Step 1. Working the background.
Open up your texture file. Create a new layer on top of it, grab Gradient Tool, choose Radial Gradient and create a gradient similar to the one on the image. Set Blending Mode of this layer to Linear Burn. You Should now have something similar to the image. This gives the background a deeper sort of look.

Step 2. Add text.
Pick Horizontal Type Tool (Simple text tool) and type in your text. Give it a size of about  61px. Deselect the text once done and hit Ctrl+T to fine-tune the size of it.  The font i used is called Poor Richard (Regular).

Step 3. Throw in a Gold Gradient. Double click on the text layer and it will bring up layer styles menu.  Tick/Click Gradient Overlay,  click on the actual gradient to adjust it (use screenshot for reference- menu 2). Once done hit Ok and tick/click  “Drop  Shadow” , use same settings as on my screenshot (menu 2).  For the lazy ones out there the gradients i used are included in the zip file that you will need for this tutorial. Just load those gradients in your photoshop (CS2 and higher) and enjoy being lazy.

Step 4. Add Outlines/ Stroke to create more of a 3D effect.
Select the txt layer: Hold down CTRL and click on the thumbnail of the layer in your layers pallete. This will select everything that is on that layer. (Very useful shortcut), now without deselecting, create a new layer on top of it and call it Outlines.  Now go to Edit – Stroke and add a 2px stroke on the outside. Follow the print screen.

Step 5. More Gradients. Double click on the Outlines layer to bring up Layer Styles menu. Click Gradient Overlay, and add another gradient similar to mine on the screenshot. Now a very important bit here is to fine-tune the tweakers on the gradient so that it looks more realistic. Have a look at the screenshot again and try creating a similar effect and positioning of the tweakers.

Step 6. Master Selection Shortcuts. Here comes a bit of a tricky part of you are not familiar with shortcuts. But i think you will find this technique very useful in the future so let’s learn it.  Hold down Ctrl and click on the main text layer thumbnail, this will select your text without any outlines that we did (because they are on separate layer, remember?) Now keep holding Ctrl, and add Shift and hold it again and click on the Outlines layer thumbnail, guess what that does, it adds another selection to already existing one, well no need to hold those keys down anymore : ).  Now click Rectangular Marquee Tool (box selection tool), (the text should be still selected) and while holding down Alt (notice a little minus appearing next to your mouse pointer) draw a rectangular selection on the bottom half of the text similar to the one on my screenshot. Basically, what it does, it get rids of the unneeded selections, so it’s a reverse effect of selection tool. Next time you want a reverse selection, just hold down Alt.

Step 7. Why we did all that. Now we have our neat selection, create a new layer, pick a soft big brush and choose white color. Now hold down Shift, position your bush half way through the edge of the selection (see print screen) and drag it to the other end of the text. This creates half gradient like thing over the text which will act as a highlight. Holding down Shift makes sure that you draw a perfect straight line so you don’t have to worry about shaky hands.  Now deselect the whole thing (Ctrl+D) and set this layer Blending Mode to Overlay, it makes sure that we don’t have a white unnatural high light, as overlay blends it in with colors we already have on the piece.

Step 8. Create some background light. Now pick my favourite big soft round brush and find a dark brown color. Create a new layer behind our text and set Opacity to about 54% and Blending mode to Color Dodge.  Paint 3 big dots on our piece. This creates nice light/reflection like looking things behind our text.  Have a look at my print screen, I’ve selected the dots for you so they are more visible.

Now create another layer, pick a light orange color like i did, give layer 36% Opacity and set Blending Mode to Overlay. Create 3 different sized dots on the screen similar to mine, it will give it a nice light behind.  And you will see how it will come in play later. I’ve selected the dots on the screenshot so u can see where i used them.

Step 9. Lights on! Now we’ll create some magic. Pick soft brush, white color. Create a new layer on top of our text,  now paint two dots over the text with your brush, give layer Opacity of 49% and Blending Mode: Overlay.  See what happened? We’ve added a bit of light. (See the print screen with dots of light selected for your convenience)

More, more light please! Create a new layer, set it to Overlay blending mode again, change brush size to 20px. Click on few places on the text to create really striking highlights. See screenshot to get an idea of how i did it. Keep in mind that all the highlights have to be kept in same places in order to create that graduate light effect. If you just randomly click all over the place – magic won’t happen.

Nice, but we need more natural look. So let’s break the pattern a little. Create another layer on top, set it to Overlay again and with 3 different sized brushes create something similar to what i did on the screenshot. Draw a line and couple of dots. It will make everything a bit more vibrant.

Step 10. Rays of light secret! We will now create rays of light over the highlights that we created. Create a new layer, set blending mode to Overlay again, pick bigger soft brush, white color. Pick Polygonal Lasso Tool, create a selection similar to the one on my screenshot. Draw a line along the selection edge, erase edges if needed to soften it up. Here’s your first ray of light. Now duplicate the layer, hit Ctrl +T and resize it to a smaller one, put it over another high light. Do the same a few times to achieve effect similar to mine.

Step 1. Even background. The background is uneven and the light has a weird color to it. Let’s fix this. Pick Eyedropper Tool and Select the pink color of the background. Create a new layer, change the blending mode to Color. Paint over the top bit where the light was yellow. Now it has a nice even color to it.

Step 2. Get rid of the weird line on the top.
That line on the top of the image shouldn’t be there, besides, the model is out of the center of the image, so let’s fix that by cropping the image. Select Crop tool and crop it the same way i did, with same amount of space chopped off on both left and top side of the image, so that we preserve the dimensions of the original.

