Fine Art Funky Flamingo in Adobe Photoshop Masterclass

1. Introduction: Hey everyone, my name is Anya and I'm a digital artists and Photoshop teacher. And in this video, I'm going to show you exactly how a church from this photo into this one. This is a full step-by-step tutorial, so you don't need any Photoshop experience the create the same image. I explained everything slow and steady so everyone can follow along to create the same artwork. If you want to learn how to create this, jump into this class and you'll be guided through all the steps. See you in the class. 2. Creating The Flamingo: Welcome to this new module where we will create some colorful flamingo with some parents. So let's start from the beginning by creating in Photoshop a new file. Now, again, as always, for these kind of things, I used to 160 by 2700. Or you can use for thousandth by 5000 pixels if you want to have a bigger size image, for instance, for print. But I'm going to use this one. This is fine press Create ton of stuff we don't need to change. And we have our foul. Whereas my file here it is. All right. Now, let's make sure it is there. Okay? First of all, let's start with adding our main subject in this composite, and that is the flamingo. So the flamingo is a PNG file without a background. I already removed the background to save you some time because that is obviously the most boring part of grading. Now, we learned to create background. Do Remove Background, sorry in the other module. So I don't want to do the same stuff over and over and every module. So if you want to move back one so you can do dead, but this image has no big answer. Easier to work with them. So first of all, when you place the image, it already is a smart object, as you can see here, this icon. So we just press Control T or take the free transform here and take the corners. And let's play some somewhere in a cent and want to make sure his body is in the center of this image and not like they're, so we have some space here and here, right, so we can work there. Now, let's place them somewhere in the center. Like this. This is fine. Now I'm going to click on the background, and I'm first going to make this black by pressing Control or Command I, so I can see this better. So I feel like my eyes getting tired to watch your white background. So let's first of all work on this, this flamingo here. So first of all, I'm going to add a new layer, sorry, here, create a new layer. Then press right mouse and create a clipping mask. So only work inside the flamingo and not on the other stuff. Then we're going to go to Edit, Fill and to create a 50 percent gray layer. Again, if you remember, we use these for the Dutch him Burn tool to make areas lighter and darker. So in this one, we use 50 percent gray press. Okay. And you can see here this is the area we will work in and change the blend mode here from normal to soft light so we won't see it only what we're doing. So let's start with doing some burn first. So if we go here to the Burn tool, we can select this tool. And let's do, let's do midtones here. This is fine. Make sure you have a soft round brush here. And let's increase the exposure, maybe 35, Let's try it out. This is fine. Now let's start with brushing areas darker. Tried to find the shadows here. Where do we see shudder? We see some shadow here. So I'm going to burst there. Here a bit. Let's little bit there. Let's also this area here. And here. Now, you can see here the lighting from the original image is coming from the left upside. So when we see in the original image, the lighting is there tried to make in your design also the lighting from the same area. This will make the image look a lot more real than just trying to suddenly change the lighting and make it come from from the bottom or something. Don't do that. Tried to keep the lighting from the same area as the original one. So just, just keep that in mind that, that will help to make the design look better. So let's also press these areas here darker, maybe a bit on his head here. Not much. If you compare this, we get this nice dark tones. Now let's do also bit Bresson for the highlights. Some connect, create a new layer again, and then go to Create Clipping Mask. And again, fill this with 50 percent gray. Change the blend mode of lay. And this time I'm going to select the Dodge Tool instead of the bird. I would encourage till weekend make areas lighter. So I'm going to make these areas lighter here. On the top of this of his neck. They're not much just a bit of a brushing. This was not needed. Just especially this area here. And I think this is already enough effect competitors. It's a bit lighter there. Maybe here. Maybe, oh, wait. What is it that that should go a bit here. It there. So not my just a little bit, little touches. You can see a before and after it got a little globe. And that's it. I'm not going to do more for this. The next thing I would like to do is to drop a bit of the color from this flamingo. So I'm gonna go here. Selecting a situation. Inches, drop it earlier a bit. Not much is like 5% minus 5 for situation and et cetera. 