Covid-19 Photo Manipulation In Photoshop 2021

Today I will show you how I create this Covid-19 Photo Manipulation, and with that, you can also download all the stock images, PNG’s & Brushes that I used in this concept, so stick with me,  

The idea of this concept “Covid-19 Photo Manipulation”

but before we are dive into photoshop and do all the amazing and cool stuff let’s know about the idea about this concept. this artwork is replicate the current situation in India due to covid-19

Millions of people have died in this epidemic. And for me, this is the saddest thing that people are dying due to lack of oxygen because I know how it feels when you can’t breathe, so guys, all I want to say is, stay at homestay safe and wash your hands frequently So that you and your surroundings are safe

• Learn More about covid-19

now let’s get stated

• separate the tree

first, I separate the tree from this image, with the help of alpha channels and levels if, you don’t know how to do it, then search on youtube, or google, soon I will make a video tutorial on that topic 

after that I masked out the tree, then I make a solid color adjustment layer and move it down below so that I can see which are the unwanted areas are still left

to remove those unwanted areas I take a brush tool, make sure the mask is selected, and in the options bar change the brush blending mode normal to overlay, the flow is up to you, you can increase it or decrease it. increase it if want to work fastly, decrease it if you want to work more carefully.

at that point of time, I decided I should also remove this area which is surrounding the tree, so I take a brush tool and the mask is selected and just start painting on that areas 

• Refine edges

and this is my final step before moving on to the other image of this concept, so as you see in this image, the white edges of the tree are still here, we have to clear this up,

so for me, the best way to remove this type of edges, go to the filter than other, and select minimum, and in the minimum panel i set the value 0.5, and hit ok, you can see in the third screenshot most of the edges are gone now 

now I drag and drop this tree image into the new document and the size of this document is 4:5 inches, then I fit the image with this document,

After that I move on to the next image of this concept, this image I have used as a sky, so i drag and drop this image into the same document and move it to below the tree image

And at this stage, it looks very strange because the background and foreground colors don’t match together,

match the background with foreground

there are a lot of ways and a lot of videos are available on youtube on that topic, you can go and check them out, soon I will make a dedicated tutorial on that topic as well but for now, go ahead watch some videos about it, here i just Roughly explain you what i did here

so I’m gonna create two curves adjustment layers, one for matching the brightness, and the second for the matching colors. first, I take a curves adjustment layer just above the tree image then I change the blend mode normal to luminosity, this is because I only want to affect the brightness on this image by this curves adjustment layer

and don’t forget to click on the clipping mask icon which is shown on the third screenshot, what this does? this will limit the effect only on the image that is below the layer, not the whole document

now try to adjust the brightness similar to the background image by using curves, keep in mind here I’m only optimizing brightness, not the color, once your satisfied with the brightness, let’s match the colors

now take another curve adjustment layer and this time I change the blend mode normal to color, I already told you why, because I want this effect only on the colors, and do the same thing with this curve, again click on the clipping mask

after that make sure you’re select the curves not the mask, then hold the alt key and click on auto,

once the auto color correction options appear, select, find dark & light color

now, click on the shadow, and chose the darkest color from the background image.  

do the same here, click on highlights and choose the bright part of your background image

once you are done, hit ok

so that’s how I match the colors of the background and foreground, you can see the before and after here. and the best part of this technique is you can adjust them any time, simply clicking on the curves.

Create a glow by using the oniric plugin

now let’s do some extraordinary things with the help of this photoshop plugin, oniric, just click on generate. I already made a video about that plugin.

you can also download and learn how to install this plugin by clicking here

here In this panel, I click on this mask and just start painting on the tree, after that i click on apply

you can control this effect by using these sliders, once you are done click on save

and this is the end result what i got by using this plugin

First PNG

after that, I added this spaceship png to the sky.

now I take a new layer and select the brush tool, white is a foreground, color  and just on those areas which I highlight on this screenshot

then again go to the oniric and click on generate, now click on x-ray to see which are the areas are affected by the plugin. to choose the specific areas, enable the mask option

I just want to include this spaceship light, so just start painting on this area, then click on apply

once the specific areas are selected then change the oniric mode diffuse to streaks from the drop-down

you can play with sliders to get a much better result. then click on save

then I match the spaceship colors with my background by using the same technique which I show you previously.

Second PNG

to make this concept storytelling, I added this UFO png.

then i did the same here, match the foreground with the background.

now I double-click on the right side of the layer that opens up the layers style dialog box. 

third PNG

here I did some inner shadow effect on that png

and here I add another png, then I take a mask of this png

now I need to blend this png with the ground to look realistic, leme show you how I did this. once you take the mask of this png, then select the brush tool and this is not a regular brush this is a special brush to create grass, I have given the link down below of this brush you can download it for free, and make sure the foreground color is black.

Best Grasses Brushes

Feel free to use Grasses. that can be used to create your own photo-manipulation or anything else. In this pack, you will be seeing 34 sets of free Grasses Brushes.

and start painting on his foot with this brush, remember you have to paint on the mask of the PNG. 

then again I match the color of png with the background

Creating shadow

but the astronot is still looks so unreal, something is missing here, yes the shadow is missing, so lets create the shadows for him

to create a shadow I take a brand new layer just below the astronaut png, now select the regular brush, and open the brush properties hold the bottom point on the brush, and drag it up just a little bit, now my brush in the shape to create a shadow, i also decrease the flow of the brush 10 to 15 

here you can see first I create the contact shadow and then I create a global shadow

• Fourth PNG

then i took another PNG, and mask out this png with the help of quick selection tool. and place it our main document

then i match the colors of this png with the background

after that I create a grass and shadow for this PNG, I already told you how I did this, remember what we did with the astronaut png, similarly, i create the grass and shadow for this oxygen tank png.

I wanna show that the lights are coming from the tree and behind that, so for that, I need to darken the middle area of the tank, so I take a new layer just above the curves layer that I used to match the color of the tank.

then I take a regular brush with the black color, I also decrease the flow and opacity of the brush and just start painting on the middle areas of the tank, make sure that you clip this layer.

Because light is coming from behind it. I need to brighten the edges of this tank, now again I take a new layer and clip it, and this time I take a white paint for the brush and start painting on the sides of the tank.

Create smoke

to make this concept more interesting I create some shadow around the ground, to create smoke, I take a layer below to the astronaut and tank png.

now select the smoke brush, and you can download these brushes down below.

Dmitry Rogozhkin – 50 Fog & Smoke Brushes

now just drag the brush around the ground, flow is 5 to 8.

fourth PNG

and this is our last element of this concept, so now here i wanna add some depth of field. for that i insert this png to it

i match the colors of this png in with the background

now I go to the filter, then blur, and select gaussian 

Camera raw filter

and then i finally did some color creation in camera raw filter

Used images

now here is the final result on your right side of the image, you can download these images for png by clicking the button down below.

Speed Art