Tutorials::Blend Tutorial #1

Intro

I am going to make a 700x500 blend of Keira Knightley. This tutorial was written for people who know how to use photoshop fairly well, so if you havn't got the hang of it yet, check out some of my other tutorials.
This is what you will be making.

Step 1

These are the pictures that I will be using.

Open up the images you want to use in photoshop.

Step 2

First, resize the pictures if they are bigger than the size you want (as you can see, those Keira pictures are humongous). Create a new canvas. I made mine 700x500 pixels.

Step 3

Now, take the paint bucket tool and fill the blank canvas with white. (If you don't see the fill tool, click and hold on the gradient tool.) Now, select one of the images you resized earlier. I will be working on the first picture. We are going to add a few effects to the picture before adding it to the blend.

Step 4

Duplicate the layer and go to Filter>Sharpen>Sharpen to sharpen the duplicated layer. Then, set it (the duplicated layer) to "Screen". Hit Ctrl+U or go to Image>Adjust>Hue/Saturation and lower the saturation a little bit. I have mine set to -30.

Then, hit OK.

Step 5

Click on the little arrow at the top right corner of the layers window and select "Merge Visible". Then, hit Ctrl+A (select), and Ctrl+C (copy). Click on the new canvas we made earlier and hit Ctrl+V (paste). Move the picture to wherever you want on the screen until you are happy with the result for now.

Step 6

Repeat step 4 for each of the other pictures. You can always change the settings around if it doesn't look right to you. Don't paste it to the new canvas yet.

Step 7

Now select the second picture and select, copy, and paste onto the new canvas. Move the picture around until you are pleased with the result. This is what I have so far:

Step 8

Select the third picture. Using the crop tool, crop the section of the picture you want in the blend.

Make the image considerably smaller (I made mine 85x92 pixels).

Step 9

Select, copy, and paste it onto the new canvas. Move it around. Now hit Ctrl+V (paste) again to paste the same picture onto the new canvas again. Move it somewhere close to the first. Then, hit Ctrl+U or go to Image>Adjust>Hue/Saturation and lower the saturation. Repeat this as many times as needed. If you want, you can use the eraser tool to achieve some cool effects. :)

Step 10

Now, use a light grayish color to add text and brushes. Fool around with effects. Make sure you put everything on a seperate layer, so it will be easier to manage.

Step 11

As you can see, it looks a bit too flat and gray. That's what textures are for. ;) I'm going to use one of my textures...this one to be exact. Paste the texture on top of your blend.

Step 12

Set the texture to 'Soft Light', so it looks like this:

In some places, the boxes from the texture show up too much. We are going to get rid of the boxes. Take the blur tool and blur the boxes.

Step 13

Some of the places are a bit too dark, so take the dodge tool and lighten it up a bit.
Your blend should look something like this now:

Step 14

And...that's pretty much it! Don't stop there if you're not satisfied with it yet. What I did was add another texture, duplicate the whole thing and set it to color burn and lower the opacity, and added a border. Hope this tutorial helped! :)

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