3. Adding And Blending The Parrots: Let's add our parents to this. So I'm going to start with adding this in-focus right now. So select all these layers that we have here. And click Command J, press Command J or Control J and make a folder and call this flower, mean call this flamingo. Now, let's create a new folder here, and this will be the pair with it. So in the images we have the two parents. So let's first take this one. And when you drag it there, just press Enter and make it smaller. If you press Control T or Command T, we can make this follow. So let's first make this a bit smaller. Let's see. I'm going to zoom in here by holding Alt and scroll. My minimas are only makes sure, like the is. The bottom part here ends at the neck of this parents. So like that, I already breast it like that. So it goes in the same direction. And this already looks nice. You can always blush a bit different if you want to. But this already is done so that it's easy because we have no background here, It's already in place. Now, let's also import the other parents. So just drag it there, put it there, and make it smaller. Let's see. There. It gets smaller. And let's put it somewhere. There. I think here on the next fine, just make sure the sizes are like real life sizes. Something like this is the real size. All right, press Enter once you are happy with the place and we already have our idea. Now the next thing we need to do, we also need to do some pressure here because we don't see a shadow here and we don't see the lighting changes here. We need to change the lighting of the spirits a bit because remember we have lighting coming from the top left side. So what makes sure the right side of the spirit is a bit darker? So let's start with doing that. First of all, let's click on the first bear with and give it a curse. So click Adjustment Layer curves. Don't forget to press this. And let's take the highlights and bring them a bit down. Not much. We only want to highlight the sorry, we only want to make the right side dark and not the left side. So I'm going to take a brush here, select the brush tool. Make sure it's a black brush. And make it a bit smaller. But the two keys next to the letter P on your keyboard. And make sure the obeys the inflow here is at 100. And just press the side Lyra again. And now I can move this slider against the CEO. How much I want this dark area. I just wanted a bit dark but not much. Let's do the same for the other pair with gray, the curves. Don't forget this, but the year, so we only affect that layer from the parrot. Make it a bit darker, and click on the Mask of it and brush their site. Anyway. So we have one lightest site and let's also put on the tail, and you can already see that this makes it look already better. Now, the next thing I would like to do is to add some curves and other curves to this. So I'm going to create another curves, this separately, and click this again. And I'm going to slightly move the midtones here down so I can create a bit more contrast so it fits this image of the flamingo bear. The flamingo had a bit more conscious thought. Maybe even this one a bit the, let's see, something like this. And this one a bit down. And this will blend this image better to get up, let's do the same for this one. I'm going to add the curves again. This already selected and wrong one, curves. Curves. And let's take this one, Let's take the highlights, move it a bit up. And this one I would not touch just highlights a bit there. That's it. All right, This will locally bit better when we have shadows. So let's start with creating some shadows into lighter areas. Let's first do some brushing. Again. I want to do this buret first. So let's click on the top layer, create a new layer, press right mouse and create the clipping mask. Then go to Edit, Fill. And we need to do some 50 percent gray layer again. I think by now you already get used to this, doing this and change the blend mode to overlay and take the Dodge tool. And I want to lighten up a bit of this side. So I'm going to. Brush it a bit there. The settings here are, admit the answer. So an oppression bit there. It's not much, but I think it always helps to have something extra there. So you can see the before and after it got a bit lighten up. Now I want to do the same for the other parent. So I'm going to click this layer, create a new layer. Edit, fill, filled with 50 percent gray. Make sure the great clip mask. We're also going to take all the areas, change the blend mode to overlay. And we already have the digital selected. So I'm just going to brush a bit there. Based on this side. That's already too much. So I'm kind of just slightly and that's it. Just a little extra light on this side. And this is fine for now. I also want to select the burn tool here. I'm going to do this in the same layer. I don't need to do much, so I'm going to slightly burnt the background here. Let's drop the exposure just a little bit there and there. And also from this parent. Just a little bit on this side. That's it. All right, I think this is enough. Now we can add some shadows to this. So I want to make sure there is a little shadow here. So I'm going to click on this layer here underneath their period, the left buret and create a new layer. So it's underneath it. And I'm going to take a brush. Let's click on the color and simple this red and make it like super dark red, like that. Press Enter and drop the opacity to 20 and flow also. Now make sure you have the hardness at 0 here and the software and gentle brush. So we can start versions some shadows. So let me zoom in here. And now I'm going to make the brush a bit smaller and the lighting is coming from there. So when E2F bit of a shadow here, we can see our flamingo. Let's put this in the flamingo forward, like there, and then create the clipping mass. So we only work inside a flamingo. So I'm not brushing the background excellently. So let's brush some shadows here. And let's zoom out. And you can see already we have some shadow here. Just a little shadow to make this a bit better. You can make the brush bigger here, like that. This is a bit too much. So what I'm going to do is we're going to take this one, the opacity and chop it. I don't want to have too much, I just want to have a little shallow and that's already better. Now, let's create a new layer and create a clipping