Hi! Your tutorials are so helpful, thank you! Will you be doing a tutorial on how you created your “about me photo”? The colors and lighting is very beautiful!

Since I began writing tutorials, I’ve tended to save my steps as I work in Photoshop in the event I want to share them later. So, Sabina, you’re in luck! This tutorial will cover adding colorful lighting to a photo and adding some really easy lighting effects. First, let me show you the photo to which we’re referring:

(Click the image to view a full size version on my Flickr.)

Touching Up the Original Image

Here’s my original image. Before I get started adding effects, I’m going to explain the basic retouching steps. You can skip ahead to the Adding Lighting Effects section if you want to get to those now!

First, some gentle airbrushing. I created a new layer on top of my original image and selected a round brush at 0% hardness. I used the eyedropper tool to select one of the lighter skin tones near the eye area, and carefully brushed over the circles beneath the eyes. I also brightened up the cheeks a little with the same method. I set this layer to 40% opacity.

I merged these layers, then made a duplicate of the newly-merged layer. I selected the top layer. Next, I went to Image → Adjustments → Selective Color. “Red” should already be selected next to the Colors dropdown. I pulled down the “Black” slider to -40%.

Using a round eraser with 0% hardness, I erased the lip area so that the original color showed through, then merged these layers again.

To give everything a subtle glow, I set my background color to white and went to Filter → Distort → Diffuse Glow. I set the Graininess to 0, Glow Amount to 1, and Clear Amount to 15. The result is a subtle white cast to the lighter parts of the image.

I used Image → Auto Contrast to adjust for the added glow.

I selected the Dodge tool, set it to 15% exposure, and used a small, 0% hardness round brush to brighten the light reflections on the eyes and lips.

I used Filter → Liquify to tuck in the cheek a little. A minor vanity adjustment. :)

Adding Lighting Effects

We’ve all seen lens flares awfully abused, so here’s an example of tasteful use. I went to the Lens Flare filter via Filters → Render → Lens Flare. In the dialog, I set the brightness to 150% and selected the 35mm lens type. For the flare center, I clicked the very top left corner of the image.

The next few steps use bokeh textures, which are a great resource for quick lighting effects. Bokeh just refers to out-of-focus points of light.

Where to get bokeh textures

The bokeh textures I used come from a search for bokeh textures on DeviantArt. There’s a lot of free stock resources on there, but DeviantArt users usually accompany these with credit rules, so ensure you follow them! I used textures from Bokeh Textures Pack by ImaginaryRosse and BOKEH COLLECTION I by proverbios31. You can also find some lovely textures on Lost and Taken, a free textures website—try these colorful, grungy textures or this big bokeh 30-pack!

I layered one of these bokeh textures over my image and erased the points of light I didn’t want with a soft brush. I reduced the opacity to 75%.

I set my bokeh layer to the ‘Screen’ blending mode.

Again, I layered a bokeh texture over my image, this time reducing the layer opacity to 30%.

I set the layer to the ‘Screen’ blending mode and merged everything.

Everything was getting a little too light for me, so I used Auto Contrast (Image → Auto Contrast) to darken up my darks a tad.

Color and Finishing Touches

I created a new layer and set my foreground color to a cyan (#12c8a8) and my background color to a magenta (#c64692). Using the Gradient Tool, I clicked and dragged across the image from top-left to bottom-right.

I set the blending mode of this layer to ‘Color Burn.’

I reduced the layer opacity to 60%.

Next, I set my foreground color to white and my background to black. With the gradient tool still selected, I switched to a radial gradient and applied it in a line from the top-left corner toward the bottom-right. I set the opacity of this layer to 50%.

I changed the blending mode to ‘Screen.’

Next, I opened a new 10×10 document. I filled the background with white, then used the Elliptical Marquee tool to select a 10×10 circle. I deleted the contents of the circle. To save it as a pattern, I went to Images → Define Pattern. The resulting pattern is a series of white diamonds, with which I filled a new layer.

I created three different layers filled with this pattern and used different types of Transform to adjust their appearance. I then used layer masks to hide anywhere I didn’t want the pattern to appear for that layer. I’m afraid it was really a series of micro-steps and tweaks that got me to my final product, but here are my layers and the resultant image.

Setting a layer to the color burn blending mode can bring out some harsh shadows, and I felt like this was coming through a little on the face. To add layer a little bit of white on top of it, I set my background color to white and went to Filter → Distort → Diffuse Glow again. I set the Graininess to 0, Glow Amount to 1, and Clear Amount to 17.

Things were feeling sharp, so I merged everything, then duplicated my newly-merged layer. On the layer below, I ran a lens blur filter— Filter → Blur → Lens Blur. I set the radius somewhere around 10 and used the defaults for the remaining options. I then used a layer mask on the top layer to show the blur only on the edges, as pictured here.

Finally, I ran a low-radius smart blur (Filter → Blur → Smart Blur) on the image. It’s a minor difference, but it brought me to the final work!

As always, I hope you find this tutorial useful! Feel free to comment with any questions.

I decided to try my hand at making something similar. This was a quick one, but I hope it’ll give an idea of what steps one can take to achieve this type of effect.

Final Image Preview

Preparation

1. Still Time by Larabie Fonts
2. A straight-on photo of a face

I recommend working large. We’ll be doing some rasterized text warping that won’t be noticeable when sized down.

Process

I start by cropping down a photo of my face just above the eyes and right below the mouth. (I decided to skip clean-up because the reference image has a lot of detail in the skin—but due to the light differences, I would smooth the skin if I were to do this again.) Duplicate this original layer for future use.

Insert your text. I used the font Still Time by Larabie Fonts. Transform so that it expands across the face.

Set the fill of your text layer to 0%, then open Blending Options.

Check Color Overlay and go to its options. Select Blend Mode: Darken and a bright color.

Check Drop Shadow and go to its options. Select Blend Mode: Darken, Opacity: 100%, Distance: 0, Spread: 0, Size: 5px. Choose the same color as you did in Color Overlay, then make it 40% darker (check the percentage under “B” in the color selection dialog.)

Rasterize your text (right click » Rasterize Type).

The next step is to use the Polygonal Lasso Tool to select parts of the letters, then warp them (Edit » Transform » Warp). I wish I had taken a few more process shots of how this is done, but the idea is just to grab parts of the letters and make them less rigid—more fluid with the shape of the face. Here’s how mine came out:

Next, add some flair to the text. I actually used a drawing tablet to paint in the splashes and tapering, but this can be done with a patient mouse too. I didn’t spend too much time on this, but it’s probably the trickiest part… just do your best, mess around, and see what shakes out!

Let’s add some depth to the text. Duplicate your original face layer and bring it to the top. Go to Image » Adjustments » Channel Mixer. In the dialog box, check Monochrome and adjust the sliders (for skin, adding red is usually the easiest) so that you have an amount of shading similar to below.

Set the layer to Multiply. This darkens up those areas we didn’t blow out until they were white. (This is where I started wishing I’d cleaned up the skin!)

This is an optional step—its usefulness depends on your original photo. That last step made my eyes really dark, so this is how I brought the color back up. Duplicate the original face again and bring it to the top. Go to Window » Masks » Add Layer Mask. Select the Layer Mask and fill with black, then take a white brush and paint over the irises of the eyes so that the original color shows through.

The text still looked flat to me, so I decided to try another approach with highlighting instead of shading. This tutorial was a bit of an experimental procedure, so you should feel free to mess around on your own as well!

Select all and go to Edit » Copy Merged. Paste.

Duplicate your original face layer again and bring it on top. In Tools, make your background color white. Go to Filter » Distort » Diffuse Glow. (You may need to go to Show All Menu Items under Distort first.) Graininess: 0, Glow: 1, Clear: 10-12.

Set the layer opacity to 25% and the Blending Mode to Vivid Light.

The last thing is “detail” steps. These were photo-specific for me, so try to spot any last touches you can add to yours and work accordingly. I noticed that my eyes were a little blue from my contacts, so after flattening I went to Image » Adjustments » Selective Color and pulled down the Blues. I also used the Burn tool to refine some of the shading.

Final Image

Before I called it quits, I dusted some pink lighting around my cheeks and in my eyes with a soft brush and set the Blend Mode to Vivid Light and 25% opacity.

As I mentioned earlier, this was a rush job—if I were to do it again, I’d work on enhancing the lighting on the lips, clean up that bothersome skin, or maybe just select a better photo altogether. Despite that, I think this tutorial shows a lot about layering and hope you find it useful!

