If you still need inspiration check out our archives.

Please remember to ...]]> These are some of the freshest and most popular tutorials from around the interweb. We searched hard to gather together a selection that covers most aspects of design using Photoshop.  Its always a good time to brush up on your skills with photoshop and always good fun . You may notice they are grouped together (without a header) from manipulations to, tuts from this year, film posters and many more.

If you still need inspiration check out our archives.

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Create light effects with texture

Add colourful, personal flare to your work by incorporating doodles and textures, writes Craig Shields.

Design an Underwater Omega Code Poster

Omega Code is a band that ran a massive design contest to create interest in their music, by allowing designers to use their unique triangle logo and compete to win the contest.

Magic lamp in the old room

Balance 3D with mixed media

Melt 3D elements with organic shapes in Photoshop for illustrations that leap off the page, writes Xavier Bourdil

Photoshop & Illustrator Tutorial: Create retro poster art

The retro aesthetic of the 1950s and 1960s is currently back in vogue and it’s set to be a great trend for 2010.

In this tutorial, you’ll be taken through, step by step, the creation of some custom brushes, and application of them to a stock image to create a matte dispersion effect.

Melting Girl in Photoshop

One of the best things in Photoshop, in my opinion, is that we can create all sorts of effects and photo manipulations mixing regular stock photos

Lost in Space Typography in Photoshop

So in this tutorial I will show you how to create an easy and super quick text effect in Photoshop. We will play with Brushes, Blend Modes, basic filters like Blur and Liquify, and also text.

Create a Funky Retro Wavy Text Effect in Photoshop

The purpose of this tutorial is to learn how to mask out an image so that it just shows through the editable text, making it friendlier to modifications later on.

Create a Vivid Themed Illustration Using Simple Hand-Drawn Elements

Drawn elements are certainly something that can enhance an illustration. Even if you’re not very good at drawing, you can still create a quality piece. All you need is a good idea and some Photoshop skills.

How to Make a Dark, Post-Apocalyptic City Illustration

Using simple tools, we’ll turn lively streets into abandoned ruins overgrown with weeds. A number of stock images and a few little tricks will let us optimize our work and make this job more interesting and spectacular. So let’s go!

Manipulate Smoke to Create Hyper-Real Images

Learn to apply the Warp Tool effectively and a few other tricks to make smoke look like a skull. This technique has a variety of outcomes and works well with water, clouds and a whole bunch of other stuff. This is probably more for intermediate users, as I guide you through the process well, but not every Warp Grid point handle move. Let’s get started!

Create frozen liquid effects

Sergio Vichique shows how you can bring the coolest of effects to your illustrations.In this tutorial I will show you some techniques to give almost anything a liquid or frozen fluid effect. I’ll also reveal the easiest way to extract liquid images and keep them transparent.

Make an Inspiring Artistic Poster with Drawn Elements

In this tutorial, we’ll create drawn elements, use design brushes, bring them into Photoshop, and merge them into a unique poster composition that feels hand-made, stylistically unified, and personalized

It’s Time to Create a ‘Neo-Constructivist’ Poster with Photoshop

Constructivist graphic design is often associated with communist politics and propaganda, but it’s more than that, Constructivism is about using bright colors, playing with lightness, perspective, geometrical forms, besides photomontage techniques and digital collage.

How to Create a Retro Boxing Poster in Photoshop

Creating a retrograde look is nothing new, but there are some things to keep an eye out for when mimicking Graphic Design from any decades past. We’ll be drawing inspiration from Poster Design from the 1960s, particularly Boxing Posters from that era. Let’s get started!

Soul Rebel Poster Tutorial

In this tutorial I will show how to create an awesome illustration that can be printed as a poster to hang it on your wall.

Creating a Space-Helmeted Future Retro Illustration

I’m going to call it Future Retro for the sake of this tutorial. I employed my take on the style in pitching a poster and overall look for a night at a local club. This tutorial goes over the meat and potatoes of it’s creation!

Create an Intense Movie Poster in Photoshop

In this tutorial, we’re going to create a poster for a fictional movie called “Fugitive.” The movie is meant to be a suspenseful thriller that features one’s escape under the cover of darkness, despite man’s attempt to capture the lone hero.

How to Create a Somber Composition in Photoshop

In this tutorial you will learn how to manipulate stock images and turn them into your puppets to express your desired feelings.

Photoshop Tutorial: Use lighting effects to make photos sparkle

From sparkles, pixie dust effects, coloured light spots and light beams, to using splatter effects as a form of lighting, it’s all here. Some of the tricks you’ll learn are created through cunning use of stock photography, while others make use of Photoshop’s built-in tools.