Step 3. Details matter. Ah, we need to flatten the two layers that we have so it’s easier to work further. Click the top layer and hit Ctrl+E, that merges selected layer with one underneath it. The right side of the image doesn’t look right, it has a vertical shadow, so we should fix that. Create a new layer, set blending mode to Overlay, pick a big soft brush and paint over with same pink color. It brightened up that weird looking shadow. Merge the layers again (Ctrl+E).

Step 4. Colors. I am not happy with her skin color, it looks too reddish and unnatural, here’s a quick fix: Hit Ctrl+J to duplicate the main layer. Keep the background layer in, so that u can see the progress at the end. I tried working with Image-Adjustments- Hue/Saturation but it didn’t seem to work as some details were still left reddish. So i’m gona do it my way. Create a new layer and set blending mode to Color. Select black color and paint over the reddish bits on the model as shown on my image. Set the layer opacity to 25%. Merge the layers again (Ctrl+E). The model is now a tiny bit less red. Now let’s go to Image-Adjustments- Hue/Saturation and Set the Saturation to -12 as shown on the image. This will make her skin color more real.

Step 5. Brighten it up. Now go to Image- Adjustments – Brightness/Contrast and set brightness to +6 and same for contrast. This will brighten up the image and improve the look in general. A bit more vibrant.

Step 6. Details. Let’s work on details now. Zoom into the face. Pick Brun tool and set it to Range: Shadows and Exposure to 41%. Now pain following the make up line around eyes as shown on the image, this will make make up look a bit more fresh. Apply to both eyes. Now pick Dodge tool, set Range to Shadows and Exposure to 34%. Pain in the white area of the eye to make it brighter. You can do the same for teeth to make them look whiter as well. Now pick the Dodge tool again, increase the size of your brush ( use { and } on your keyboard, those two are shortcuts for bigger/smaller brush size) and follow the lines of the face and cheekbones, this makes face look thinner.

Step 7. Patch Tool. Now select the Patch tool, draw around the wrinkles on the left cheek as i’ve shown on the image, and then drag it to a clean skin area to replace the texture. Do the same for remaining lines till you achieve result similar to mine. Be aware thou, it has to look natural. This tool can also be handy when getting rid of “dark circles” underneath eyes or shiny bits on the face.

Step 8. Liquify – Face. Now here comes the Cosmopolitan moment of my tutorial hehe. Click Filter – Liquify. (Use my settings for the tool on the right hand side of the print screen) Now zoom into the face and pick Forward Wrap tool, adjust the brush size using same shortcuts, now click on the side of the face and move it in slightly. Do that for both sides. Hit enter or Ok.

Step 9. Liquify – Body. Go back to liquefy tool. Now let’s work on the body. Pick Bloat tool on the left, i find that for waiste line this one works the best, adjust the brush size to similar to mine and just click and hold just outside her waist and see the magic happen. Apply to both sides. This technique is very handy for fine tuning bodies and getting rid of things like muffin tops, etc. You could fix her hair a little using the same tool and in general, this is one of very very useful tools in photoshop to learn.

Step 10. Final Touch Ups. Pick the dodge tool and click on shadowy areas of the image to bring in more contrast. I’ve also painted over her skirt to make it a bit more dark and hide the grain of the photo. Final thing to do is to add sharpness. This is how i would do it for this image. Duplicate the layer (Ctrl+J), go to Filters- Other- High Pass. Set it to about 3.4 or so and after that set the Blending mode of that layer to Overlay. Adjust opacity level of the layer to about 80%.

Step 1. The image. Find any image that has any rays of light in it, sky, anything that has this natural “gradient” like looking thing in it. I always duplicate the background layer and hide it. So you might as well do the same. Hit Ctrl+J and hide the layer.

Note: Actually, almost any image will do for this sort of purpose. To be honest i tried it with almost any stock that has natural light like desert scenes, roads, anything really, and it always works. I end up with all kinds of “bits and dust” that i can possibly imagine, some looking like ripped off clothes, so experiment a lot!

Step 2. Magic wand as a source of magic dust.

Grab the magic wand tool. Set tolerance to something like 15-30, but you can always change that and experiment more to get different looks.

Start selecting parts of the image and hitting delete button every time you select something. You should end up with something pretty much the same as on the image below.

Zoom in and see the magic happen! Hehe. These are those magical bits that we’re going to use in the next image. Grab the Lasso Tool and select the line of dust as shown below. Hit Ctrl+C to copy it.

Step 3. Ways to use the dust.
Now let’s find some use for it. Find an image that you want to use it one and open it up.  Paste in our magic dust (Ctrl+V). Hit Ctrl+J to duplicate the layer and hide it again (so that you keep the source).

Double click the copy layer and just have a look at the properties i gave to mine.

Now let’s give it some life and position it right. Wrap tool is a great way to do that. Click Edit – Transform – Wrap and position/deform the dust the way you want it to flow. You might want to erase some unnecessary/overlapping bits.

Double click the layer again and let’s play more with layer styles. I’ve added Outer glow that is set to overlay and Bevel and Emboss effect with blue color. Now duplicate the layer again (ctrl+J). Use the wrap tool and deform your dust again (Or just grab another piece of dust from your other image, paste it in and copy the layer style from previous one). Change the color of Outer glow in layer styles to yellow/greenish sort of color and Overlay opacity to 100%. See next image for settings.

Lets sharpen up the dust and go Filter – Sharpen – Sharpen.  Do the same for both layers. Now activate the very first layer, transform it the way you want it, position it and then hit Image – Adjustments – Brightnes/Contrast. See the next image for settings. Set the layer to Overlay or Color Dodge and position how u like it. You can throw in Motion Blur or Gaussian blur, duplicate it to create multi-dimensional look, the possibilities are endless…

Now i just added a lot of overlay layers and threw in soft dots with white/bright  yellow soft brush. See the PSD file to get the idea of what i did. It’s not really related to the subject, but it’s a nice technique to use in cope with dust.