Photoshop Friday #1

I’ve toyed with the idea of starting another blog focused totally on Photoshop. But since I don’t have the time right now to keep it up, I decided to do a mini Photoshop tutorial every Friday instead.
People often ask me how I achieve certain effects with the program, or how I put everything together. Sometimes a finished image will have up to twenty layers, so it’s hard to remember what I’ve actually done most of the time. Basically I just keep experimenting until I achieve something I’m happy with. This doesn’t always work though. I have an image of five pieces of toast that I’ve done nine different versions of, and they all look terrible.
Anyway, for this digital ATC called Agnes Rising Up, I used scans of a necklace I like and an old photo (see above). I like the necklace bezel because it’s pearly and crackly, and I knew it would scan well. The photo of Agnes is not a good one, but she fascinates me. Because of the clothing she’s wearing, I’m pretty sure she must have been a servant, and one eye is smaller than the other.
In order to use Agnes just on her own, I would have been forced to do some heavy-duty rescue work in Photoshop, but I decided not to. The only thing I touched up were the whites of her eyes. I used the Eraser tool at 25 per cent opacity on the brush setting so her eyes would stand out more, yet not be too startling.
I dragged the scan of the necklace bezel into the Agnes file and then chose Darken in the Layers palette so Agnes could show through. I went back and forth between the two layers playing with Saturation, Contrast and Levels (under Images> Adjustments) in order to intensify the color.
It wasn’t hard to do, and took me about fifteen minutes. I’m not completely happy with Agnes because she looks a little muddy, but I did take her as far as she could go—given my level of skill and understanding. When it comes to Photoshop, my motto is always: “Go forth and experiment.”