Photo Strip

This is a Photoshop tutorial on how to create a beautiful photo film strip.The warp tool will be used to create the twisting effect (so, you need Photoshop CS2 or above to complete this tutorial). With the completion of this tutorial, you will be able build a photo strip with your own photos or artwork.

Pop Art-inspired fashion illustration

Spots make the difference by offering a simple way to give your work a Ben Day-style Pop Art bent, as Gavin Dias demonstrates. Using dots to add tone and shading to your fashion illustrations is a fun and simple way of re-creating a 1950s Pop Art look.

Create an Out of Bounds Fantasy Illustration

In this tutorial, we will take you through the process of creating a fantasy scene, make water pour out of a painting, make some sort of a absorption effect and end up with a really nice looking color. The main idea behind this surreal illustration is that we are actually in a painting and the painting on the wall is the real world, the world where our vulture tries to escape.

Self-initiated abstract art

Out-of-this-world work doesn’t require a brief, says JUN, just careful choice of source material, a few hours and a little imagination. Self-initiated work often means a lack of budget, but that doesn’t mean it can’t look good. It’s all left up to your imagination and creativity.

How To Create the Photo Manipulation “Brightness Tomorrows”

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a futuristic looking photo manipulation using some special tools, such as the Background Eraser Tool and how to blend pictures properly using Match Color Adjustments and Lighting Effects. So let’s start!

How to Create a Chilling Photo Manipulation in Photoshop

In this tutorial I will show you how I created a fantasy photo manipulation called “You Can Not Frost The Time” with using several Photoshop tools such as Color Range, different blending modes, and more. Let’s get started!

Fantastic Tree

Drawing Mircosoft’s XBOX 360

This tutorial is going to teach you how to draw a Mircosoft’s XBOX 360 console in photoshop using a reference image, simple techniques such as the gradient tools and the pen tool. You are expected to have some experience with both of these two tools to successfully apply and follow this tutorial.

How to Create a Super Shiny Pencil Icon

The Pencil is one of the visual metaphors most used to express creativity. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to draw a pencil icon. We’ll have a look at gradients, selection tools, and basic transform operations. Let’s have some fun with this.

Rendering a Striking Matchbox in Photoshop

This tutorial consists of creating a digital illustration in Photoshop of a box of matches. We’ll be creating the matchbox cover design, the striker on the matchbox from a pattern, and placing the cardboard texture on the box. We’ll also create the matches and align everything into a 3D perspective.

Army Swiss Knife Tutorial

Make an iPod Classic

You will be learning how to create an iPod classic but also you can use the same technique to make an iPod nano.

Design a Shiny Photorealistic Apple Remote

3D Mp3 Player

Designing Loox Pocket PC

How to create an interesting Pocket PC using only Photoshop.

LG LCD Monitor Icon

Creating A Vector Style MacBook From Scratch

This tutorial is quite a long one, so I would go get a drink now if I were you, OK we are going to make a MacBook Pro in Photoshop using shapes and different blending options, combining these two simple things we get a realistic vector outcome which can be used in many different situations, so…let’s begin.

Dark Angel Photomanipulation

In this tutorial i will show you how to design a grunge style photo-manipulation. You will learn how to blend different images into one composition.

Stunning Dragons Attack in Photoshop with 3D Features

In this tutorial I will show you how to create an sort of video-game style image with dragons, fire, smoke, robots and other crazy things.

How to Create a Fantasy “Mother Nature” Scene

This tutorial is about creating a fantasy scene called “Mother Nature.” We will use well chosen images, brushes and most off all our imagination in combination with Photoshop techniques to create an outstanding image. So let’s get started!

Classic Photoshop Tutorial: Master 3D type effects

In it, type-effects guru Nik Ainley shows how to create the above image. The key is to create the letters in a 3D package first as individual characters, then bring them into Photoshop for further post work.

Photoshop Tutorials: Easy Watercolor Painting Effect

In this Adobe Photoshop tutorial, we’re going to learn how to easily make a photo look more like a watercolor painting. This photo effect works best on images where maintaining rich colors and strong contrast is more important than keeping any fine details, since you’ll be losing a lot of detail with this effect.

Space Lighting Effects in 10 Steps – Photoshop Tutorial

Abduzeedo means abducted in portuguese, the spelling is not exactly that, it should be abduzido. But the whole idea for the Abduzeedo’s design is the space. I’m really fan of playing with this subject because we are sort of free to create whatever we want, and using Photoshop that really means everything.

