Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation by Mixing Ice and Fire Textures

In this Photoshop tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to Create a Unique Photo Manipulation via Mixture of Ice and Fire Textures. Along the way, I will show some interesting ways to manipulate texture via image adjustment tool and free transform tool. This is an intermediate level tutorial, have a try!

Note: The Photoshop tutorial is done in CS6 – therefore some screenshot may have slighting different layout as in the earlier version. Some brushes are exclusive to Photoshop CS6.

Here is a preview of the final effect I have for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

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OK Let’s get started!

To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stocks:

Step 1

Create a new document sized 860px * 1140px with black background, load the metal image into Photoshop and select a piece as shown below:

1 sel 500x439 Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation by Mixing Ice and Fire Textures

Copy and paste the selection over to our document, resize it to cover the canvas. Then apply the following Accented Edges filter to give it a special effect:

1 filter 500x320 Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation by Mixing Ice and Fire Textures

and here is the effect so far:

Use a soft eraser, remove the edges of this layer as shown below:

1 erase 500x669 Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation by Mixing Ice and Fire Textures

Add the following 3 adjustments layers on top:

Black and White

1 bw Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation by Mixing Ice and Fire Textures

Levels

1 lvs Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation by Mixing Ice and Fire Textures

Curves

1 curves Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation by Mixing Ice and Fire Textures

and here is the effect so far:

1 effect 500x665 Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation by Mixing Ice and Fire Textures

Step 2

Load the model image into Photoshop and cut out the head area, paste it onto our document as shown below:

2 paste 500x664 Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation by Mixing Ice and Fire Textures

Apply the following Surface Blur settings to smooth out the skin a bit:

2 sur blur Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation by Mixing Ice and Fire Textures

Use a soft eraser, erase the edges of the face as shown below:

2 erase 500x507 Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation by Mixing Ice and Fire Textures

Add the following adjustment layers as clipping mask to this model layer:

Black and white

Layer mask on the black and white adjustment layer:

Levels

2 lvs Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation by Mixing Ice and Fire Textures

Layer mask on the levels adjustment layer:

Curves

2 curves Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation by Mixing Ice and Fire Textures

and here is the effect so far:

2 effect 500x508 Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation by Mixing Ice and Fire Textures

Step 3

We will add some ice texture onto image. Load the ice 1 image into Photoshop and use the Lasso Tool to select a piece as shown below:

3 sel 500x326 Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation by Mixing Ice and Fire Textures

Copy and paste into the document, and set it as a clipping mask to the face layer:

3 paste 500x347 Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation by Mixing Ice and Fire Textures

Apply the following Crystallize filter to add some crystal effect into the ice texture:

3 cry 500x369 Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation by Mixing Ice and Fire Textures

Apply the following black and white adjustment to this ice layer:

Change the blending mode of this ice texture layer to “vivid light”:

3 vivid 500x400 Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation by Mixing Ice and Fire Textures

and here is the effect so far:

Step 4

Now let’s go to the fire image and select the fire with the quick selection tool as shown below:

We can then copy the fire texture over and place it under the face layer, use the free transform tool to resize it to fit the shape of the face:

Add some fire texture over the head as well:

4 attach 500x252 Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation by Mixing Ice and Fire Textures

Step 5

Now we want to give this photo some further surreal effect by adding some “Dark Energy” around the face. To do this, simply duplicate the fire texture layer once and apply the following black and white adjustment:

and you will the fire texture changed into some black/grey lines, as shown below:

5 after bw 500x300 Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation by Mixing Ice and Fire Textures

We can then duplicate this layer a few times, and attach them around the face:

Step 6

We can further add some ice texture over the face. Load the “ice” 2 image (pick one from the pack) into Photoshop, and select a portion with the Lasso Tool as shown below:

Copy and paste a few of those selections onto our document, change the layer blending mode to “screen” for those new ice layers and use the free tranform tool to adjust their shape as you see fit. Here is the effect so far: