Terrifying Horror Photo Manipulation

In this tutorial I will show you how to create photo manipulation with using of different textures and blending modes. I will also show you different ways how to set lights and shadows and how to adjust colors in your work to everything fix together. Let’s get started

Preview of Final Results

Terrifying Horror Photo Manipulation Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1 - Creating The Background

Download picture of background and picture of sky. Create a new Photoshop document and drag these images into the document. Place layer with the sky above the ground and name it SKY. Name the layer with the ground simply GROUND. Add layer mask to the SKY. The button Add layer mask can be found on the bottom part of your palette Layers. If you don´t see this palette simply press F7.

Using a vector mask instead of the Eraser Tool (which is so popular among Photoshop users) is better because you can very simple reverse all steps you did. You just choose white for the color and paint over the areas which you want to see again. With the Eraser Tool there is no way to recover. Make sure that the layer mask is active (just click on it) and press B (= Brush Tool). Select some soft round brush, pick black color and start painting over the areas of SKY you want to disappear. If you want more precise details select smaller brush and lower opacity.

Now add Adjustment Layer (button Create new adjustment or fill layer can be seen next to the button Add layer mask) Gradient Map on the top of your layers. Using of adjustment layer is really useful because all adjustment you do this way are non destructive and you always can go back and change them. It´s almost impossible to do that if you adjust your pictures with using of Image > Adjustment > ... Thanks to adjustment layers you can also adjust only parts of the image. Set Gradient Map as it´s shown bellow:

Change the Blending Mode of this layer on Hard Light and set Opacity on 50%. This adjustment icrease the contrast of picture and also add violet tone. After this step your picture should be similar to this one:

Step 2 - Adding Woman

Download picture of woman and open it in Photoshop. Cut out the background using whatever tool you are comfortable with. I usually use the Lasso Tool (L) but it´s really up to you. After you´re done drag the woman into your manipulation. Drag the layer on the top of your layers and name it WOMAN. Add new adjustment layer Hue/Saturation and set Saturation on -40. Press OK. Now right click on this layer and choose the option Create Clipping Mask. This way the layer affects only one layer under itself, not the whole image. Your image should look like as it´s shown bellow:

Step 3 - Softening the Shadows

As you can see the woman has really strong shadows on her body which doesn´t fit to the rest of the scene. In this step we will soften them. Add new layer on the top of your layers and name it SOFT SHADOWS. Grab the Brush Tool (B), select some smaller soft brush. Press Alt and select some color of womans´ body. Lower the opacity on about 20% and start painting over the shadows. Change the color of the brush quite often to get realistic result. Bellow you can see how the woman looks with and without the softening:

5 comments on “Terrifying Horror Photo Manipulation”

Magdalena says:

December 2, 2021 at 10:07 am

The branches, ravens and some brushes don't exists and its a pity that I cannot complete you very nice tutorial. Regards Magdalena

Crispylogs says:

March 9, 2014 at 1:23 pm

Got this tutorial from the Google search engine.. but i really appreciate the work you have done in this Photoshop tutorial...

Rach says:

August 17, 2013 at 12:49 am

Great tutorial but the raven link no longer exists. I think this tutorial would be suited to intermediate, definitely not a beginners tutorial.

Garder says:

February 23, 2013 at 7:12 am

A very god tutorial but a bit hard

rhozee says:

October 15, 2012 at 1:19 pm

Nice bro, like it ...