Photoshop Tutorials

I'd like to show you different ways how you can play with lights and shadows in your photo manipulation to create completely different light scene. I believe these skills are crucial for every photo manipulator. Let's get started!

Preview of Final Results

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Playing with Lights and Shadow to Create Dramatic Photo Manipulation

Resources

• Background, woman, dinosaur, leather texture
• Sun Rays
• Leather Texture

Step 1 - Preparing Background

Download picture of background from the list above and open it in Photoshop. Double click on the layer (if you don't see the palette Layers go to Window > Layers) and rename it on BACKGROUND. It's really useful habit to name all your layers because once your manips become more complicated it will be easier to navigate through them.

Before you'll add woman and dinosaur let's focus on slight adjusting of the background. You'll desaturate it and make it bit lighter in this step.

Let's start with desaturating. Add new adjustment layer Hue/Saturation. You can find the button "Add new fill or adjustment layer" in the bottom part of the palette Layers.

Set the value Saturation on -40.

The second thing mentioned in this step is lightening. You'll do it very easily by using Levels adjustment layer. So add it and then set the Input Levels on 0; 0,94; 181.

If you look closer at the adjustment's window you can see there are three values for the Input Levels (and two for the Output Levels). First value represents value of shadows, second is value of midtones and third value of highlights.

By the adjustment you've just done you've made midtones and highlights lighter while shadows (darks) remain untouched.

Below you can see how these three adjustments change the picture.

Step 2 - Adding Woman and Dinosaur

Download the photo of woman and dinosaur and drag it into your photo manipulation. Place it on the top of all layers and name it e.g. WOMAN (to keep it short). Below you can take a look at the order of layers so far.

You won't make any changes in this step but I'd like to discuss what and why you'll change in the following steps. It's nice to follow tutorials but without knowing why such things were done tutorials are not much useful.

Before let's take a look at how the image looks right now.

The most essential thing (on which the whole tutorial focuses) is that woman with dinosaur were shot in completely different light scenery than the background. They were shot during sunlight which causes hard transitions between lights and shadows.

On the other hand the background image was shot when it was cloudy and foggy and light was very soft - you can barely see difference between lights and shadows.

On woman and dinosaur the light source comes from the left. You'll add this light source also to the background and create more visible difference between lights and shadows. You'll also soften transition between lights and shadows on woman and dinosaur.

You might think that I talk only about light scene but not cover the topic of color adjustments. Well, you'll make these kind of changes too, but I want to focus especially on changing lights and shadows in this tutorial because I think it's essential skill for photo manipulator, which is often ignored. I believe that many manips could be significantly better if author thinks more about lights and shadows.

Step 3 - Adding Sun Rays to the Background

Let's start with changing the light scene of the background. As I said light source on woman and dinosaur comes from the left but there is no such thing on the background. You'll add some sun rays coming from that side in this step so the picture will make better sense.

Add new layer under the layer WOMAN and name it SUN RAYS. Download the sun rays brush listed in the beginning of the tutorial and install it into Photoshop. If you don't know how to install custom brushes into Photoshop you can take a look at this tutorial.

On the picture below you can see the layer order.

Grab the Brush Tool (B) and select one of the brushes you've just installed. Set the Master Diameter on proper size and lower its Opacity on about 50%.

Hold Alt on your keyboard to activate the Eyedropper Tool (I) and pick some very light color from the background.

While doing manipulations (painting, making lights and shadows etc.) try to avoid using pure white and black color. They both are very harsh and very rarely look realistic. You can very rarely see pure black and white in real life. Even if you think something is black, it's more likely dark grey, dark green... The same with white color.

Make invisible the layer WOMAN. To do it click on the small icon of eye next to that layer.

Now paint some light rays. Keep in mind that to get realistic look they all should come from the same site. Also don't paint much of the rays, it wouldn't look realistic.

You can get the inspiration of what to paint on the picture below.

After you finish painting make the layer WOMAN visible again.

Step 4 - Adjusting Woman

Let's make first adjustments on woman. Because of the light scene her stock photo was shot, her skin has yellowish tone, which doesn't fit to the color palette of the forest. To fix it you'll make her bit darker and less saturated.

Create mask of the woman (e.g. with the Lasso Tool (L) or the Pen Tool (P)). With the mask still activated add new adjustment layer Levels on the top of all layers and set the Input Levels on 0; 0,94; 255.