Final Image Preview

Assets

• Session on the Beach 3 by Piotr Bizior

The Process

First, crop the image down to 310×400px.

Open a new document at 500×700 and fill the background with 50% gray.

Paste your newly cropped photo in the middle of the canvas.

With your photo layer selected, go to Edit » Transform » Perspective. Grab the top-right handle and drag it slightly downward so that the left side appears closed than the right.

Duplicate this layer. Select your new layer and press CTRL + T to go into Transform mode (or go to Edit » Free Transform). At the top of the screen will be some additional options—in the width and height boxes, enter 95%.

Now duplicate the layer you just resized and apply the same treatment. Repeat again so that you have four photos that are increasingly small.

Reverse the order of the layers so that the smallest photo is on the bottom. Then arrange them as shown in the photo below. Make sure they all have the same horizontal center.

Select one of your photo layers, right-click, and go to Blending Options. Check the Drop Shadow option, select it, and change the options to 50% opacity, 3px distance, and 4px size. Click OK.

Copy this layer style to all the other photo layers.

Select all four of the photo layers and duplicate them. Select your newly duplicated layers and go to Edit » Transform » Flip Horizontal. All at the same time, drag the four layers so that the foremost photo’s corner touches that of the original. See below:

With all those layers still selected, go to Edit » Transform » Distort. Grab the top-right handle and drag it upwards. Do the same for the bottom-right handle. Adjust until the photos until they align with the original like a reflection. Like this:

Now merge those four reflection photo layers. Apply a pixel mask by going to Window » Masks and clicking the Pixel Mask button. (Here’s an introduction to pixel masks if you’re new to them.)

Select the layer mask. Select the Gradient Tool from the Tools window and set it to a black-to-white gradient using the options at the top. The drag from the center of the image to the bottom of the canvas:

Reduce the opacity of this layer to 50%.

Select your background layer and fill it with a darker gray color. Go to Filter » Noise » Add Noise. Select 1% and click OK.

Create a new layer directly above your background. Select an area similar to the one below and fill with a radial gradient with white on the inside.

The result:

Duplicate your gradient layer and move your new gradient to cover the remaining area of the canvas.

Set the Blending Mode of both gradient layers to Overlay.

Merge all layers.

Go to Filter » Render » Lighting Effects. Select the Spotlight light type and adjust the lighting effects for a subtle spotlight to tie the piece together.

Final Image

There you go! A slick reflection. Hope you enjoyed this tutorial!

Before we start, a little administrative update for my subscribers and anyone else who may be interested: I’m going to be branching out into topics other than Photoshop soon, so I’ll be researching ways to split up my feed so that those interested in only the Photoshop stuff can keep tabs on my tutorials without any clutter. If anyone can suggest a service or method for doing this, feel free to leave a comment. I’ll keep you all posted.

Final Image Preview

Here’s what the tutorial will cover:

Fire up that Photoshop and let’s get started!

Assets

• My face stock 1 by raine-angelstock. Make sure to download the full size version.

The Process

Open up the image of the girl in Photoshop and resize it to 1500px wide. All measurements I give in this tutorial will be relative to that size.

Masking and Colorizing the Face

Desaturate by going to Image » Adjustments » Desaturate.

Increase the contrast by going to Image » Adjustments » Brightness/Contrast and pulling the contrast slider up to 50.

Create a new layer above the others and use the Paint Bucket Tool to fill with black. Add a pixel mask. (Not sure how? Check out my beginner masking tutorial.) Decrease the layer opacity to 50% so that you can see what you’re doing relative to the layers below.

Select the Brush tool. Use a 400px brush, 0% hardness, and black. Carefully brush over the girl’s face.

Increase the layer opacity to 100% again to check your work. It should look similar to the image below. If not, return to your layer mask and adjust it as needed.

To better define her face, use a 30px, 100% hardness, black brush to outline the bottom of her chin. Only her face should be showing. Then take a 45px, 0% hardness, black brush and soften her chin a little.

Select the Move tool. Select all layers (hold down CTRL to select multiple layers) and move them so that her face is more centered on the canvas.

Right-click the layer that has the face on it and go to Blending Options. Check the Gradient Overlay item and set the Blend Mode to Multiply. Replace the two default gradient colors with a magenta (#ff0042) and a yellow (#eaff00). When satisfied, click OK.

I want there to be more contrast without losing detail, so I’m going to use the Burn Tool to emphasize areas of her face. Select the Burn Tool and set the brush to 100px, 0% hardness, 50% exposure and Shadows. Darken her features—hair, eyes, nose, and lips.

Change the size to 300px and 25% exposure and brush over the whole image once. This helps to unify the shadows we created and add additional contrast.

Creating Our Brushes

If you’ve never made a brush, don’t worry—it’s really, really easy!

Create a new layer. For your foreground color, select 50% gray (#808080). Open up the Info window by going to Window » Info. Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool. The Info window will tell you the width and height as you draw the marquee, so create a 50×1200px rectangle and use the Paint Bucket Tool to fill with your gray color.

Select the Polygonal Lasso tool. Click in the top-right corner of your rectange, hold down CTRL, and make another click toward the bottom-left of your first point when you see the line at a 45 degree angle. Click around the remaining gray area so that your polygon will delete the whole top left corner. Then hit Delete. Do the same for the bottom corner:

This will be our brush. Go to Edit » Define Brush Preset and name your brush. Note that because we made it 50% gray, it will be 50% transparent.

Select the Brush Tool. Open up the Brush window by going to Window » Brushes. Select Brush Tip shape and look for your brush. When you find it, delete the brush layer as you no longer need it.

Select your brush. Change the diameter to 800px and spacing to 100%.

Check Shape Dynamics and go to it. Change Size Jitter control to Off and raise the slider to 50%. Bring the Roundness Jitter up to 25%.

Check Scattering and go to it. Change Scatter control to off and raise the slider to 50%.

Set the foreground color to black.

Masking with Our Brush

Now that we have all our settings in order, create a new layer above the rest. Fill it with black and add a pixel mask. Select the pixel mask and brush a line from the top left to the bottom left of your face. The variance caused by the brush settings means that everyone’s result will be unique. Here is mine:

Duplicate this layer with the brush mask and hide the original. On your duplicate layer, with the pixel mask still selected, go to Filter » Blur » Motion Blur. Set the angle to 90 degrees and the distance to 100px.

Hold down the CTRL key and click on the original brushed mask layer. This will give you a selection of the original mask. Hit CTRL + SHIFT + I to invert the selection. Then take a large, black brush and paint over the selected area. The result:

Flatten your image (or if you want to save your layers, just hit CTRL + A and go to Edit » Copy Merged and paste). Go to Image » Adjustments » Hue/Saturation. Increase Saturation to 50 and Hue to 6. This will brighten up our colors!

We’re going to add just a little more depth before we call it quits. Select the Brush Tool and set it to 45px, white, 100% hardness. Create a series of up-and-down lines across the face, then use Motion Blur set at 90 degrees and a distance of 450px to get this effect:

(If that last stepped confused you, try reviewing my burst streak tutorial. It’s the same thing, just a different angle.)

Set the blending mode of this layer to Overlay.

Final Image

I was just goofing around and didn’t set my final product up for a tutorial, but if anyone is curious, the method of creation is similar to the “dusty” sparkle effect explained at the end of this tutorial on swirling light streaks.

Final Image Preview

Preparation

The only assets we need for this tutorial are a concrete wall background and a stencil-like font. Here are links to what I used:

• Image: “Concrete” by Jazza on stock.xchng
• Font: “Gunplay” by Larabie Fonts on dafont

The Process

Start by opening up your wall image. I cropped mine down to 880 wide, so any measurements I give will be relative to that document size.

Next, select the Horizontal Type Tool and insert some text using your stencil font.

Right-click your type layer and select Rasterize Type. Go to Filter » Blur » Gaussian Blur and select a 1px radius.

Duplicate the layer. Go to Filter » Blur » Gaussian Blur again, but this time select a 3px radius.

Add a pixel mask to your newly blurred layer. (Not sure how masks work? Please read my introduction to Photoshop masking). Select the mask and go to Filter » Render » Clouds. This basically randomizes where your extra blur shows through.

I did this again procedure again with a slightly larger blur. So, 6px radius blur:

And masked with a cloud render. It’s a subtle effect, but those subtleties add to our realism:

Next, let’s add some stray sprays. Take a 65px brush, black, 0% hardness and click on a few of the letters. If you’re using a tablet, try out a 100px brush with pressure sensitivity on.

At this point, select everything except for the wall background and merge. (If you want to hold on to your old layers, consider putting it all in a folder and hiding it.) With a 65px, 0% hardness eraser, randomly erase the edges of a few of the letters.

Ensure you’re on your graffiti layer and go to Edit » Transform » Rotate. Click and drag counter-clockwise to angle it slightly as shown below. If you need to move it, select the Move Tool to do so.

Duplicate your graffiti layer.

Select your bottom graffiti layer. Set the Blending Mode to Overlay and the opacity to 50%.

Now select your top graffiti layer. Add a pixel mask and select the mask. Again, go to Filter » Render » Clouds.

This shows too much of the layer below, so let’s brighten up our layer mask (thus darkening the lettering). Select the top layer mask. Go to Image » Adjustments » Brightness/Contrast and set Brightness to 100.

Finally, merge all layers. Go to Filter » Render » Lighting Effects and use the following settings (don’t forget to adjust the light shape as highlighted):

Final Image

Another example:

Before we start, a tremendous thanks for your e-mails, comments, and linkage. I’m having such a fun time with this blog, and that is thanks to you! ♥ :)

Final Image Preview

Assets

• Tribal 3 Bend. For this tutorial, I’ve downloaded the full version and resized it to 900 pixels wide, so note that my brushes will be sized accordingly.

The Process

The first step is to create the path for our streak. If this looks difficult, feel free to check out my simple introduction to using the Pen Tool in Photoshop to create streaks first for a quick primer.

Start by selecting the Pen Tool from the Tools panel. Add a single click in the area to the upper-right of the hand, like so:

Next, we want to add our first curve. In the image below, I show you how this is done: click in the spot shown on the hand, continue holding down the mouse button, and drag to the left and slightly downward to curve the line.

Continue to use this click-and-curve method to create a series of curves. I’ll show you all the points I made. Moving down her arm:

Near the shoulder:

By her waist:

Top of the leg:

Moving down the leg:

The foot:

And finally, I finish by moving just off the toes:

So here’s our final path:

Now we want to give our path some solidity. Select the Brush Tool from the Tools panel and open the Brushes panel (Windows » Brushes). Set the options to 9px, 100% hardness, and white. Check the Shape Dynamics item and set Size Jitter to Pen Pressure in it.

Create a new layer, name it Streak, and ensure it’s selected.

Go to the Paths panel (Windows » Paths). Right-click the path you created and go to Stroke Path. Make sure that Brush is selected from the dropdown and that Simulate Pressure is checked. Click OK. To stop showing the path on your canvas, just click in the gray, empty area in the Paths panel to deselect.

You should now see your new stroke:

Since the tapered edges are a little thin, I like to duplicate my streak a couple times to brighten them up. Duplicate your Streak layer twice (right-click and Duplicate, or just drag the layer on to the New Layer button). Select all three Streak layers by holding down CTRL and clicking each one. Then go to Layers » Merge Layers:

Next, we’re going to mask the areas of the streak we don’t want to show. I have a quick, easy introduction to Photoshop masking for those unfamiliar with the technique.

Select your Streak layer. Open the Masks panel (Window » Masks) and click on the Add Pixel Mask button. You should now see a white box appear on your layer. That’s your mask.

Anything we paint in black on the mask will be hidden. Anything we paint in white will show. By default, the whole thing is white. Select the Brush Tool, set it to black, 100% hardness and 9px. Ensure the layer mask (white box on your layer) is selected.

Start painting over any area you don’t want to show in black. Think of it as erasing—but if you mess up, you can just switch your brush color to white and paint that part of the image back in.

So here we go, starting from the top. I erase over the hand and a part of the arm:

See how it looks like the streak goes behind the arm? I do this for the rest of the body, too:

I’ve discussed using Blending Options to create a glow on streaks before, but I don’t really use this method any more. I prefer to blur as I feel it gives me a little more control over the way my light disperses. The choice is yours, but I’ll be showing you how to use blur for this one.

I do two blurs: one that’s close to the streak, and one that’s a little more dispersed.

For our first blur, duplicate your Streak layer. Name this new layer Blur 1. Right-click the mask on this layer and select Apply Layer Mask. All the parts that were previously just ‘hidden’ because of our mask are now officially erased.

Go to Filter » Blur » Gaussian Blur. Set the Radius to 8 pixels. The result:

For a more general blur, duplicate your Blur 1 layer and name it Blur 2. Go to Filter » Blur » Gaussian Blur again and set the Radius to 15 pixels. Result:

Now for a little sparkly texture!

Duplicate your Blur 1 layer, name it Sparkles 1, and put it above everything else. Change the Blending Mode to Dissolve. (Blending Mode can be changed through the little dropdown on the top of the Layers panel.)

Layers that are set to Dissolve will show edges that fade (dissolve, even) into a diffusion of sparkle-esque pixels. Since our layer was blurred and had no edges, it just gave us a random spread of sparkles. The only issue with this is that when we decrease the opacity, we just get fewer sparkles, not lower-opacity sparkles. Let’s solve this!

Create a new layer below Sparkles 1. Select the Sparkles 1 layer, and go to Layers » Merge Down.

Now our Sparkles 1 layer no longer has the same Blending Mode, but it still retains the look! We can adjust the opacity freely, so set it to 25%.

For more depth to our sparkles, duplicate the Blur 1 layer again and name it Sparkles 2. Set the Blending Mode to Dissolve. To decrease the number of pixels, decrease the opacity—I set mine to 7%:

Finally, for a little cleanup, take the eraser tool and remove any sparkles from unwanted areas—on her dress, for example.

Final Image

Thank you for reading! Don’t forget, I’m always happy to answer questions; just leave ‘em in the comments!

Final Image Preview

Assets

• Eye Stock 2 by ttooxxiicc-lloovvee. I’ll be using the fullview version at 900px × 530px.

The Process

Open your image and duplicate the Background layer. Select your new layer (a duplicated version of the original image), and name it Darken Lashes (Selective). With this layer still selected, go to Image » Adjustments » Selective Color.

In the Selective Color dialog box, change the Colors dropdown to Blacks, the Method to Relative, and change the Black slider to 7%. This adds a little darkness our eyelashes.

You may notice that the same darkness was applied to the iris. To fix this, let’s use a layer mask.

Open to the Masks panel by going to Windows » Masks. Click the Add a Pixel Mask button. (If you’re new to Photoshop masks, please read my beginner masking tutorial.)

Select the layer mask you just created. Select the Brush tool and set your brush size 100px, 0% hardness, and black. Brush over the white of the eye and the iris. You’ll see it lightening as you do so—the original image is now showing through in that area.

Duplicate your Darken Lashes (Selective) layer. Rename the new layer to Darken Lashes (Burn). Select the Burn Tool from the Tools panel. Change the brush settings to 21px in size, 0% hardness. Select Shadows from the Range dropdown and set the Exposure to 30%.

For the top lashes, brush gently from the tips of the lashes to just before the lash line. If you brush from top to very bottom, you’ll create more dark areas than necessary for this procedure. Keep your darkening to the upper portion of each upper lash.

Bottom lashes, however, can be stroked from top to bottom.

Next, we’re going to thicken the eyelashes. Create a new layer above the others and name it Thicken Eyelashes. Ensure it’s selected.

Select the Pen Tool from the Tools panel. Click once at the tip of one of the thicker eyelashes.

Look closely to see where the eyelash ends. Click at that point and HOLD. Do not release your mouse button just yet!

With the mouse button still being held down, move toward the upper right. You’ll see the line connecting your two points begin to curve. Move in this direction until the curve perfectly aligns with the eyelash.

Now that we have our path, we can Stroke it—in other words, add a line that will follow the path we just created. (If you like, you can check out my introduction to stroking paths.)

To do so, select the Brush Tool and change the options to 5px size, 0% hardness, and black. Open the Paths panel (Windows » Paths) and right-click the path you just created. Choose Stroke path and ensure that Simulate Pressure is checked in the dialog box that shows up. Accept the settings, and you should see a stroke appear beneath your eyelash!

Here’s what it looks like without the path on top.

Repeat the above process to create more eyelashes. In the Paths panel, you can click the Create New Path button to add more paths. Don’t do this for the bottom lashes, just the top ones!

When you’re done, set the Blending Mode for the layer to Overlay. This will soften the transition between the real eyelashes and the ones we just created.

For further softening, run a 300px eraser over the top of the eyelashes.

Okay, our eyelashes have been darkened and thickened. Let’s add some eyeliner!

