Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to create this awesome fiery portrait in Photoshop.This is a beginner-intermediate level tutorial aiming to give some practices on layer blending, selection and coloring techniques in Photoshop. Some steps can be a little tricky, but why not have a try!

Note: The Photoshop tutorial is done in CS6 – therefore some screenshot may have slighting different layout as in the earlier version. Some brushes are exclusive to Photoshop CS6.

Here is a preview of the final effect I have for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

portrait 2 flatten 532x700 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

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vip sign up 250 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

OK Let’s get started!

To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stocks:

Model by MariaAmanda

Fire Texture

Background Texture

Step 1

Create a new document sized 800px * 1132px with black background. Load the following blue background texture from the texture pack, copy and paste it over to our document. Resize the texture to fit the size of our canvas:

1 bg paste 504x700 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

Add the following image adjustment layers to this background texture layer:

Black and White

1 bw1 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

Curves

1 curves1 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

and here is the effect you will have:

1 effect1 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

Step 2

We will work on the model in this step. Load the model image into Photoshop and select the upper body area, paste it over to our document:

2 model sel 550x628 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

Reduce the size of this model layer a bit and move it to the left bottom corner of the canvas:

2 model move 550x411 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

Apply the following Surface Blur filter to this model layer to smooth the skin out:

2 sur blur Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

Optional step: if you have Photoshop cs6 or above, apply the Oil Painting filter with the following settings to get a even smoother result for the model layer:

2 oil paint Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

Apply the following Accented Edges filter settings as shown below:

2 accen edge 550x345 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

Use the dodge and burn tool to burn the following area slightly:

2 burn 550x465 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

Then, add the following image adjustment layers as clipping masks to this model layer:

Black and White

2 bw1 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

Levels

2 lvs1 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

Curves

2 curves Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

Attached the following layer mask to this model layer:

2 mask 492x700 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

and you will have the following effect so far:

2 effect1 550x535 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

Step 3

We will add the fire stock into our mix in this step. Load the fire image into Photoshop and use the quick selection tool select a few pieces:

3 sel 550x485 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

Copy and paste the selection to our document and reduce its size, move it to the hair/facial area of the model and change the blending mode to either “screen” or “soft light”:

3 paste Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

Repeat the above step and add some more fire over the face, make sure you play with the blending mode for each new fire layer and see what result those blending modes give you:

3 paste 2 550x506 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

This is my result so far:

3 effect 550x503 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

Step 4

We will be adding a few extra effects for our image in this step. We can create a new layer and paint some cloud effect around the following area, with a cloud/smoke brush, or with the cloud filter:

4 cloud1 550x562 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

We will go back to the fire stock image and select the entire fire:

4 sel fire 550x653 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

Copy and paste the selection over to our document and place it above the model layer. Use the free transform tool to flip it horizontally, set its blending mode to “color burn”:

4 col burn 550x394 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

and here is the effect you will have:

4 effect 550x358 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

Step 5

We’re almost done! For final touches, we can flatten the image and duplicate the background layer, apply the following Accented Edges filter settings to the duplicate layer:

5 acc edge 550x451 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

Add the following layer mask to this duplicate layer:

5 mask 550x610 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

Change the layer blending mode to “overlay” for this duplicated layer:

5 overlay 550x394 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

and here is the effect you will have:

5 effect 550x677 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

I further add some colors for the photo with the selective color adjustment layer (I will leave the settings to you, feel free to apply whatever colour scheme you like!), and here is my final effect: (click to enlarge)

portrait 2 flatten 532x700 Create Colourful Fiery Portrait in Photoshop

You can check out this video tutorial below if you wish to learn more about colouring techniques using adjustment layers:

That’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy going through it and find it useful. Drop me a comment below if you have any question.

Till next time, have a great day!