Advanced' Photo Effects Tutorials

There are unlimited number of ways to approach this type of project. This tutorial will show you one of those ways. Some people prefer using custom brushes, other people have other methods. I prefer placing each shape piece by piece for maximum control in shape distribution.
Using this method, I'll show you how I took this one source image

And turned it into this

The first thing I did was to sketch out the basic layout in pencil following a photograph for reference and proper lighting cues.

I chose to make an image with prominent lighting and a bold silhouette figure. The stark contrast between lights and shadows will make for a more interesting final product. I scanned this sketch and set it as the background layer for our image. This sketch will be the guide I use throughout this tutorial in order to map out the lighting and directions. We'll also be using a random shape as our single source picture that will be the only visible source material used at the end. I'll keep a copy of this source image on hand on a separate .PSD document on my workspace at all times for quick reference.

The best thing to do in this sort of image is to try to start with your background first, then move your way up to the foreground. I started with the sky in this image. We'll do this by, first, pasting a copy of our source shape on a new layer over our sketch. Using the Edit-Transform-Distort tool, we'll transform our shape to follow the round curves in the sky as shown in our original sketch. Then we select Image-Adjustments-Hue/saturation and adjust the hue of our shape until we get a nice, yellow, "sunny" tone.


Next we'll duplicate this layer. Selecting Edit-FreeTransfrom, we'll rotate our copy to continue following the curvatures of the sky. Continue copying this layer. Adjust the tone of your shapes by sliding the hue scale (Image-Adjustments-Hue/saturation) to the left in a gradual fashion as our layers get further and further from the sun. This will give our sky a nice gradient sunrise/sunset look to it.

Now that our sky is complete, we'll work our way forward. Next, we'll cover our background mountainous area. This is done simply by pasting a fresh new version of our shape onto our image. We'll select Image-Adjustments-Brightness/Contrast and set our contrast to -100 and darken it until we have a nice stark black shape. Again, using the Free Transform tool, we'll skew our shape but this time thin so it resembles a blade of grass


Continue duplicating this shape and adjusting them until our entire mountain area is covered as to our sketch. Using Free Transform, we can rotate and resize some our our pieces as we go in order to break up the uniformity in our mountains. I also set a few alternating shape layers to a dark brown tone to give our mountains just a little more variation throughout until I was left with something like this:

Creating the water is done very similar to how we did the sky. Starting with one base shape, and making numerous copies. But this time, instead of going with a rounded curved shape I decided to transform the shape into a longer horizontal "strip". I adjusted the hue of this shape to an orange tone similar to the tones in our sky.

Then we continue duplicating this layer until our entire water area is covered. It's safe to merge all our water layers at this point into one layer.

Around the area where our figure is drinking, we want to create a ripple effect. We'll start by pasting a new shape onto our image. Using the Distort tool, we'll transform our shape to fit the curves of the ripples as indicated on our sketch again. Continue copying our shape until our rippled area is comlete. This time we'll give our shapes some blue and gray tones.

Now we'll add a few lighting effects to our water. We'll achieve this by, again, pasting a fresh shape onto a new layer. We'll remove all saturation and raise the lightness all the way so we have a solid white shape to play with. In a path going staight down directly under our sun, we'll copy and paste a few of these white shapes down to simulate the reflection of the sun onto our water.
I also laid down some solid black shapes and stretched these shapes into horizontal strips as we did when creating the water. Laying a few of these in our water at the base of our mountainous area will create the illusion that the mountain is casting a refletcion in the water

In order to make the image "pop" a little more, I decided to overlay a stronger light source over our background.
Select white for your foreground color, and black for your background color. On a new layer over the entire image, we'll apply a gradient fill set to the "Radial Gradient" mode. Click the center of the sun and drag the tool to the edge of the document so that your entire image is covered in the gradient fill.

Next, apply the overlay blend mode and adjust the opacity to a level of your liking depending on how much contrast you want your background image to have.

You want to start by mapping out the outlines on the figure. For a silhouette, having a recognizable shape and outline to your figure is most important. We'll do this by pasting a shape onto a new layer. Setting this shape to a black tone, we'll continue to copy and paste and transform our shapes until the outlines of our figure is complete.
Then it's all a matter of filling in the gaps of the inside with more shapes.

Adding a few highlights to the figure will give it a little more believability. Paste a new shape onto a layer over our figure. Setting the hue of this shape to an orange tone will give the appearance of a saturated highlight. We'll Transform this shape into a thin sliver. Continue copying and pasting this layer while resizing and rotating them to fit the outlines of the figures back, head, and legs.

Finally, I continued adding shapes to fill any gaps I may have missed.

And there you have it, a photoshop/illustration created using only one visible source image!
Of course there are a billion ways to make a Photigami image.
I hope this tutorial helps kick start some ideas in your head for your own methods and techniques in approaching your image!