[=== by nerio ===]
After The Release Of my tutorial on how to have some fun with layer masks, i received a lot of mails about it asking if i could make another tutorial that explain it clearly with diffrent effects, so here it is for you pleasure…...a good photo montage that could be usefull for diffrent purposes, from a business card design to a Wallpaper creation!!!!
[=== by nerio ===]
We’ll try to achieve something nice in the end, so follow carefully please, and don’t ask me technical questions please!!
Grab a picture to work with! i simply take this beauty face of an indian star found on the net…
...and the background is a nature scene i found while searching google for some good nature wallpapers.
I allways start by working a little on the original pictures to arrengeem for easing the work later and making something nice by : Levels,Colors Correction …..and so on, her i just give it a nice dreamyeffect by duplicating this layer again and give it a 5px gaussian blurthen change the layer mode to Screen then merge em together CTRL+E.good it seems to be ready enough for the next step.
Pick up your nature Scene, and work on it with levels and colorsreplacements and all needed operations to give us a good shot at theend. mine is seems to be red colored for what i have in mind to do. soexport the beauty picture in the nature Scene and let’s Go.
Add alayer mask to the beauty layer, then take your default colors gradienttool and give it a good gradient stricke as mine, here is simply aradial gradient from the center of the beauty eyes…Now with the masklayer selected go to filter—>Strokes—>Accented edges and giveit these settings : Thickness = 1, Luminosity=38, Smoothness=10. thisstep is to bring back the picture altered previously by the mask, butnot the hole image, just where the visible sector of the layer masksare applyed!! confusing…..eh?!! try and you will see what am talking about!
Now, with the mask still choosed (not selected with a selection!!!!just highlighted) take a circular selection tool then make a selectionin the center of the beauty picture to smooth up the lightning providedby the mask and the strocke effect then go to :Filter—>blur—>gaussian blur and give it a 10px .or what workbest for you, simply not higher then that.
now with this selection still here, highlight the beauty layer (wherethe mask is, in the picture with the green arrow) turn down the opacityof this layer to 90%.
Now Follow carefully:
Re-highlight the beauty layer, then make aselection and center it as good as possible to capt the center of thebeauty face then go to select—>feather, and give it 30px thenrevert the selection CTRL+SHIFT+I and hit delete.
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