Advanced' Photo Effects Tutorials

First of all you need this source image.

And if I've done my job correctly it should end up looking like this.

First of all you need to make a duplicate of your original background layer and then open vanishing point in filter/vanishing point.

Now simply set up a grid that follows the lines of the patio area like so.
Supa's top tip: You might want to zoom out a little bit here so you can get your grid to fit nicely.

Then take the clone stamp (with heal turned off) and select a cross section between the big detailed paving slabs at the front. Then make your brush as big as you need and line it up with another cross section and start cloning.

Eventually you will have something that looks like this.

Duplicate your original layer and again go into vanishing point. This time do the same again but with the water, like this.

Ok now we can start writing our word so turn off the layer visibility on your water and paving layers and with the text tool write your word. I used Arial black for my font but you can use anything, but I'll warn you the round bits are very hard.

Write your word in a nice contrasting colour, I used white because that's what I had selected at the time and I am lazy. Right click your text layer in the layers palette and select rasterize type then using the transform tool transform the word to the perspective of the pool. I decided halfway through it would be too hard and probably look stupid if I left the floaty bits in the middle of the P and the 2 Os so while you still have the word layer selected paint them in white also.

Once this is done you can turn off the text layer because we are only going to use it as a selection and nothing else.

Next make a selection of the steps and the pool cover at the front using the tool of your choice (I use the polygon lasso tool) like so.

Once you have your selection (making sure your original untouched layer is selected) hit Ctrl+J to duplicate the selected area. Take this layer and drag it to the top of the layer stack and whilst you still have it selected use the sponge tool on 100% desaturate to take the blue out of the edges of the bars.
Supa's top tip: Don't desaturate the blee reflections only the part where the blue is bleeding into the bars.

Okay dokey lets check our layers pallete and make sure it's the same as mine. IT'S NOT??? It should be, make it so.

Now we will select our pavement layer, keeping the pavement layer selected Ctrl+click on the POOL layer to create a selection then hit backspace to remove the pesky pixels in the middle.

Looking good yes?

Unfortunately now it gets hard. We need to create depth in the water so lets go back to the original image and go to the back of the pool and take a piece of the back wall. Make this selection

And then hit Ctrl+J to duplicate it.
I like working inside selections so make a selection of the middle bar on the back wall and clone to fill in the middle section.

After that keep that selection active and hit Ctrl+Shift+I to invert the selection and then clone the other 2 colours of the back wall to give you this shape to work with.

OK duplicate the shape you made from the back wall.
Supa's top tip: Hide the original of this layer. Not for posterity but in case you mess up (this way you will always have a backup)
Then while only working with the pavement layer and your back wall layer visible start warping and liquefying your wall layer into the back of the 2 'O's this layer can then be duplicated and will require very little work to shape to the other 'O'. Duplicate the first layer again and shape it to the back of the 'L' then do the same for the straight part of the 'P' and again duplicate and warp the wall from the first 'O' to make the round part of the 'P'. See below.

I don't like merging layers unless I have to so for organization sake I put all the wall layers into a folder called "water". No I'm kidding I called it "walls" I think you should do the same. Go on then I'll wait... Done? very good. Now you can bring this group below your water layer in the layers palette. It should look like this.

Now we need to make the side walls. So select the original image again and make a selection of the corner of the pool, like so.

Hit Ctrl+J to duplicate the area within your selection. Place it on the far left corner of the 'L' and then duplicate it again to make a corner for the other left hand corner. Once the 2 corners are done put them into the walls group and close the group
Supa's top tip: use a soft brush to blend the bottoms of the walls into the floor.
Turn on the water layer and set the blend mode to multiply at opacity 70%. Turn on all layers except the text layer and you have the start of a good image.

Now because I'm trying to put off doing the hard part we're going to do an easy step first. Notice this source has a very dark background but a very bright pool. It doesnt look good so were gonna brighten it up. First select your topmost layer then hit the new layer button to create a new layer at the top of the stack, set this layer to overlay. Now take a soft white brush and paint over the dark areas. Here Is where I painted.

Supa's top tip: I realize there are other ways to achieve this for example levels, brightness/contrast, curves etc, but this is an easy and effective method in regards to this specific source.
If the background becomes too bright just adjust the opacity of the white layer to get the best result.

I cannot procrastinate any longer so now we must do the paving round the pool.
First make a copy of the original picture and drag it to just below your white highlight layer. Erase everything apart from the edge paving that is already in the right place, like the left edge of the 'P' and the top edge of the 'L'

Duplicate this layer and delete everything apart from the front corner section of the 'P'.

Make a selection of this layer by Ctrl+click the layer in the layers palette and clone away the gaps between the slabs whilst working inside the selection.

Keep this as a base and keep duplicating it and then warping/distorting the pieces into place. Start with the straight pieces and then finish with the curved parts.

After all your pieces are lining all the letters you need to merge them all together and up the brightness a little bit on the edge layer only, I did this by increasing 'lightness' in the hue saturation palette. Now If you Ctrl+click on the 'POOL' text layer you will notice areas where the edges went over the water, whilst this selection is active erase only the top edges of the slabs. Like so.

The only thing missing now is the gaps between the slabs. So make a selection of one of the front parts

and just like the last step keep duplicating the layer and distorting into place. After that I added a 10% green photofilter over the whole image to finish it off. I hope this has helped you out. Turns out it was a lot easier second time around.

Hope this tutorial didn't suck completely and is easy enough to follow.