So yeah, a few others made a tutorial and so I decided to make one myself. Now I warn you, there are many pictures, 34 plus 2 for the original picture and end product in total making 36. Granted this is not my best work as it is merely for demonstration purposes but it is a basic layout for my work and I encourage you to play around and change things to your liking! Art isn't about IMpressing others but EXpressing yourself. So without further ado, I give you my tutorial :smileyhappy: (I will be using Photoshop CS2 for this so somethings may be different with your version.)
First of all here is the original picture:
I open my picture in photoshop and press Ctrl+A to select all of it. Then I press Ctrl+C to copy it.
Then I go to File>New... and have the following settings.
I then press Ctrl+V to paste what I copied earlier onto this new workspace. I then use the move tool
to move the picture around to fit into the workspace I have.
I then merge this new layer that was created with the default "Background" layer that was already there. This is done by holding shift and clicking both layers one after the other. Once they are both selected, right click and select merge layers.
I then duplicate the new "Background" layer that has been created
Here's where we get to the part where you can play around to your own likings. I go to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Curves...
Now keep in mind that different shots will need different settings so play around til you get something you like. For this, I had the following settings.
I then again went to Layer>New Adjustment Layer but then went to Brightness/Contrast and again chose settings to my likings, you should again have your personal likings.
Next comes the cutting out part. I use the Polygonal tool purely because I find it easier to use, it uses straight lines to cut out. If you are more comfortable using another tool, then by all means use it :smileyhappy: With this, I am going to cut out my RSI, you can cut out whatever though.
When cutting out, do not be afraid to go out of the work area it works all the same and when you have finished cutting it only cuts out the stuff within the workspace.
Now I want to cut out what I have selected, I do so by right clicking anywhere within the selected area and clicking "Layer via Cut".
Once I had done that, I hid the layers "Background" and "Layer 1" shown here by clicking the little eye next to the layers names:
Next I selected the "Background Copy" layer and went to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur...
I had the following settings for the gaussian blur but feel free to play around to something you like.
I then made the other layers visible again.
I then selected the layer "Layer 1" and went round the edges of the RSI with the blur tool. I did the same with the "Background" layer.
Then I selected the layer "Background" and went to Filter>Render>Lighting Effects...
These are the settings I had for my lighting effects and yet again I encourage you to play around, however try and stick to the direction the light had originally without any effects added on.
And now another fun part, adding shadows using the burn tool 
An important thing to remember when using the burn tool for shadows is to think about where the shadows would be if it were a real life situation. Think about the direction of the light and where the shadows would be cast. Here are the settings I had for my burn tool brush
(It would appear that I haven't got a picture after adding the shadows typical that something would be missing! I'll try and find it later)
Once I had added my shadows, I added my text (NOTE: This is completely optional text is not always needed!)
I double clicked the layer to change it's settings, again play around with these settings, these are merely my desires.
I left the inner shadow as it was as I didn't feel the need to do anything with it.
I then clicked my topmost layer which was "Brightness/Contrast 1" then went to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Hue/Saturation...
These are the settings I had.
I then clicked the layer "Background copy" and repeated the above step to get to the Hue/Saturation. Once there, I selected these settings:
From there I saved it as a .png and opened it in MSpaint to add a border but again that's optional and I won't bother posting pictures up because it's pretty easy going around the outside of it with a black straight line.
And that's it finished! Here is the end product that I had:
I hope you enjoyed my tutorial and that you will find it useful. Comments on it are greatly welcomed and I would love to see what you produce from this!!! :smileyhappy: Remember play around with settings and whatnot to your liking, after all, it is YOUR sig!
- Ð
