Advanced' Photo Effects Tutorials

Get yourself a good picture of a person that you want to make into a statue.
sometimes this can be hard, digital cameras always make this easier, as do news websites.

I started with this man; he was using a pc and his whole body was visible in the image.

I didn't want to do just this man, so I had to find a head to transpose and found a good match with:


Another source image you will need to search for will be the pattern you would like your statue to display. I did a seach for 'marble' and came up with this image:

Creating a new layer set for each stage of my work helps me organize large files and steps to complete the project, it also helps if you might need to go back to a certain step in the future to make a correction.

Create a new layer set by clicking on the layer set icon in the layers pallette.

Put all of the source images into this this layer set and call it "layer set 1".

Hide the marble image.

(we'll come back to this later)

Masking - I first masked the guy out of the background using varying sizes of brushes.
I then duplicated the layer (hiding the original) and masked off his head as well.
That leaves you with this:


*** Masking tip I use: Create 1 layer completely filled with white and another completely filled with black. Put these layers below the one you are working on masking out. Make then visible depending on what color you are masking out. This will also help you catch pixels you may have missed while masking if they show up against the harsh background.

Now, you need to mask the head out of the image you selected for your individual.

I rotated the head to match the angle of the neck, then resized with the free transform tool to make the head looks like it is real.

Make sure your proportions line up. Transparencies help a lot when lining up layers.

When you are finished with lining it up, your image should resemble this:

Now that all of your layers are still in a layer set, this step will make the rest of the image work a lot easier.

Duplicate the layer set, this will save a version of your work if you notice mistakes here in a moment.

Hide the original layer set, and rename the new layer set to 'Layer Set 2'.

Now, in the layers pallette, view the layer with the head and the layer with the body.
Control+click on the head layer's mask, now with that still selected; Control+Shift+Click on the body layer's mask.you should now have a selection that encompasses both of their masks.

Now that you have that area selected, select the new layer set. Now, click on the mask icon at the bottom of the layers pallette. Viola - instant mask for all layers in the set!

Now, you will "apply the layer masks" that are on the individual layers. Do this by selecting the layer mask and right-click and the option "Apply the layer mask" will appear.

Now, we are going to make this cut out person look like a statue.

Desaturate the head layer and the body layer.

Combine these two layers at this time to make editing things easier.

Adjust the brightness/contrast a little to make it look brighter.

Now, duplicate this statue layer. Name this new Layer 'statue overlay' (cause that's what it'll be)

Change the layer's 'mode' to 'overlay'.

Select the "Statue Overlay" layer and go to filters > Stylize > emboss.
Adjust it to a low number to start out with, it may take a few tries to get this right.

This gives it a few better-defined highlights.

Make the marble (texture) layer visible, move it to the top of the layers in this layer set.

You may have to 'transform' this layer to make it cover the entire statue mask shape.
Hold down the shift key and select the corner and drag to keep this image from getting too distorted while resizing.

Select the texture layer and change the mode to 'overlay'. (This mode works great for lots of things!)

Your image should look a little dusty.

Now, duplicate the texture layer. It should look a lot more like a statue and be colorized slightly like the textures.

Another step, that is optional is to select the lower texture layer, duplicate it, and go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal. This will vary the texture appearing more sometimes.

You may want to play with the transparency of these texture layers, I set my top layer to 70%, middle to 60%, and bottom to 50%.

Now you have a statue! (hopefully)

Duplicate 'layer set 2' and rename the new set to 'layer set 3'.
Hide layer set 2.

Create a new layer on top of all these layers in the set.
Fill it with white.
Change your selected colors back to the default black/white.
Go to Filter > Noise > add noise
Add a lot of noise.
Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussion Blur.
Change the layer's blending mode to 'Soft Light'.
Adjust the layer's opacity to 50%. (repeat gaussion blur if necessary)

This will give your image the appearance of oxidation or something like that.
It will also blur some sharp features.

Create a new layer set called 'pedestal' below 'layer set 3'.
Hide 'layer set 3'
Find a good source image for the pedestal.

Mask it off of it's background.

Desaturate the layer.

Now, control+click on the layer mask, this will create a new selection.
Click on the layer set 'pedestal', now click on the mask icon at the bottom of the layers pallette. (this will create a mask for the entire set as before)

Copy the texture layers from 'layer set 3' into the new set.

Move them above the pedestal image.

You should have something resembling this:

I wanted to add a plaque to the image to reveal the identity of the subject to unknowing viewers.

I made a selection in the shape of the plaque I was wanting. (made by two circular selections joined in the middle with a rectangular selection)

Fill this selection with an RGB of 71,71,71.

Create it below the textures as well and it will automatically pick them up/apply them.

I added a drop-shadow (distance of 2, spread of 0, size of 10), a bevel/emboss(depth of 100, size/soften of 0), and satin (mode = multiply, opacity=50, distance+size=11)
This made it look a little more metallic on top of the bricks and added depth.


I then selected a typeface that suited the image and typed the name of my subject.

After that i added the following layer styles to make it look engraved:
Bevel/emboss - depth=100, size/soften=0, others no change
satin - mode = multiply, opacity=50, distance+size=11
color overlay - rgb=71,71,71, opacity=100

Make layer set 3 visible again, and your final image should resemble this:

The layer masks being on the sets will make it easier for you to mask out objects in from of the staute in your image.

to:

And the subject:

to:


After this, a few touches of the burn tool around the statue's lower edges will help add realism via shadows.


You may also want to use the dodge tool around the highlight edges.

I hope this was helpful!