1. Start with a photograph you would like to change.

2. Create a new layer by going to Layer>New>Layer or simply hitting command+shift+n (control+shift+n on a PC). On the new layer use the Paintbrush tool to trace around the differently shaded areas of the person’s face. Remember most shaded items will have at least light, shadow, and reflected light (also notice the bright highlight on this image)

3. Now use the Paint Bucket Tool to fill in the areas you’ve outlined (be sure each area is completely closed, or your color will bleed to other areas). I chose green for the base face color and maroon for the base hair color. Then I chose darker and lighter versions for the light and shadow, and a bright yellow for that splash of highlight along the left on the face. Voila! You can do the same to the background, but I like the strange effect of a photo background with a graffiti person.

First things first: create a new document with a background color of white. In a new layer (Ctrl + Shift +N), type the letters that you’d like to look smoky in the color you’d like the smoke to be. For generic smoke, use a light grey. Choose a bulky font, like Gill Sans Ultra Bold (what I’m using) and keep a decent amount of space between the letters for legibility’s sake. Right click the text layer, and choose Rasterize Type.

Next, we create a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + N) and we perform Filter –> Render –> Clouds. Then, boost the contrast a bit using the levels tool (Ctrl + L).

Return to the other layer and select its contents (Ctrl + Click its thumbnail in the layer window).

Choose Select –> Modify –> Expand… –> 8px. Now choose Select –> Feather… –> 8px. Right click with the select tool (M) in hand and choose Select Inverse. Now, with the clouds layer selected, delete.

Next, we are going to put the text layer over the clouds layer and decrease its opacity to around 15%. Finally, we can make the effect look more smoky by grabbing the smudge tool and wisping around a bit with the clouds layer.

This effect can also turn your text to fire immediately by employing a color balance layer. (Layer –> New Adjustment Layer –> Color Balance…)

I’m going to be taking the Food and Drug Administration logo and turn it 3d, then stack it up. Like a stack of … logos.

Make sure that your logo has no white surrounding it on its layer, or has an entirely transparent background.

Our first step is to use the perspective and skew tools to get the logo in a more interesting angle for 3d-ation. To access perspective, do free transform (Ctrl + T) and right click on the image and choose perspective. The same for skew. I just wanted to make the angle a little more stackable.

Now, select all the pixels in the layer (Ctrl + Click on the thumbnail in the layers window). Choose Select, Modify –> Expand –> 3px. Make a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + N).

Put this new layer behind your logo layer, and choose a foreground color different from that of your logo. Fill the selection (Alt + Backspace).

Now, with the new layer selected and the Move Tool (V) in hand, hold the Alt key and use the arrow key on your keyboard. Tap the down arrow key about 20 times while holding Alt. VOILA! Wannabe-3d. I’d organize the layers and just merge those 20-something layer copies (Select them all using shift, then Ctrl + E).

Now to make a stack. Select all layers (except background, if you have one), right click them and choose Duplicate layers. With these new layers selected, hold shift and use the Move Tool to move them directly above the older layer. Continue until you have a high enough stack for your stackalicious stacking desires. Of stacking, of course.

Here’s our starting image.

Our first step is to make a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + N). Now we create a soft white brush dot. Choose the brush tool, and in the toolbar change your brush to be around 350px with 0% hardness. Click and make a dot in the center of the hands.

Now duplicate the ball (right click its layer, Duplicate Layer…). With the new layer, take the smudge tool (R) with a soft brush of about 40px and make circular-ish motions, having most of them converge towards the top. You might wish to decrease this layer’s opacity to around 75%.

Next, another new layer (Ctrl + Shift + N). Make two or three more dots, these of differing sizes but all much smaller than the big ball. Take the smudge tool (this time with a smaller brush size) to these also and mess them up so that the smudges of each ball kind of mix together.

From here, you can stop. I like to mess around with the color of the energy, however. Go to the layer menu heading, choose New Adjustment Layer, and choose Color Balance… Using these settings, you can hit just about any shade you’d like.

We’re starting with a basic skyline photo.

The first step is to Desaturate the image (Ctrl + Shift + U).

Now, open the levels menu (Ctrl + L), and mess with the levels until we have a ridiculously high contrast image. The closer the middle arrow is to the right arrow, the stronger the contrast.

Now, duplicate the current layer (right click, Duplicate Layer…). In this new layer, perform Filter… Sketch –> Halftone Pattern. Choose settings that make it look like it was printed from those old dot matrix types. Too much contrast can be tacky, or it can turn out ultra-dramatic. Up to you.

Next, we can give the patterned layer a hue to spice it up. Ctrl + U brings up the window. Choose colorize, and don’t change the Brightness too much. Higher saturation is nice. Here’s what I came up with:

This tutorial is going to teach you how to create an illusion of electrocution in a more or less normal photo. You can combine it with a lightning effect to make it look like the person is being struck by lightning, or you can just use this electrocution effect by itself.

1. Begin with an image of decent quality, this is the one we’ll be starting with:

2. Now, to create a basic bit of lightning that will eventually be wrapped around an arm or other body part. Create a new document, and make sure the colors are set to default (D). Now, do Filter –> Render –> Difference Clouds. Next, invert the image (Ctrl + I).

3. Now, use the levels tool to boost the contrast. Pull the middle arrow all the way to the right. See how it already looks like lightning?

4. Now it gets a little tricky. Using your selection tool of choice, select the best bit of lightning that could be used for your purpose. In my case, this selected part looks like it would fit nicely around her arm.

