Create Surreal Scene of Dark Energy in Photoshop

In this Photoshop tutorial, I will show you the process of Creating Surreal Scene of Dark Energy in Photoshop. Have a go!

This is an intermediate level difficulty tutorial and some steps can be tricky.

Note: The Photoshop tutorial is done in Photoshop CC – 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)

planet-store-man-flatten-2

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OK Let’s get started!

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

Stone Texture

Nebula

Planet

Model by Falln-Stock

Step 1

Create a new document sized 720px * 1020px with black background. Load the Rock stock image into Photoshop and select a piece from it:

1 sel

Copy and paste the selection of rock texture over to our document, fill the entire canvas with it:

1 paste

Apply the following layer mask on this rock texture layer and hide the following red portion:

1 mask

Apply the following image adjustments on this stone layer:

Black and White

1 bw

Levels

1 lvs

and here is the effect so far:

1 effect

Step 2

We will add the nebula texture over to our canvas in this step. Load the nebula stock image into Photoshop and select a piece from it:

2 sel

Copy and paste your selection to our document, put it on top of the stone texture, and use a soft eraser to erase parts of it as shown below:

2 erase

Apply the following image adjustments to this nebula layer:

Levels

2 lvs

and here is the effect so far:

2 effect

 

Step 3

Use the Lasso Tool (set feather value to 30) and select the following area of the nebula stock image:

3 sel

Copy and paste the selection to our document, apply the following Hue/Saturation adjustment:

3 hue sa

Use the Free Transform tool to warp it until it forms the following shape:

3 warp

 

Step 4

Load the model stock image into Photoshop, copy and paste the model’s upper body to our document:

4 paste

Use a soft eraser to fade the edge of the body as shown below, also remove the middle part of the model’s body:

4 fade

Apply the following image adjustment layers as clipping mask to this model layer:

Black and White

4 bw

Levels

4 lvs

Curves

4 curves

Go the stone texture and select a small piece of it:

4 sel rock

Copy and paste the selection to the right face, use the eraser tool to clear up the edge:

4 paste rock

Copy and paste more stone textures and apply them around the model’s body:

4 more rock

 

Step 5

Load planet stock image into Photoshop and use the Elliptical Marquee Tool to select the planet:

5 sel

Copy and paste the selection to our document, re-size it to a small scale and place it to the middle of the body:

5 paste

Apply the following Hue/Saturation adjustment to this layer:

5 hue

Here is the effect so far:

5 effect

Step 6

We will work on the “Dark Energy” part of the image in this step, with the help of the nebula stock image.

Go to the nebula stock image and select the following area using the Lasso Tool:

6 sel

Copy and paste the selection to our document, apply the following image adjustments to it:

Hue/Saturation

6 hue

Levels

6 lvs

Move this layer to the head area, change its blending mode to “Screen”:

6 screen

and here is the effect you will have:

6 effect

Repeat this above process, add more nebula effect around the model’s body:

6 effect 2

Step 7

For final touches, we can add more floating rock around the body by using the stone stock image:

7 rock 2

7 rock

Also try using a couple of custom brush sets to add cloud/smoke around the body:

7 fractal

Apply the following Color Balance adjustment layers on top to add colours:

7 col bal

7 col mid

7 highlights

Here is the my final result for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

planet-store-man-flatten-2

That’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy it and find it useful! If you have any questions about the steps, please contact me or leave a comment below. I will try my best to answer them.

Till next time, have a great day!

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