This tutorial will teach how develop a realistic dancer via photoshop. This tutorial will use many brushes and tools so this could be a turning point for all the newbies. Though you need lot of concentration and patience while developing this effect. Also, this tutorial will teach you the uses of many tools of photo shop which probably you might have not used it till now. Also, this tutorial works fine with adobe photo shop CS4 and newer version which are released by adobe. :)

Develop dancer via photoshop

  1. For implementing this tutorial you need 3 images, one showing sky, one showing a dancer and old paper texture. I chose the below images to implement it, as shown below,

  2. Open the first image, I mean open the image showing the image via photoshop and then create photocopy effect. You can do it by going to menu bar and selecting Image and then Adjustments and then you click on Threshold to select it. Then adjust the threshold level as shown in the below image,

  3. Use the tools from the toolbox to delete the clouds from the sky and make the sky very clear, that is make cloud color to white from black. You can use eraser tool for doing it. And the invert the colors of the images, you can do it by going to image in the menu bar and then clicking on adjustments and then by selecting invert option. The image after doing this operation looks as shown in the below image,

  4. Now create the duplicate layer of the layer, by pressing Ctrl+J and then select free transform from the edit in the menu bar. And then select by going to edit and then transform and then by selecting flip vertical option. And then make the mirror images of the buildings which were present in the first inage and after doing it, the layer looks as shown in the below image,

  5. Now we have to create the water reflection to make our image look more realistic. To do this duplicate the layer and then select glass option by going to filter in the menu bar and then click on distort and then select the glass option. As shown in the below image,

  6. Now, blur your image via motion blur option and adjust accordingly that suits your requirement. And then select the layer mask option.

  7. Now select the paper texture, you can do it by browsing or directly downloading from any website. You have to place the paper texture above the image we developed in the earlier steps.And then set the opacity of the paper texture to 50%. And after that select the saturation level which meets your requirement. You can chose the saturation level by going to layer in the menu bar and then clicking on New Adjustment Layer and then select Hue/Saturation option. You can see the effect of this step on the image as follows,

  8. Now, you have to place the dancer above this layer as we have done earlier for the paper texture. If the dancer image is small or big then adjust its size by selection tool. As shown in the below image,

  9. Now select the magic selection tool to select the dancer and you have to do it very carefully while selecting the dancer. If you are using older version of photo shop then you can select the dancer via extraxt tool. You can find extract tool in the menu bar in the filter option.

    As you can see the selection is done very carefully and you need lot of patience to select the image accurately.

  10. Then create the mask of the layer and then move the dancer towards the right of the image, as we are going to place his shadow towards left. Though you can place it anywhere, it is up to your visualization and creativity. The image after this step looks as shown in the below image,

  11. Now you can provide the dancers with colorful clothes by selecting some colors and applying on his attire. I’ve randomly picked some colors so that the image looks good and applied on his dress and after applying it , the image looks as follows,

  12. I’ve created an lighting effect in the background, and it is purely optional. You can do lighting effect by going to Gradient and increasing the scale, that is zooming the image. And after this step the image looks like I have shown in the below image,

  13. Now we have to create shadow of the image, you can do it by selecting the image via magic selection tool and then by pressing Ctrl+click and moving the image towards left, it is like duplicating the borders of the image, as shown in the below image,

    Now I’ve increased the size of the shadow by increasing the scale, you can do it which meets your requirement or which suits you the best.

  14. Now just add some patterns to the image so that the image is transformed into the final image. You can do it by adjusting hue/saturation level, dimming the background, and the selecting various types of brushes.

And then you can see the final image which looks like a dancer is dancing as if he is going to touch the sky while dancing and his shadow is bigger than him with various patterns and the world is under his feet, as shown in the below image,

This concludes the not very long tutorial on how to develop a dancer with his shadow and his feet touching the buildings while he is in the air. To get the expected results just play around with the tools, which fits your requirement correctly and by doing that you will learn more about photo shop software, brushes used in various images and tools, and by that you become more creative and at last you have fun & satisfaction, and can go forward in your designing career. :)