“The Pain” – Create this Eerie Abstract Photo Manipulation

Learn how to create this eerie abstract photo manipulation called “The Pain”. You’ll learn how to combine different stock photos to create this scene then apply a cold color tone to it.

Preview of Final Results

The Pain Photoshop Tutorial

Tutorial Resources

• Grunge texture 1 – darkrose42-stock
• Grunge texture 2 – darkrose42-stock
• Model – Adobe Stock
• Dried blood splatter brushes – Photoshop Tutorials
• Glossy blood splatter brushes – Photoshop Tutorials
• Cobweb brushes – Obsidian Dawn
• Cobweb texture – Fantasystock
• Wire – Morguefile
• Bandage – Titelgestalten

Step 1

Create a new document with the size of 1333x1000px and fill it with white (or any sizes and any colors you like).

Open grunge texture 1 stock. Use Move Tool (press V to active it) and drag it into our main document, resize it as shown below:

Choose Edit-Transfrom-Flip Horizontal:

Then press Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+U to desaturate this texture. You’ll see it turns into black and white:

Step 2

Open grunge texture 2 stock. Drag it into our canvas and do the same technique in step 1 ( resize, transform, flip it). You may notice that I only use the center part of this texture for this tutorial:

Change the mode of it to Multipy 50%:

Step 3

There is a part on background that I want to fix. It’s a carved circle on the right edge. Create a new layer ( hit Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+N to do it) and press S to active Clone Tool. I use this tool with settings below :

Hold the Alt key on the part of source then clone over this circle. If you’re not familiar with this tool you can follow many good tutorials over the web. Here is my result:

No need to be so cleaned with it as we’re working on grunge background! After cloning this part becomes a bit blurred. Don’t worry, you just need to sharpen it. Go to Filter-Sharpen-Unsharp Mask:

Step 4

Now we’re going to add splatter effect for background. Create a new layer and set foreground color to black. Choose dried blood splatter you’ve downloaded and take one for your taste and draw on background. You can see my choice of brush:

Move it to the top of picture and change the mode to Soft light 100%. Depending on the boldness of brush you can vary opacity or even duplicate it to get the effect you want.

Step 5

Make a new layer and I use the first brush of brush pack to continue painting on the left side of background and I set the mode of it to Soft light 50%. Then I duplicate it and move it to the right.

Continue with two layers ( or number of your choice) and draw some small splatters. I set one layer to Soft light 50% and another to 100%. You can add layer mask to erase any unecessary parts:

Step 6

Create a new layer and set foreground to white. Use cobweb brush, number 1064 ( or your choice) to paint on background, then transform ( hit Cmd/Ctrl+T) to do it, place it at the top right of picture:

Continue with a new layer, I use this brush again and position it at the top left. Remember you should transform it to get a different look from the right.

Step 7

Open model stock. Use any tools you’re familiar with to make a selection around model, then copy it into a new layer. Move extracted model into our document, place her at the center:

Add layer mask for model and use soft black brush to erase around model to make her blend with background. As you see in the screenshot, I vary brush opacity for different parts of model: