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In this tutorial we will be making this very creative abstract space design tag. It uses various space stocks and some materials to texture the canvas. What’s important is that you don’t want to try to recreate this exact image. Rather learn the techniques used to make this design, then apply your creativity to your own work of art. This was designed by Neuron, he’s an awesome designer. Check out his deviantart for more of his awesome work. Let’s get started, here’s the final result:

We’re starting out with this hourglass stock image:

We’re going to blur the hourglass a little. Duplicate the layer, and select Filter > Blur > Smart Blur. Grab the eraser tool, and erase the blurred layer in front to create some extra depth:

We’re going to grab some materials to texture the canvas. You can find plenty of good materials everywhere, we’re going to start by using this grungy material and setting the blending mode to soft light:

Blending mode set to soft light and opacity reduced to about 30%:

Another Material. Play around with the blending mode, and reduce the opacity. Our blending mode was set to multiply:

The result after adding the material (image saved in low quality so might effect outcome):

We’re going to start changing the color. Create a Curves adjustment layer by going to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves…

Play around with the settings. Here are the settings used in this tag, however you should experiment with the settings to get the result you want.

Our outcome:

Adding a color balance adjustment layer by going to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Color Balance. Here’s the settings used in the tag. Once again, try not to copy these, use your own settings.

Our result:

We’re going to add a stock on the image. First we’re going to place the stock in a good location, afterwards we will start coloring the hand and blending it into the background using adjustment layers.

The stock:

Placed onto the canvas:

We’re going to blend the hand into the background with a Color Balance adjustment layer, and adjust the Color Balance

Result after this Color Balance layer:

We’re using this color balance layer to give his arm some shadow, however the top should not be affected because well, a blue arm looks weird. So select the layer mask, and brush with a black brush on the top of his arm and hand:

We’re going to duplicate the hand layer, flip it vertically, and place it higher up on the canvas. Select the hand layer, then go to Leyer > Duplicate Layer:

Now select Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical:

We’ve placed the hand higher up on the canvas, our result:

We’re going to add a tree stock into the hand we duplicated. We will have to flip this stock vertically as well before we add it. You can use any stock image you like, we decided to use this stock image:

Paste the stock onto the canvas:

Press CTRL + T to rotate it or select Edit > Transform > Flip Vertically

Place in into the palm of the hand, our result:

We’re going to brighten the tree and the arm a little by adding a curves layer. (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves) Play around with the graph, switching between RBG, red blue and green to change settings slightly.

We only want to color the tree and the arm, so CTRL + Click onto the layer image of the tree and arm (it’s merged to 1 layer in our PSD), this should make a selection. Then press CTRL + SHIFT + I to inverse it, and fill this with a black color. This will hide the curves layer to the rest of the image and just color the hand:

Selection we’ve filled with black:

Time to start creating the final background colors. Create a gradient map, (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map) and select settings you like. We’ve set the blending mode to Multiply, and reduced the opacity to 81%:

Blending mode on multiply and opacity on 81%:

Result:

We’re going to fix some stock sections that look weird or need fixing. We’re going to use the clone stamp tool to fix the bottom right section outlined below:

Select the clone stamp tool, and press ALT to define an area that you want to clone:

Define a clone section, then start brushing over the area you want to fix. Our result:

Apply a gradient map, and play around with the colors. We want to use some bright colors, and change its blending mode afterwards. Our gradient map:

Blending mode set to soft light with opacity down to about 20%-30%:

Adding a curves adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjutsment Layer > Curves…), we want to light up the bottom a little:

Result of the curves adjustment layer:

Adding a Photo Filter, pick a matching color from your canvas with the eyedropper tool, don’t just copy ours because your outcome won’t be the same:

Result of the photo filter layer (blending mode was kept on normal and opacity on 100%):

This is where your creativity has to come in. We’re going to add space stocks and images and change the blending mode to create some awesome lighting effects, and try to make it seem as if it’s coming out of the soil. Find different space stocks, resize, crop, place it around. Try this for space stock images (make sure you’re allowed to use them!). You can also do some light brushing and experiment with that. Try creating some flow, start inside the hand and move up widening the effects a bit, this will make it seem as if the effect is coming out of the hand:

As you could see in the previous image, theres no need to cut out the planet from its dark background. You can change the blending mode to Linear Dodge, Color dodge, Screen, or Linear Light and play around with the opacity. You can also use small soft brush and brush with a bright light color and change the blending mode to add some lighting.

Repeat the same process on the top next to your tree, try to create some flow thats coming out of the hand floating down:

Outcome after changing the layers blending modes to Linear Dodge, Color Dodge, Screen, Linear Light, and so forth:

Add a space stock/material on top of the image. This tag used a starry sky image:

Grab the eraser tool and select a hard brush. Reduce the flow a little, because we’re going to remove some parts of the starry sky.

This is our starry sky after erasing, shown with a white background underneath. The entire area covering the top hand and tree we’re removed, because we didn’t want any stars covering that.

Set this layer to Linear Dodge, and if needed reduce the opacity. Ours was kept on 100%:

Paste some more bright stars on top of the tree, alternately you can use a small soft brush to achieve the same effect:

.

Set these stars to Linear Dodge:

Tap with a large soft brush on top of the stars and hands on a new layer:

Set this layers blending mode to Linear Dodge:

Go back to the star layer, and hide it.

Now, Create a new layer, and select Image > Apply Image:

Unhide the starry sky layer again, and set the applied image layer to screen:

Create a new layer, and apply the image. Now select Image > Adjustments > Exposure… and play around with the Offset settings:

Result:

Add some text and finnishing touches, and you’re done!

We hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial. Once again, make sure you check out Neurons deviantart page if you’re interested in more of his work. Thanks a lot for allowing us to write the tutorial!

Tags: abstract, hourglass, tag