mask again by clicking right mouse, create clipping mask. And this will be the shadow from this one. This one don't need much Sharon. Just slightly, there. Probably won't even notice by people, but I think all these little things will help with the anthemic Lupita. Maybe a bit like that. Lets it not much. And that's going to change this anymore. I'm going to leave it like this. 4. Creating Light Beams: I would like to add some light beams in this. So we have lighting needs to come from the left side because we made shadows on the right side. So let's first these parrots and a folder. I'm going to select these layers while holding down Shift, press Command J, and double-click on this folder and name it. Parrots like that. And you can see this is really organized now. This was not sure what this was, was an empty folder. All right, let's start with creating a new layer. Now on top of everything, this will be our light beam. I want the great light beam. So let's take a brush here. And I'm going to go for a color like, let's click on the color here and sample some column. Let's do some from the flamingo maybe bit like being like this, like really light pink, maybe bit more red, like that. Press Okay, and first of all, let's make it that I'm going to break the brush bigger here. Make sure the opacity and flow is at a 100. And the hardness here at 0 and the size somewhere in this range doesn't make the brush to pick. Now, I'm going to click here first to make it that this is our first dot. Now if I take the move to here, I'm going to first press Ctrl or Command T to bring up the features from now, make it bigger like that. And I'm going to hold down control now or Command on Mac. Holding down, take a mouse and stretching it out like that. Now, let me hold on. I released everything now. I'm going to hold down Alt now and scroll my middle mouse to zoom out. Let me release everything now. And now if I hold down control again or Command to make, I'm going to take this corner and I'm going to make it like debt. So we have like these light beam. Now, you can see here it looks more like a light beam. Press Enter, and now we have one light beam. And this looks already really cool effect. Now, the next I would like to do is I like to have more of these slight bit, not one. So I'm going to press Control J to duplicate it and move it a bit up, or Command J Omega. Now let me zoom out. And this one, I'm going to take one corner by pressing Control T or Command T, take one corner and also stretch the bit so you have different light beams, 11 more, bigger and one smaller. Now, let's duplicate this again to do one more. And you can really do a lot of these if you want to. Let's do, let's do one. Big one again. So we have some more light source, maybe one who bid there. I guess here we get some nice cool light beams. I would also do more. Maybe in the center here. Alright, where you have some nice cool like news now, I would also like to make a light source. I'm going to create a new layer and then take the brush again and just make this data again. And I'm going to move this dot here. So we have a bit more by there. And you can press Control T to make it bigger like that. Maybe that's the beak bit smaller, just like that. So we have bit more light there. All right, if we change the blend mode to screen, it's going to make it a bit more light. I think this is fine for now. We can select all these layers by holding Shift and even move them around if you want to. But I think I like this might be a bit more like death. And that's it. Take all these layers, hold down Shift and press Control G to make a folder, a group. And let's name this light beams. And now we have created our light beams at, because we have lighting from the left side on our subjects. It looks really good now. 5. Creating Blur: Right now, I like to create something in the foreground that's blurred out, so we have a bit more depth. This is what I always like to do to create that. So I'm going to create, I'm going to import, sorry, the rows here I have a rose image that you can just import like that. And the only thing I have to do with his Ross is actually blurred it out to make it look more real. So first, let's press Control T or Command T to bring up the features from a, let's place them somewhere. Let's see, I probably won't even need the source. I just want these leaves. I like these leaves in the foreground blurred out. So I'm going to make it big like this maybe. And let's make sure it, the contrast is the same and they'll call us also. So for the colors, you don't have to do much just to add a hue and saturation here. Plus this. Remember this to affect only this layer. Let's drop it a bit here, not much. And we need a bit more conscious. So I'm going to add a curves also. Press this and take the mid-tones, inches, drop it, and that's it. And you can see already this looks a lot better than without it. You can also leave it even like this if you want to, but I like to blur them out. So I'm gonna go to Filter Blur, Gaussian Blur. And here I need to find the right range. So I think something like this already makes this look like something in the foreground. Press. Okay, and that's it. And now you can even go through the settings, maybe even less color here like that. And let's see, let's put this in a folder by holding down Shift, selecting these layers and press Command J or Control J. And this will be our rows blur. And now I can easily just move this around how I wanted to maybe duplicate it by pressing Control J and press Control T to bring up the frictions form and rotated, maybe some thing on this side. So it's like going out for this flamingo to really see that it's in the foreground, some blur like that, Maybe bit bigger. I