On the picture below you can see how the thumbnail of the layer mask should look like. (Thumbnail is the red circled part.) As you may notice the white part is where the adjustment appears and the black part remains unedited.

Activate the mask of woman again. You can do it simply by clicking on the thumbnail of the Levels adjustment layer (highlighted on the picture above). Hold Ctrl on your keyboard while doing it. If you don't the mask doesn't active.

With mask activated add new adjustment layer Vibrancy and set the value Vibrancy on -60.

Note: Vibrancy adjustment is available only in Photoshop CS3 and higher. But you can get almost the same result in older versions of PS if you add adjustment layer Hue/Saturation, choose Red as color and set similar value as you would set for Vibrancy.

Let's take a look.

Woman's skin still doesn't fit exactly to the rest of the image but don't worry about it now. You'll fix it in some of the next steps.

Step 5 - Adjusting Highlights

Let's move on adjusting highlights in the background and on the dinosaur.

Add new adjustment layer Levels on the top of all layers and set the Input Levels on 0; 2,85; 255.

Right now the whole picture is very light which you obviously don't want. You want to adjust only parts where sun hits. To achieve that click on the thumbnail of this layer, grab the Paint Bucket Tool (G) and fill the layer mask with solid black color.

Grab the Brush Tool (B), set the Master Diameter on 2 - 5 pixels, lower its Opacity on 5% and pick white color. Start painting on the areas which should be lighter because of the sun rays. Paint also over the dinosaur's head because it's too dark.

Below you can get inspiration where you should paint. These areas are highlighted with red color.

Step 6 - Adjusting Shadows

Now it's time to do the same with shadows. By doing these two steps you not only create more realistic scene but also add bit more drama to the picture because you'll increase contrast between lights and shadows.

Add new adjustment layer Levels on the top of all layers and this time set the Input Levels on 0; 0,2; 255.

Grab the Paint Bucket Tool (G) and fill the layer mask of this layer with black same way you did it in previous step. Then grab the Brush Tool (B), use the same setting as before and paint shadows - on the opposite side of trees, add bounced shadows under the trees and on the dinosaur. Then make woman's hair bit darker.

Let's take a look where to paint. That areas are highlighted with blue color.

On following photos you can compare how the manipulation looks before and after two recent steps.

Step 7 - Adding More Light From Left

In this step you'll add more light coming from the left side of the image. Right now it's bit darker than the rest of the image and it doesn't create harmony and doesn't look balanced.

You'll create light on two separate layers - one will be diffused light and second some more sun rays. Let's start with diffused light.

Add new layer on the top of all layers and name it e.g. DIFFUSED LIGHT. Grab the Lasso Tool (L) and carefully make selection of the tree. Be as careful as possible to get the best result. The better masking means better looking and more realistic images even if it's more time consuming.

To make the selection bit smoother go to Select > Modify > Feather (the path may vary in different versions of Photoshop) or simply press Shift + F6 on your keyboard. Set the value Feather Radius on 1 pixel and press OK.

You want to paint outside the tree, not inside. Because of that you need to invert the selection. Go to Select > Inverse or press Shift + Ctrl + I on your keyboard.

Grab the Brush Tool (B), select some soft round brush with big Master Diameter and lower its Opacity on about 15%. Pick some light yellow color (avoid white, remember what we said above?) and paint one or two dots on the left. Take a look on the following picture to get the example. I painted with red instead so you can see it better.

Let's move on light from sun rays. Add another new layer on the top of all layers and name SUN RAYS. Grab the Brush Tool (B) and select some sun ray brush you've installed in some of the previous steps. Set the Opacity on about 30%, pick some slightly different tone of light yellow color and paint rays.

Below you can get the inspiration. I painted with red again so you can see better what I did.

Step 8 - First Color Adjustment

It's time to begin with setting the mood of the image. Because it's some calm, autumn morning I think that more colder color palette would suit better to the image.

To do that add new adjustment layer Color Balance on the top of all layers and set the values as shown on the picture below.

Let's compare how the photo looks before and after this adjustment, shall we?

Step 9 - Retouching Highlight on Jacket

I strongly believe that what makes the photo manipulation great is focusing on details. Which is why you'll remove some highlights on the woman's jacket. They're both disturbing and too bright given the overall light scene.