Create a new layer and name it Top Eyeliner. Select this layer. This will be the eyeliner for the upper lashline.

Select the Brush Tool. Change the settings to 21px, 0% hardness, and black. Draw a line from one end of the lashline to the other:

Select the Eraser Tool. We want the eyeliner to taper off as it approaches the inside of the eye, so change the settings to 45px, 0% hardness, and erase progressively more as you head toward the inside of the eye. It should taper off like this:

Change the layer Blending Mode to Soft Light.

Create a new layer and name it Bottom Eyeliner. The process here is similar. Use a black brush, 0% hardness, 21px, to draw a line on the lashline. Stop about 1/4 from the inside of the eye, and make sure it tapers off.

I added one or two clicks of a 65px, 0% hardness, black brush toward the outer corner of the eye as well.

Change the layer blending mode to Soft Light.

This isn’t too bad, but eyeliner application comes with a little more noise. We’re going to add a little smudging and subtle dots.

Keren_R created some neat star brushes that I used to accomplish this. You can download them here—just double-click the file to load the brush set into Photoshop. It will appear under your presets.

Create a new layer and name it Bottom Smudging. Select the 630px brush named Sampled Brush #3. Changed the size to 175px, keep it black, and change the angle to 112 degrees. Click once toward the outside of the eye and on the lash. Switch the angle to 67 degrees and click again to the right of your first brush. The result should be something like this:

Erase the area (I used a 45px, 0% hardness eraser) above the bottom lashline to ensure no additional darkness was added there.

Change the Blending Mode to Soft Light.

Create a new layer called Top Smudging. For the top lashes, I used Sampled Brush #12 which is 432px by default. I kept the same size.

Erase below the lashline.

Final Image

The final step is to add some depth to the iris. I decided to work with a merged version at this point. To create a new layer that contains a merged version of all your other layers, just press CTRL + A to select all, then go to Edit » Copy Merged. Then Edit » Paste or CTRL + V.

Select the Burn Tool. Set the Exposure to 10%, the Range to Shadows, and the size to 45px. In a single stroke, brush around the outside of the iris, darking the ring around it.

Select the Dodge tool. Set the Exposure to 50%, the Range to Midtones, and the size to 45px. Brush over the green area of the iris just once, making sure you exclude the pupil.

All done!:

Final Image Preview

Assets

This cute little turtle is brought to us by Shiev. You may download it here if you’d like to work with the original file.

The Process

Our first step is to indicate which area of our photo we want masked.

Select the Polygonal Lasso Tool from the Tools panel. (If you only see the Lasso Tool, click and hold the Lasso Tool button to show other options in the same category. Then select Polygonal Lasso Tool from the sub-menu.)

Use a series of clicks to outline the subject of your image. (In other words, the area you do not want to hide.) It doesn’t have to be exactly perfect—we’ll clean things up later—but try to be precise.

Next, open the Masks panel by going to Window » Masks. Click the Select the Pixel Mask button.

Here’s the result. The area that you did not select is now hidden.

You’ll also notice your layer has changed. The black-and-white box is your Layer Mask. The black areas are hidden (”masked”), and the white areas remain visible.

Now that we’ve hidden the background, we can add in one of our own. I’m going to use a free texture I downloaded awhile from Bittbox, but anything will do!

Create a new layer and place it below your photo. Paste your background into this layer.

I see some rough edges—tiny parts of the old backdrop—on the top of my turtle’s head, so I’m going to fix that. Adjusting your layer mask is easy.

First, click on your Layer Mask:

Any area you paint in black will be masked. So, we’re going to use a black brush to hide the little excess backdrop peeking through.

Select an appropriately-sized brush, 100% hardness, and black. I used 9px, but if your image is larger, you may need a larger brush. Then, brush over the areas you want invisible.

If you hide too much, just switch your brush to white. Anything you paint in white will show!

Ta-da! We’re just about done. The last thing I want to show you is that you can still apply Blending Options to masked layers. What if we want a little drop shadow on Mr. Turtle? Easy!

Right-click your original photo layer and select Blending Options. Check and click on the Drop Shadow menu item, then adjust the settings to this:

Final Image

Just for fun, here’s our turtle in space!

Any questions about this tutorial? Lay ‘em on me in the comments! :)

Final Image Preview

Assets

This photo is from nokomai on stock.xchng. If you’d like to work with the original file, it’s located here. For this tutorial, I’ll be zooming in on the lips to show you the process.

Plumping the Lips

The sheen of lip gloss often gives the impression of plumper lips. To support this illusion, we’ll start by using the Liquify tool (Filter » Liquify). I set my brush size to 195px and select the Bloat tool from the left-hand menu in the dialog window. Then I single-click appoximately five times along the horizontal center of her her lower lip:

The result:

Colorizing the Lips

Colorizing the lips will help them appear moist and as if she is wearing a tinted gloss. I turn on size jitter (refer to my post on digital painting pressure settings if you’re not sure how), select a 30px brush, and pick a light red color (#c83a3a). I create a new layer and roughly paint over the lips.

To blend the color in, I set the Blend Mode for that layer to Soft Light. I also set the layer opacity to 50%.

Finally, I clean up the rough edges with a 100px eraser on 0% hardness. Since the eraser is so large, the edges are very soft—great for subtle blending. I carefully use the soft edge to erase the hard edges of the color. Notice the difference on the far left, far right, and bottom areas of the lips.

Adding Shine

This is the trickiest part!

Before I do anything else, I look at the lips and judge where my light source is. In this case, it appears to be coming from the top left, so I will paint my shine accordingly. If you’re unsure, it’s useful to have reference images.

When light hits a thin coat of lip gloss, it will catch all the little lines in the lips. Our first step is to highlight the more obvious of these lines.

To do so, I set my brush to 5px, white, with size jitter on. I use a series of short, up-and-down strokes to achieve a ‘tapered’ effect. So, for the below stroke, I brush up and down a few times until the middle is the desired thickness, then ‘flick’ my stylus upward so that it will taper on top. I repeat this to taper it on the bottom, too.

With one stroke complete, I proceed to add more strokes. Look for obvious creases in the lips, then place a stroke on the side of it that’s opposite that of your light source.

Next, I begin adding blocks of shine. These will be largest where the light is hitting, then become less obvious as you move away from the light source. I use a consistent up-and-down motion with a light touch to paint these blocks.

As you move away from the light source, the lighting will be less defined. To create a more scattered effect, I just began ‘dotting’ the color instead of painting in strokes.

Here I add some additional sheen on the upper lip. Again, the detail comes from simply ‘dotting’ color and using small, up-and-down strokes.

I reduce the opacity of my shine layer to 80%.

To add an additional reflection from non-direct light, I increase my brush size to 9px and keep the size jitter on. I create a new layer and reduce the opacity to 40%.

In the above image, you can see the natural grooves of the lips as they meet the area where her lips part. These will guide the shape you form.

Using small, circular strokes, I create a shape that is much more general than our first shine. The circular strokes should be most obvious near the grooves in the lips, where small Vs are formed atop the grooves and in-between your circle-strokes. (See image below.) The shape should generally cover any area that you included light, and taper off as it approaches the left and right sides of the mouth.

I use the same technique to add sheen to the top lip.

I reduce the opacity of the layer to 20%.

Final Image

Here’s our final image:

I hope you find this tutorial helpful! If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Final Image Preview

Tutorial Video

This video demonstrates a quick way to do this if you have a pressure-sensitive tablet.

The Process

Open your starter image. This is mine:

Select the Brush Tool and set the foreground color to White.

If you have a drawing tablet:

This is the method I use in the video.

1. Set the brush size to 65px at 0% hardness. Turn on Size Jitter.
2. Create a new layer above your original image.
3. Use the pressure-sensitivity of your tablet to dot orbs of various sizes in your desired area. Do this until you achieve a pattern with which you’re happy.

If you do NOT have a drawing tablet:

1. Set the brush size to 3px at 0% hardness.
2. Create a new layer above your original image.
3. Click in several spots to dot small orbs around your desired area.
4. Increase your brush size to 10px. Dot three or four of these size orbs in the area.
5. Increase your brush size to 20px. Dot one or two of these size orbs in the area.
6. Continue to adjust your brush size and add more orbs until you achieve a pattern with which you’re happy. My result:
   

More Glow

1. Duplicate the layer with your orbs. Go to Filter » Blur » Gaussian Blur. Set the radius to 5px.
2. Duplicate your original orbs layer again. Go to Filter » Blur » Gaussian Blur. Set the radius to 15px.

Final Image