5. Next, we will have some fun with blending modes. Copy (Ctrl + C) the selection, and past (Ctrl + V) in the image you’re electrifying. The best mode to apply is screen. This works very nicely, as the black around the lightning is eliminated. Rotate the lightning a bit using the free transform tool (Ctrl + T), and move it into position.

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for each bit of lightning you want around your person. Just a bit around the face and leg. Looks nice, huh? Now we have to clean up the edges, just use a soft brush and the eraser tool to clean up any sharpness.

7. This is the last real step, just around the arm–normally, there should be some lightning that is just below her arm, and not over. To fix this, we just take a sharp eraser tool to the lightning layer and erase.

8. These last couple steps are more or less optional, they simply add to the effect. I used the burn tool to make her outfit and skin look slightly singed. It might be nice also to add some smoke.

Now, right click on the path using the pen tool and choose Make Selection… Then set your foreground color to the main color you desire for your wings. Now, fill the selection with this color (Alt + Backspace). Deselect (Ctrl + D).

Now, a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + N) called BASIC ACCENTS. Again using the pen tool, create a large general pattern on the wing. Right click, Make Selection. Fill with any color you’d like. Make two or more, if you’d like, but don’t bother making them too detailed as they’ll be covered by other accents.

Another new layer, and secondary accents in the same way as the last.

Keep it up! Make more and more, smaller and smaller, and more and more detailed.

Now in a new layer I like to use the ellipse tool to add some nice little dots–of a color not too light–around the fatter parts of the wing. Set this layer’s blending mode to Linear Dodge. Pretty, huh? Now it’s crunch time.

Merge all the wing layers (not the background) by selecting them all with Ctrl and then typing Ctrl + E. Select all (Ctrl + A), copy (Ctrl + C), and undo twice (Alt + Ctrl + Z). Now paste (Ctrl + V). Move this new wing directly over the other. Perform a Gaussian blur.

Now, set this blurred layer’s blending mode to Screen. Yay! It’s pretty. Reselect all layers again (all but the background), and click the small arrow in the upper-right of the layers window. Select New Group from Layers… Duplicate this group (right click, duplicate). Free transform (Ctrl + T), right click and flip horizontal. Then move the wing into position. You may also choose to rotate it to better fit with the other wing.

Here’s what you get:

And using the free transform tool and perspective tools, you can set the wings in more interesting positions.

First things first, create the general shape of the piercing. My tool of choice is the pen tool. For this tutorial, it’ll be a stud piercing, so I’ll need two shapes, one below the eyebrow and one above. This is my basic shape.

Right click with the pen tool and choose Make Selection… Then make a New Layer (Ctrl + Shift + N) and fill the selection with white (Alt + Backspace).

Now we get to have some fun with layer effects. To get to the layer effects window, right click the layer and select Blending Options… Here are the settings I used:

You may also choose to refine the shadow effect by using the burn tool on the skin below the tattoo, but that is not necessary in this picture.

First things first, we have to make a pattern to cover the smooth piece of metal. Make a new document of the same dimensions as the metal image. Make sure the background is transparent. To do this, first, make a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + N) with a transparent background and dimensions of around 200×200. The pattern we’ll be making will be an extruding riveted one, so we will now make an oval shape which will be the base for the pattern. Now, set your foreground color to white and use the ellipse tool to make a generic oval.

Now, we’ll rotate the oval exactly negative forty-five degrees. To do this, do Free Transform (Ctrl + T) and hold shift as you rotate. Check the upper toolbar to see when it hits -45. Reposition it to be only slightly far away from the corner. Now, let’s apply a bevel effect to the layer.

And I used these for an outer glow effect:

Combined, they should look make the oval look something similar to this:

Now, we should trim the image a bit–so that there isn’t quite so much spacing. I used Image –> Canvas Size.. and these settings:

Now, we are going to make the other component to the pattern. Duplicate the oval layer (Right click, duplicate layer). Now, do Free Transform (Ctrl + T) and right click it and Flip Horizontal. Now, we want to move the oval to be as far from the bottom two corners as the other oval is from the top two corners. Look at the upper right of the screen where it says X: and Y:. To space it as far, we remember that the new image size was 150 pixels by 150 pixels. So, we do 150 - (in my case) 42.5, and 150 - (in my case) 42. Replace the former X and Y values with these calculated values. Here is how mine looked:

Now, we do Edit –> Define Pattern. All that’s left now is to return to the brushed metal picture. Make a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + N). Using the paintbucket tool, set these settings:

Now, click on the image to fill. Set the layer’s blending mode to multiply. Make another new layer, and fill it with the pattern again. Set this layer’s blending mode to Overlay and its opacity to around 30%. Here’s your final result!

1. Open the image you want to use for your background. I’ve chosen this nice swan on a lake image.

2. Duplicate the Layer (right click on the layer and hit Duplicate Layer). Set the Blending Mode to Overlay. You might wanna change the Fill value (in my case I used 50%, because otherwise the sun would’ve been to strong).

3. Merge the layers (hit Ctrl+E with the top layer selected) and then duplicate the newly created layer (like in step 2). With the top layer selected, go to Filter >> Blur >> Gaussian Blur, enter 7 px and hit ok.

4. Set the top layer’s Blending Mode to Linear Dodge.

5. Add you text now.

6. Open the Layer Style window (the small “f” button on the botton of the layers window) and apply Outer Glow with these settings:

7. And you’re done. Enjoy!