think this is fine, some little blurred. And the foreground here. 6. Adding Butterflies: So now we can add some other stuff around this to make this hole this I look more interesting. So I would like to add some butterflies. Now, for the butterflies, there is a PNG file, butterflies here in this project. And I'm not going to drag it in our composite. I'm going to press right mouse on it and open it up with Photoshop. So it's in a separate file. And you can see here these butterflies is separate found nothing. So this is a bit easier for now to work with. So first of all, I would like to add these butterfly. So there are a lot of butterflies in this image with other peg on. So I want to select them one by one. Let's for this, select here Lesotho. So with the lasso tool, if I'm going to select it, if I click my mouse, hold the mouse, I can easily make this selection from it. I only want this one. I've got one piece right now, right? So make this selection with the lasso tool. Then just make sure to press Control C or Command C on Mac to copy it, right, so you copy the layer. Now let's go to this file and let's make a new folder now. And I'm going to create this forego or butterflies. And here will be up on the fly. So now let's go back to the Move tool. I always like to move to this one. Now, if I press Control or Command V, I can paste it and you can easily see how easily I can move some one part from another this and to this one. So now we just need to make sure to make a smart object because it's obviously not a smart object. If you don't make smart objects, let me show you what happens. Don't, you don't have to do is, but if I'm gonna make this small for instance, or make this like this, and then make it big again. You can see the quality is instantly rules. That's why we always make smart objects. So I'm going to press Control Z to go back. Make smart objects. Right now, smart object. And if I do this with smart objects, small bake, you can see the quality is not ruled. That's why we always make smart objects. Now, let's go with pressing Control or Command T to bring up the free transform. Let's play some butterfly. So first of all, let's do one here is flying around. Let's go through the other file again and let's take, take another butterfly. So I'm going to select the Lesotho again. Press right mouse de-selected, not want to select this, I want to select another one. Let's do this one. Let's make like this selection, press Control or Command C to copy, and then Control V, or Command V to paste. And don't forget the smart object or else it's going to get food. And now if I press Control T, I can resize this and put it somewhere else. Let's put one here. Now, let's take another one. Select the Lasso Tool again. Press right miles the selected. Let's do this one. Control V, again, Control C, Control V. And again Command T or Control T to transform it three times from nth pixel. Nice spots for these butterflies maybe here. And let's do one more. Slick. This de-select again arise mouse the Select. Now let's see which one is nice. Maybe this one here. I just tried to pick some different butterflies. Control C, or Command C, Control V. Converts smart to check. And let's make it smaller. Let's do one here. Let's make this 11 more like the flying around them. Let's do this one here. Control V. And let's make a small, too small, not too small. All right, now we have all these butterflies flying around. Let's do one more, maybe here. Let's, let's do another one. Why not? We have so much butterflies, we could use them all. Let's do what? Smart Object. This one is going to fly there to the light. I actually want to make sure the butterflies are behind the light beams. So I'm going to join them behind them. 7. Adding Movements And Roses: Okay, let's fill these areas up with more stuff flying around. So we have the butterflies now, I would like to add some flying roses, like the leaves from the rose is. So I have roses nth rows is to PNG, and of course they are without background, so let's just import them in our follow-up. And these are, the sources are blurred out. And because they are blurred out and we're gonna make them bigger. So it looks like they are closer to the camera. We don't want too much of these, just a couple of these. So let's make them pick, really pick an tried to find a nice spot for them. So maybe somewhere flying around like they're not in the center, right? So make sure that they don't ruin the image. So like this is fine. If you press Control T can resize it how you want. Now, these are the roses in the foreground. They are blurred out, so we create some depth with them. Now let's take rows is two and roses to PNG is. Just drag this in our file. This will be smaller. So press Control T or Command T to resize it. And let's put him behind these one. So if we put them behind them, making sure it's not the goal of freedom. So it looks more real. So let me make this a bit bigger with Control T, not too small, of course, right now I can just place them here. Now I'll press Control J to duplicate it. May be some there. Let's put them also behind the light beam. So under the light B is four with there. So just drag those there. These are the foregrounds. We can leave those there. So maybe some here, press Control J or Command J to duplicate again. Maybe also some their console J again. And maybe some, they're just place them around. I want to end. You can already see we have a lot of stuff going on out in our design. I would even think maybe this butterfly here, I'm going to duplicate this by Control J. And I'm going to move this one up here. And I want to place this butterfly, press Control T, THE resize it here. Just going to press Control T, rotate it a bit. I'm