This is my first Photoshop tutorial, I will show you how I did my first creation whose name is Dark Water. The idea of this image was exactly to create a tutorial. To achieve this creation, you will need to download some pictures, you can find the links below.

• The lady - http://saligiastock.deviantart.com/art/liquid-33382345
• Water : here, here and here.
• Wave: here.
• Surfer : here.

Once you have gathered everything, you can get started, but below you can see the end result of the tutorial.

Step 1

• Open a new document of 1400px by 800px. Fill it with black (keyboard shortcut: D (reboots the colors) then alt+backspace)
• Open the photo of the lady; paste it in your new document in a new layer called “Lady” (for instance)
• Apply the blend mode “screen”

Step 2

Create a "levels" layer (Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Levels) with these settings :

Step 3

Your “lady” should now melt into the black background. From now on, the layers you are going to add will be found between the layers “lady” and “background”. It’s time to open the files related to the water.
Let’s start with this one:

Step 4

Paste the image in a new layer located under the layer of the lady. Make it rotate 90° anticlockwise (Cmd + T to transform it manually) and place it so that it looks like the image below. Also apply Screen for the Blend Mode, it will be handy later on.

Step 5: The Water Balloon

We are now going to use this picture:

Step 6

Paste the picture above the layer of the first water ball. What is interesting with that picture is that you can distort it completely without destroying the subject, that is to say the water drops) Rotate it of 90° anticlockwise.

Overwrite the picture horizontally and position it in such a way that the balloon is above the lady’s face:

Step 7

Place the layer in screen mode

This is the hardest part to explain but which isn’t exactly difficult to make: Create a mask on the balloon’s layer (note: black makes disappear, white makes reappear)
You have to make the left part of the balloon disappear by keeping only the part of the droplets. You can use radial gradent to begin. Once you have taken off the biggest part, take the tool "brush" (B) with à 70% flow and make a small part of the balloon reappear, at the same level of the right eye. This is my mask and the result, so you can see what it should look like :

Step 8 : The Glass of water

Take the picture of the glass of water, the part you want to keep is the one with the splash. Luckily, the picture is very big, so it’s going to make things easier.

Step 9

Here, you have two possibilities: you can cut the picture to keep only the splash from the glass of water (no need to cutout, a big selection square will be fine) or you can paste the picture immediately and position it so that you can only see the splash. Once you’ve pasted your picture, turn to the “screen” mode. It should look like this:

Step 10

From now on, you can, if you want to, add some water splashes here and there to add some dynamism. As for me, I used the first water explosion in different sizes to obtain this (remember to pass these new layers in “screen” mode).

Step 11 : The surfer

Take the surfer, cut it out thanks to your favourite method, once again you don’t have to be very precise. Once it is cut out, you just have to place it on some sort of a wave. And once it is placed, se the blend mode “lighten”:

Step 12: The wave

This step is optional, you can use it if you want to add some light one you have selected your settings. So, take your “wave” picture and paste it above the layer of the lady. Enlarge it so it takes the size of the whole document. Create a mask, use a radial gradient to take the whole picture off, except for the part where the foam flies around. Adjust the layer’s opacity on 45% and use the blend mode “screen”. Later, you could keep on working on the opacity according to the light you want.

Step 13: The mist

For this step, I use the motion blur technique, it works in every case and it allows you to put some chance in your creations. Duplicate the lady’s layer (cmd+j), position the layer above the one of the background. Desaturate the picture (Cmd + shift + U) and apply twice a motion blur (42 °, 645px). You should have a nice grey streak. It works with any other photo.

Step 14: Finishing

Above all the layers, add a "curves" effect layerwith that adjustment :

Step 15

Then, add a black and white effect layer :

Step 16

Create a new layer above all the others, fill it (shift+F5) with a nice pink color (I used #bf1689) Decrease the opacity to 40% and put the layer in an overlay mode. You should have something like this::

Step 17

You can stop there if you’re happy with it, or else, there is something I usually like doing, is to add a colored texture fill which is linked to my subject. For instance, you can find very nice bubbles at Resugere. Choose one of the photos, paste it on a new layer above the others and apply a fusion mode overlay or color for rather nice effects.

Conclusion

Well, now you have finished. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.

Download the PSD file

Click here to download the Photoshop file used for this tutorial.

About the Author

"Hello, my name is Julien Brionne. I'm a 24 years old french webdesigner, interested into all kind of graphic stuff. I'm a freelance, but i'm looking for a job in Paris. I have a portfolio/blog which is http://www.akashrine.fr where you'll find some tutorials and ressources (coming soon, i'm just starting from scratch my blog). You can find a french version of this tutorial on : http://www.akashrine.fr/2009/05/tutoriel-dark-water/ "

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