Let's take a look at the highlights you are going to retouch in this step:

Add new layer on the top of all layers and name it e.g. JACKET RETOUCH. Grab the Stamp Tool (S), select some soft round brush and set the Master Diameter on about 30 pixels. Set the Opacity on 100% and clone some pattern from darker areas into the circled areas.

If you don't know how to use the Stamp Tool (S) I strongly recommend you to check out some tutorials about it because it's very useful Photoshop tool.

Change the source of cloning to avoid repetitive pattern which never looks realistic in pictures. Below you can compare how the jacket looks before and after using of the Stamp Tool (S).

Step 10 - Darkening Trees and Hair

Right now trees look flat because there are no shadows on them. Also hair of woman should be bit darker to look better and more contrasted. You'll easily fix it in this step.

Add new adjustment layer Levels on the top of all layers and set the Input Levels on 0; 0,75; 255.

As in some of the previous steps you don't want to have the whole picture that dark. To hide the adjustment grab the Pain Bucket Tool (G) and fill the layer mask with black color. Now grab the Brush Tool (B), select some soft round brush and set the Master Diameter on about 35%. Pick white color and lower the Opacity of the brush on 10%.

Let's start with painting shadows on trees. Because light is coming from left there should be darker areas on the right side of trees.

There should also be some bounced shadow on the dinosaur. Let's paint it too.
You can get better idea below.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this step woman's hair should be bit darker too. Use the same setting of the brush as before and paint with white over her hair. You can see where on the photo below again.

On the following picture you can see how your photo manipulation should look so far.

Step 11 - Texture on the Dinosaur

Right now the dinosaur looks too plastic. In this step you'll add texture over his skin to create more realistic result.

Download the leather texture from the list in the beginning of the tutorial and drag it into your photo manipulation. Place it on the top of all layers and name it e.g. BETTER SKIN.

Right now the texture is not blended well. Blending modes are great way how you can get quickly very realistic blending results. If you're not familiar with them I recommend you to try experimenting with them and see what effect you can achieve. You can not only use them to blend textures, but also to create light effects, do color changes etc. Just experiment and you'll see. But back to the tutorial...

To blend the texture properly change its Blending Mode from Normal to Soft Light. You can find that option in the upper part of the palette Layers.

It's blended better but you still want to have the texture only on dinosaur's skin and not on the rest of the image. You can erase the unwanted parts with the Eraser Tool (E) but I wouldn't recommend you to use the Eraser Tool (E) because this way the erased parts are lost for good. Let's use the layer mask instead to only hide them (and have the ability to let them reappear any time you want).

You can find the button Add layer mask in the bottom part of the palette Layers.

Grab the Brush Tool (B), select some soft round brush, set the Opacity on 100%, pick black color and now simply paint over the areas you want to hide.

Below you can compare how the photo looks with and without texture.

Step 12 - Adjusting Dinosaur's Head I

If you look carefully on dinosaur's head you may notice that it doesn't fit properly to the rest of the image because it's too contrasted and also bit darker because of the light scene it was originally shot in. You'll take care about in this step.

Add new adjustment layer Levels on the top of all layers and set the Input Levels on 0; 0,75; 255. Then set the Output Levels on 30; 255.

To adjust only dinosaur's head and not the rest of the image grab the Paint Bucket Tool (G) and fill the layer mask with black color.

Grab the Lasso Tool (L) and create selection of dinosaurs head. Paint inside the selection with the white brush. Then cancel the selection (press Ctrl + D on your keyboard or go to Select > Deselect). Lower the Opacity of the brush on about 40% and create nice soft transition between adjusted and non-adjusted part of the dinosaur's neck.

On the following image you can see better what I mean. Mask is highlighted with red color. Notice the soft transition on the neck.

Step 13 - Quick Background Cleaning

Do you see the branch which leads directly into dinosaur's mouth? It looks really weird, isn't it? You'll retouch it away in this step.

Add new layer on the top of all layers and name it e.g. NO BRANCH. Grab the Stamp Tool (S), set the Master Diameter on about 50 pixels and the Opacity on 100%. Choose some part of misty forest as the clone source and carefully clone it over the branch.

You should get something like on the following picture.

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