’ I resized them with the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T) to fit the body of the pedestal right.

And here is what you should have so far:

And the layers:

We’re almost done with the chains. Create another layer (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Alt/Opt+N), name it ‘Pedestal Chain’ and place it above the other chain layers.

Now grab the Pen Tool again (Shortcut: P) and draw this path on the pedestal:

Again with the same opacity, color and type of brush, stroke this path by pressing A, right clicking the path and going to ‘Stroke Path’.

Don’t check the ‘Simulate Pressure’ box.

And you should have something like this:

Now erase (Shortcut: E) some areas of this chain to make it look like it’s going around the pedestal (see image below).

The last thing we need to do is copy the layer style we’ve been using in the chains and paste it into the ‘Pedestal Chain’ layer.

And we’re finally done with the chains! If you did everything right you should have something like this now:

This is a hard step so take your time in it, repeat over and over again the paths if you need to, until you’re satisfied with the results

As expected, we’re going to clean our workspace a little bit by adding all these chain layers and groups into a new group called Chains.

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Step 18: Add some sparks

It’s been a long tutorial but we’re finally starting to enter the final steps. We’re done with adding new images and elements into our image, in this step we’re just going to add some small details.

Create a new layer through the shortcut Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Alt/Opt+N and name it ‘Lightbulb Sparks’. Place it between the ‘Invisible Man’ and the ‘Background’ group.

Before we start, let’s add the layer style we’re going to need. Double click this layer and add an Outter Glow like this:

Now select a simple brush and go to the Brush pannel (if you don’t see it go to Window > Brush). Now add some styles following the images below:

Now set the opacity of this brush to 100%, the color to white, and start painting at random around the lightbulb.

When you’re done, erase the parts you don’t want (outside the lightbulb) using the Eraser (Shortcut: E) and you should have something like this:

Don’t change your brush yet cause we’re going to use it again right now. Create a new layer using Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Alt/Opt+N and name it ‘Chain Sparks’. Place it above the Chains group.

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Like we did before, let’s start with the Layer Style. Double click this layer and add these two styles:

Now that the layer style is ready, just grab the brush we created before and start painting the chains with a light blue (#60ebed). Like this:

With the sparks added, your image should be looking like this:

And your layers should be like this:

• The layer styles are still there, I just collapsed them (clicking in that arrow next to “fx”) to clean the workspace

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Step 19: Adding some lighting to the pedestal

We didn’t added the lighting layer to the pedestal before because we didn’t had the chains done. Now that we have them we can go back to the pedestal group and add it.

Open the pedestal group, select the pedestal layer (in my case it’s Layer 5) and hit Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+N to add a new layer.

Select the Dodge Tool (Shortcut: O) and start painting the pedestal.

• Think about the light of the planet, the light of the chain and the light of the sun

Here is my pedestal with the blending mode set to Normal to be used as reference.

And with the Overlay blending mode:

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Step 20: Painting the Image

There are a lot of different colors in our image, all sorts of glows, but right now there’s no reflection of them in the elements of the image. To fix that, we’re going to paint our image.

Let’s begin creating a new group called ‘Colors’ and adding a new layer to it called ‘Yellow’. Place the group with this layer above all the other groups of our image.

You can use any brush you want to paint the image (try the brushes at the Brush Presets). I’m going to use a simple round brush with 0% hardness. One thing that you have to remember while painting is to leave the painting blending mode set to Color, like this:

Since we added a layer called Yellow, we’re going to start painting with yellow. Use the Eyedropper Tool (hold Alt/Opt while using the Brush Tool) on the yellow of the planet and start painting. Here are some tips to get you started:

• The opacity of the brush will change a lot during the painting. Usually the opacity will be higher when painting closer to the edges (I paint with 3~25% opacity)
• The size of the brush will also change a lot during the painting, don’t be afraid to pick a small brush and zoom in a lot to do some details
• If it doesn’t look natural after you painted, add a Gaussian Blur (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur). You’ll do that a lot
• You can also use the Eyedropper Tool by pressing I on your keyboard
• You can press CAPSLOCK to view the center of your brush instead of seeing the size of your brush (this might help while painting)
• Not every place will need the same amount of Gaussian Blur, so you’ll need to make selections of each part of the painting and apply the right amount of Gaussian Blur in that area
• You can use any tool you want to make the selections (Quick Selection Tool, Rectangular Marquee Tool and even the Pen Tool). Just remember that the Gaussian Blur will never go out of the selected area, so you have to let some room for it
• Try not to paint really close to the edges because the Gaussian Blur will affect the painting in all the directions (You can also paint the edges, apply the Gaussian Blur and then use the Move Tool (Shortcut: V) to move it to the right place if you want)

Here is my yellow layer against a black background so you can see it and use it for reference:

And here is the result of my yellow layer:

Following the steps we did to paint with the yellow color, we’re going to paint now with other colors like Blue, Orange and Red. I’m going to repeat the steps we just did for each one of the colors and show you the results below.

I’m going to stop here but feel free to use how many colors you want in this step.

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Step 21: Final Adjustments

Once you’re satisfied with the colors of your image create a new group called ‘Final Effects’. This group will have all the adjustments we’re going to make in this step.

Add a new layer (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Alt/Opt+N), press D to reset the colors of your palette, and press Alt/Opt+Delete to fill this layer with black.

Now grab the Eraser Tool (Shortcut: E) and erase the main part of our image (see image below). This will hide the cornes of our image, making the viewer focus more on the details inside our cave.

Press Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Alt/Opt+E to merge your image into a new layer while leaving all the other layers in your project intact.

With this new layer selected, go to Filter > Render > Lighting Effects.

Check the image below for the input values:

The result:

Add a Photo Filter (see image below).

Select the Blue filter and change the Density to 15%.

Result:

Add a Brightness/Contrast adjustment and set the Contrast to +20.

Here is the result:

Press G to select the Gradient Tool, and change the gradient (click in the thumbnail of the gradient on the top toolbar).

Select the first gradient from the second line:

Now create a new layer (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Alt/Opt+N) above all the other layers and click and drag to form the gradient (see image below).

Change the blend mode of this layer to Soft Light and lower the opacity to around 30%.

Here is the result:

Add a Black & White adjustment and choose the High Contrast Red Filter.

Now change the blend mode of this layer to Overlay and lower the opacity to around 25%.

Here is the result:

Add a Selective Color adjustment and see the image below for the input values.

Here’s the result:

Last but not least, add a Levels adjustment.

Set the middle slider to 1,15.

And here is the final result of our photo manipulation:

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Final Results

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Tutorial by Guilherme Pejon