Photoshop Tutorials: Creating a Cool Grungy Abstraction of a Girl

Creating a Cool Grungy Abstraction of a Girl

Posted: 31 Dec 2012 11:46 AM PST

Preview of Final Results

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Download the PSD

Cool Abstractions.zip | 14.61 MB
Download from Website

Cool Grungy Abstraction Photoshop Tutorial

Tutorial Resources

Model – Fotolia
Butterfly – Wuala
Wrinkled Paper – Flickr Bittbox
Grunge Brushes – DevianTart
Tree Border Brushes – DevianTart
Rose Petals Brushes – DevianTart
Rose Flower – DevianTart
Water Color Textures – DevianTart

Step 1

Lets create a new document with the following dimension, fill the layer with white background and rename the layer as background.

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Step 2

Now, place the downloaded image of Wrinked Paper on the canvas. To do this, go to File » Place and choose the image or you may simple drag the image over the canvas.
Rename this layer as wrinkles. After doing this, transform the wrinkles layer according to the size of canvas.

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Step 3

Reduce the wrinkles layer opacity to 30%. Alternatively, you may do this by pressing numpad 3.

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Step 4

Now, create a new layer, name it as gradient. Open gradiant editor, select the foreground and background colors as shown in the image.

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Step 5

Now select the radial gradient tool and draw a gradient as shown in image.

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Step 6

Change the blending mode of the gradient layer to multiply and reduce the opacity to 40%. It will give a nice wrinkle blend to the background like this.

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Step 7

Open the model image downloaded from fotolia and extract the model from background. Don’t bother about the flowing hairs if they are not extracted properly as they got settled in upcoming steps.Paste the image in your document, as the original image is facing to the right side we need to Flip it to the left, so go to Edit » Transform » Flip Horizontal and you will get this.

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Step 8

It’s important to match the tone of the model with the background of the document. To do this, we need to adjust the curves of an image.
Create a new curve adjustment layer (Layer » New Adjustment Layer » Curves) and create a clipping mask to the previous layer.
Now adjust the red and blue curves are following:

Quick Tip: To create a clipping mask, you have to select the checkbox saying “Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask” while creating a new adjustment layer, see the image below. Alternatively, Put your mouse cursor on the line dividing the two layers you just made. Your cursor turns into a Pointing Finger Hand. Now hold down your ALT key and you’ll see the cursor turn into a funky overlapping circle thing with an arrow pointing out the side.

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Step 9

Now, add a new adjustment layer of Hue/Saturation: Layer » New Adjustment Layer » Hue/Saturation and adjust the settings as follows.

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Step 10

After doing few adjustment, your model looks something like this. Now the model gets the perfect blend with the background.

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Step 11

Download the grunge brushes and load it into photoshop. Add the layer mask to the model layer, choose the foreground color to black and using different types of brushes, paint stains on the model’s head, her legs and right arm.

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Step 12

Now create a new layer below the model layer, choose black as foreground color and add random brush strokes below the head and around the waist of a model. To remove the extra or uneven strokes, use layer mask and paint it with black color.

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Step 13

Now its time to load the background textures. Download the Water Color Textures and Open watercolor_splash2 andplace it under the model layer. Press CTRL+T to transform and position it as shown in the image.

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Step 14

We have to get rid of the white background from the texture. Open blending modes by double click on the texture layer and move the white slider to 130.

Quick Tip: To move the white slider, hold ALT and drag it to get the desired results.

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Step 15

After removing the white color from the image with the blending modes, Create a layer mask to the texture layer, select a soft round brush and paint the sharp edges to get rid of it.

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