Really cool Eclipse Effect in Photoshop

In this tutorial I will show you how I created the Abduzeedo’s footer. Some of the techniques I used here I took from other tutorials and also from another tutorial I wrote some time ago for PSDtuts Mix Cool Retro Curves Into Your Photographs. Besides, the design is inspired by the amazing work of James White, so I highly recommend you to check his work out.

The Magic Night

This lesson will show to you as by means of simple actions to create a beautiful and interesting collage.

Super Slick Dusky Lighting Effects in Photoshop

One of the best sites around for desktops has to be Desktopography. I’ve been inspired by their amazing work, so today we are going to put together a sunset image mixing some vector shapes and dusky lighting effects to produce a slick image that would make a nice album cover for a chillout mix!

Combine Renders and Light Effects for Awesome Results

In this tutorial, we are going to extract the ability of Photoshop tools to make an epic piece of digital art.  We’ll look at how to manipulate a pre-made render into the composition, as well as how to utilize blending modes, gradients and the liquify tool to achieve a brilliant abstract result.

Create a Dark and Surreal Poster Using Your Own Portrait

Today’s tutorial was inspirited by digital artist Rob Shields who graciously granted permission for us to use his work as inspiration. I chose his work titled “Keep me in the dark.” In this illustration it is essential that you use a tablet; especially for the doodles and the white strokes that will give the portrait a more detailed effect. Let’s get started!

Create a Cosmic Sci-fi Poster Design in Photoshop

I’m a great fan of sci-fi art. Have you ever seen a Metallica cd cover? Simply amazing. This kind of design inspired me to create a cosmic sci-fi scene. Today I want to show you how to create this image in Photoshop. This tutorial is for intermediate users who know how mask and selection tools work. We will use also a bit of Illustrator and Cinema4D. Have a try!

Create a Fantastic Abstract Fan Poster

In this tutorial, we are going to get creative with layering, lighting, and texture to build fantastic abstract piece. More specifically, we’re going to employ some unusual techniques to make a fan poster for the band Omega Code, but you’ll quickly see many different applications for what is taught here.

Photoshop Tutorial: Create a children’s book illustration

In this brilliant tutorial, Photoshop wizard Fabio Sasso puts layer masks and Photoshop’s built-in filters to good use to create a beautiful, enchanting image that wouldn’t be out of place in a children’s book.

Photoshop Tutorial: Create dynamic backdrop lighting

In this tutorial, Ricardo Ajcivinac shows how to recreate this brilliant image (which is also the cover of our Jan 2010 issue), and how to give your character art extra punch by using lighting and layer styles.

How to enhance your subjects with striking light effects in Photoshop

In this Photoshop tutorial I’ll show you a simple technique that can be used to enhance any kind of subject with stunning light effects. We will use in particular selection tools, gradients and brushes to achieve the result.

Super Easy Typographic Portrait in Photoshop

So in this tutorial I will show you how to create a really cool and super easy typographic portrait in Photoshop. We will use the Displace filter and some Blend Modes to achieve the effect. The whole process is quite simple but it might take you some time to add the texts and elements, but once you do that the rest is very straight forward.

his tutorial covers many advanced techniques, but not to fear, as Joe will walk you through step-by-step how to create it.  You’ll learn rendering, depth of field, dispersion, photomanipulation, and how to add the tiny details that all combine for a brilliant artwork.  So, let’s get started!

Egg Planet. Fantastic globe photo manipulation

Kung Fu Panda Wallpaper

3D cartoons one of the most popular fields in computer graphic nowadays, it has a lot of funs. In this tutorial I will try to create my own wallpaper on one of 3D cartoons ‘Kung Fu Panda’ using collage of graphic elements.
So, let’s start!

Create a Kill Bill Style Movie Poster in Photoshop

As you might have noticed from the other photoshop tutorials on this site, I am a bit of a movie buff and enjoy recreating movie posters. In today’s tutorial I am going to show you how to make a cool Kill bill style movie poster complete with bloods, swords, and girls.

“John Rambo” Movie-Poster Tutorial

Today we are going to recreate the original movie poster from the recently released (or let’s say unleashed) movie “John Rambo”. This poster is very simple but effective at the same time. We will use an original picture from the movie, which also the poster-designers seem to have used.

Iron Man View Interface Effect in Photoshop

In this tutorial I will show you how to create the Iron Man screen interface, I don’t even know if I can call it that way . We will use Illustrator to create some vectors and Photoshop to put everything together.

Design a Sin City Style Poster

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to create that effect in Photoshop, but this time we’ll use Illustrator to create the perspectives and text. I’ll walk through the process of creating the effect; However, it’s always good if you play around and test different settings to see how it works. That for me is the best way to learn.

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Create a text reflection in photoshop using a displacement map.