also going to blur this out, create some depth like there is one butterfly in the foreground. So go to filter blur, gaussian blur. And let's blow this butterfly. Like he's flying there. Press Enter. I just want to make sure it's behind this leaf. So let's see Rose blur, roles blur. I'm going to drag it underneath rows blur there. And now it looks like there's one extra butterfly flight there to create some more depth, like there's even more stuff corner. All right. Let's move on. This area here underneath it. He's probably blocking the light a bit here. So for this butterfly, I'm going to add a curves. Now. Let's prove this for now. I'm going to add a curves to this butterfly. So I'm going to go through this butterfly and select curves. Not forget this. And we're gonna make this one darker. So this is just little things to make this look a bit more real. Press, Okay, and that's it. And let's see, this is enough. So these are just little things. Now also these here, these roses that are flying here, for instance, could be a bit darker. So I'm also going to add cursor these, press this and make them a bit darker there. I feel like it will look better. And maybe also this butterfly here. So if you don't control, click on it. It's going to select the curves.com. And you can also use the brush to make the top lighter show, maybe just the top. 8. How to Finalize: We are almost finished with this design. The only thing that's missing obviously is a baker. And actually for this, but you can go create if you can try out different backgrounds, maybe you want something else that IF dry out, don't be afraid to try out different things. Sometimes I try out a lot of different backgrounds before I actually make my final design, I, sometimes I try out 10 different backgrounds to see which one looks best. So it's always good to try out more stuff, especially when you are making backgrounds. Do that as one of the less things because if you start creating with a bed, bed while it will never look with you, we'll try so hard but it won't look good. So keep it for the nth part of your design if you want to make your work look better. So let's click on the background here, and I have the background PNG file. I'm going to drag this in our design and make this a bit like that. Now, for the background, we have the spec on obviously is I'm going to make sure it fits. This already fits this image really well. She can see because of the colors obviously. But let's try to create a bit more interesting backgrounds from this. So I'm going to add a curves to this. Here occurs. Press this. And I'm first going to make it really dark. So something, something like this. And now I'm going to take the brush. Let's make it a bit bigger. Take the leg brush and make it bigger. And I'm going to brush some areas light again. So we don't have one background. I'm going to have darker and lighter areas. So I'm going to brush some areas like that, probably there, maybe there and there and there. And that's it. And if we compare this instead of this look so flat and this give it, gives it a bit more stuff going on up accidentally. And you can see just by doing these little things, you can change the mood a bit of this background. So let's just prestige like that. Simple later things to make it a bit different from the original one. This also looks good, but I like to have a bit more stuff going on. So light and dark areas, I think it looks more interesting, maybe a bit darker down. All right, Now let's move on to the next step and that these the final step to create a new layer on top of everything. Press Command Alt Shift E, or Control Alt Shift E to make. This is press right Moussa covert. So smart object. Now go to Filter, camera Raw Filter. And here we can do some final adjustments for this one probably don't even have to do much. I already like it here, but I'm always like to play around with the setting, so maybe give it a bit more contrast here. Let's drop the highlights bit. And shadows is from the background. He'd be a bit lighter. And the whites, Let's see you. Let's drop the white so we don't get too much with the white tones and the blacks a bit lighter. Now, I'm going to chop the, fix your hair a bit so it gets a bit softer and I'm going to increase the clarity and the five-point shear. Now, if we go to, I'm going to leave all the settings. If you go to, let's see, color mixer. We can play around with these colors. You can create, read different image now, but I don't want to do this much. I just want to have this read a bit to the left like that. And that's it. And let's try it, the greens from these flowers. And this one, Let's leave those. All right, I'm going to leave it like this. Now, let's move on. Maybe some slightly vignette here. Let's move on to calibration. And here can play around with these. Let's see. Now I don't want to ruin it. I wanted to bake it better. I think this is enough. If you're going to do this too much here, we can run the image. We're going to be to the left like that. Press Okay. And we changed it a bit, not much. Now, let's go here and add some color lookup to see how it will look. Without trees trip, my favorite one. And of course, it's too much sound kind of jot the basic, although this looks interesting, but we have it too much. I'm going to drop it and just slightly edit like that. See the difference before and after. It blends a bit better together. And maybe some curves on top of this. To finish it off, Let's see, make the black slightly darker. So that's pretty much it. And you can see how easy we created this awesome photo design or whatever you wanna call it. So I hope you enjoyed this module or be graded something cool. And the hope, especially that she learned something new.