In this Photoshop tutorial, you will learn how to integrate a model in dark environment and apply abstract lights effects over the scene. Basically we’re going to create some nice sparkly effects and connect them with a certain model, mixing up everything with a nice suitable background.
Preview of Final Results
Download the PSD
Light Effects.zip | 22.16 MB
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Tutorial Resources
Step 1
Open image of the model. Double-click with left mouse button on it to unlock the Background layer. Duplicate it using Ctrl+J, then hit Ctrl+L (Levels) over the duplicated layer. Set it as shown in the second image below. You can go even little bit further with the darkening.
Step 2
Now select Brush Tool (B), hit D on keyboard to bring colors to default and set your foreground brush color to black. Make sure all your brush options are set to 100% and then paint in the same layer, over the light spots to fill them up with black.
Step 3
Now go to and use the same settings as shown below. Press OK and then go to Layers Palette and turn off the visibility of the duplicated layer. Your screen should now look exactly like the second image below.
Step 4
Select “model” layer and click on the Layer Mask button. Now you can just delete the “model copy” layer, as we won’t be using it anymore. We needed it only for extraction.
So this was an alternative way for some cutting out, usually people use Channels to do this. But isn’t this fun to learn something different?
Step 5
Let’s don’t get so excited, as this is only the first stage of the extraction, now we’re going to need to blend this model with a desired background. So create a new layer below the “model”, grab Paint Bucket (G) and fill it with black color. As you see there are still some white edges. The cut out never works perfectly, so you either have to blend it properly or just do some more accurate extraction.
Step 6
Now let’s go to Layers Palette, right-click on the “model” layer mask and select Apply Layer Mask. Next hold Ctrl and left-click on the “model” layer thumbnail, this should bring up the selection.