Today I thought I would start the quick tip series for Photoshop. This series will be covering  how to do certain effects & smart ways to get more done in Photoshop . 

This is a thorough and flexible technique to add a reflection to text on water and in other settings. This technique is also nearly 100% non destructive which is what we should always aim for; the ...]]>

Create a text reflection in photoshop using a displacement map.

Quick Tip No. 1

Today I thought I would start the quick tip series for Photoshop. This series will be covering  how to do certain effects & smart ways to get more done in Photoshop . 

This is a thorough and flexible technique to add a reflection to text on water and in other settings. This technique is also nearly 100% non destructive which is what we should always aim for; the smart filter can be altered very easily as can the reflection – this all makes our design lives easier.

(thanks to Marcus Vegas for the sea image)

Step1

To start download this image of the sea and place it into Photoshop.

Save this as a photoshop psd file and name it ‘displacement map 1’ . Save it somewhere easy to find on your desktop.

Step 2

Add a curves adjustment layer with output at 31 and input at 179 .

Step 3

Ad an exposure adjustment layer with exposure set to – 0.10

Step 4

Type out ‘ Digital Art Empire’, or something else memorable that you like.  A sans serif bold font will work nicely.

Step 5

Add a gradient layer style with the stops in a similar place and colour to these. Black, then dark grey, then Black again .

Step 6

Copy this layer using ctrl + J .

Step 7

Press Ctrl + T to free transform and choose flip vertical , then holding shift drag the copy down so it’s a reflection.

Step 8

Ctrl + T again and drag the top of the copy reflection down a bit.

Step 9

Right click the copied text layer and rasterize type, then right click again and select convert to smart object . This way the filter we use , the displacement map, will be a smart filter and we can change it as we go.

Step 10

With the copied text layer selected go to filter , distort and displace. Choose 3 and 3 for the scales and leave the rest as defaults. Then choose the PSD file we saved earlier called  ‘displacement map 1′

Step 11

Add a layer mask to the copied text layer , choose a black to white linear gradient and drag so the reflection is faded

And that’s it – I hope you had fun and learnt something useful thanks for visiting Digital Art Empire.

In this tutorial I’ll show you how to create a thriller film poster in Photoshop using an array of good techniques. Learn adjustment layers, channel  selections and text effects to create a cool poster, free psd included. Lets get started!

Program: Photoshop

Difficulty: Intermediate

Time to complete: 2 hrs

Images used: Castle ,Clouds ,Face,Skull,Starring Man, Decrepit Font,

Thankyou to the artists who provided these ,please remember to follow these artists rules and credit them where appropriate.

Being ...]]>

In this tutorial I’ll show you how to create a thriller film poster in Photoshop using an array of good techniques. Learn adjustment layers, channel  selections and text effects to create a cool poster, free psd included. Lets get started!

Preview final image above .

Program: Photoshop

Difficulty: Intermediate

Time to complete: 2 hrs

Images used: Castle ,Clouds ,Face,Skull,Starring Man, Decrepit Font,

Thankyou to the artists who provided these ,please remember to follow these artists rules and credit them where appropriate.

Introduction: Horror /Thriller Movie Poster Art

Being a film buff and a designer means a lot of my designs are influenced by films. A film poster is great way to combine text effects, image manipulations and Photoshop techniques meaningfully. We can create a fantasy photo manipulation with an outline of a story and message. The poster design we’ll do today is a thriller / horror using stylized images and text to give a similar movie poster style that you see on billboards and video covers.

Step 01 – Prepare the Document.

In Photoshop open a new document at 1000 x 1300 with resolution set to 300 dpi and using RGB color.

Place the image of the castle from here into the document and resize it. Place the image with the castle prominently in the centre and toward the bottom of the document like this:

Step 02 – Cut Out the Sky

With the castle layer selected go to channels and find the channel with the most contrast which is the blue channel here. Duplicate this channel by dragging it to the new channel button just like you would a layer.

Open levels (image adjustment levels) and bring the right slider along to 188 and the left slider to 240.This brings out the contrast of the castle against the sky so we can cut it out.

Grab a hard black brush and cover over the castle trees and moat with black. Then do the same with a white brush on the sky. If you need to make a selection around any left out bits do so and fill with the correct color.

Next Ctrl click the blue copy channel to make a selection go back to you layers  palette and hit Ctl + shift + I to inverse then ctrl + J to bring the castle and trees into a new layer .

Save your document and rename the new layer castle.

Step 03 – Adding Some Interest

Grab this image of clouds from here and place it in the image and resize it . Put this layer under the castle layer.

Step 04 Balancing the Poster

Add a color balance adjustment layer and set the midtones to + 65 giving the image a red tint.

Add a levels adjustment layer and change the midtone input to 0.86 .

Add a hue saturation adjustment layer and reduce the saturation to – 21 then clip it to the cut out castle layer.Then put the castle and clouds in a group and label it castle.

Step 05 The Eyes

Finding good stock photos that give the image a message and make it more than just a manipulation is key in designing a film poster. Go here and download the face image place it in the document and cut the eyes out using the marquee tool. Select just the area around the eyes including the eyebrows and bridge of the nose but exclude the ears. Then hit ctrl shift and I to inverse the selection and delete.

Step 06 Making the Eyes Dramatic

We’ll now work on the eyes and make them more dramatic and other worldly so they fit in with the theme of the film. Hit ctrl + T to free transform and enlarge the image of the eyes so you can work on the pupil’s and eyeballs.

We’ll start by reducing the color, go to image adjustments hue saturation and reduce the saturation to around -38.

Step 07 Eyes

Zoom in if you need to and grab the dodge tool set to mid tones and exposure set to 67 %  then brighten around the pupil and the white of the eye. Bring out the color of the eyes and keep going until the eyes look more dramatic.

Step 07 Adding Colour to the Eyes

Then add a new layer fill with a red color da2917 and set to color burn with the eraser tool on soft round brush erase away the red on the castle and sky leaving the color only on the eyes like so .Next grab the burn tool set to midtones with a 10 – 15 % exposure and darken a little around the eyes.

Step 08 Reducing Shine

Use the burn tool set to midtones and 70 – 80 % exposure to reduce the glare on the castle walls and spires. Cover all the areas where the sun is hitting the castle. Do the same for any shiny areas on trees and on the water.

Step 09 The Skull

Get the image of the skull from here and resize it so it covers the bush this takes away a random looking element and adds drama.Set this layers blend mode to hard light and the layer’s opacity to 45 %. Label the layer skull.

Step 10 The Starring Man

Get this image of a starring man from here place it in the document now resize to the same size as the castle and place it on the left. Change the blend mode to hard light and add a layer mask .Then with the gradient tool set to foreground to transparent make a black gradient on the layer mask from right to left. You should cover over the right hand side of the face .Do the same for the bottom and top and take away any extra lines with a black brush. Now drop the opacity down to 63 % and you should have this.

Step 11 The Title Text

Choose the type tool and the font Decrepit (BRK) at size 20 type ‘NOTHING TO LOSE’. If you don’t have this font already download it from here. Place the text over the line where the eyes layer meets the cloud layer. Then to give the text some depth  copy the  text layer (ctrl + J ) and  rasterise it reduce the opacity to 36 % and nudge it down and to the right 1 pixel .Place the copied layer below the original.

Step 14 The Credits Text

Create a box with the marquee tool around the width of the poster and 220 for the height fill this with a dark red I used 660000.Put this layers blend mode on darken.

Add lettering with the type tool to make the image seem more like a film poster. Type the names in a larger font and the titles such as director in a smaller font. Then compress the whole group of text by highlighting it and reducing the horizontal scale in the character palette to around 42. I also added a small symbol in white. This all gives the text a movie poster feel.

You should end up with something similar to this:

Step 15 Adding More Text

Before this step tidy up your layers put the skull, starring man and film credits in a group and label all the layers if you haven’t done so already. Add ‘MASTERPIECE’ in Trajan pro with double quotation marks. Then use the shape tool to create 5 small 5 sided stars in dark red with the name of a magazine you like. Then add academy award winner 2009 and place in the lower right hand side.

Step 15 Fill with Light

To lighten up the image add a layer at the top and fill it with white, change the layer’s blend mode to overlay. Then add a layer mask and make black your foreground color. Then go to the gradient tool, make sure it set to foreground to transparent. Holding down shift click and drag a gradient form the bottom to above the skull. This will brighten the eyes and castle and leave the bottom as it is.

Step 16 Adding Some Red

Then add a gradient adjustment layer with the colors stops set from a0050a to f50f0f, linear and 90 degrees.

Clicking on the layer mask do the same as with the previous step, select a black gradient and holding down shift click form the bottom to a quarter way up the image .This will help the castle blend in more.

Step 17 Make the Text White again

Now select the title text and extra text by ctrl clicking it go back to the mask of the red gradient and fill with black to make the letters white again. Do this for all the other text as well.

Conclusion

Were all done now I hope you learned something new and had fun – take a break.

Free PSD

The PSD file is available for download free from here.

Rapidshare Download (21.2mb Zip File)

Mediafire Download (21.2mb Zip File)

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