In this tutorial you will learn how to make a realistic wound in Photoshop 7.0. It also covers the basics of texturizing an image. It is required that you know the basics of Photoshop, that is how to make new layer, and how to copy & paste one image into another.

This tutorial might seem a little gross! But it is meant to show how big a realism you can achieve with Photoshop. Thanks to oneactor10 for the beautiful picture of his daughter Desiree, it's almost a shame turning her into such a sad character...

     Before lesson, click to enlarge                After Lesson, click to enlarge

            

 

figure 1

Step 1.

First of all you need to download this file. It contains the picture of Desiree and the two textures that we will use to make the realistic wound. Now, lets get started:

Open the picture of Desiree image in Photoshop.

Also open the texture-rust.jpg in Photoshop. Cut the texture-rust.jpg and paste it into the picture of Desiree. Place it on top of her face as shown on figure 1. You can now close the empty window, where the texture-rust.jpg used to be.
Help to the novice:

You can cut & paste by doing the following:

1. Activate the window with the picture which needs to be cut.

2. Press Ctrl+A to mark the whole picture.

3. Press Ctrl+X to cut the picture.

4. Select the window with Desiree and press Ctrl+V to insert the cutted image.

 

figure 2
Step 2.

Activate Layer 1, by clicking once on the layer in the layers panel. Rename the layer to texture rust (or don't, its not a must).

Now, press the button where the red arrow is pointing (figure 2a) to add a layer mask. Click once on the layer mask to activate it.

Choose the brush tool, pick a soft brush of 100px. and start painting with black to erase the area as shown on figure 2.

Help to the novice:

When painting black on the mask, you delete part of the image. Painting white reveals it again. You don't delete the picture itself, which is the smart thing working with masks.

figure 2a

 

figure 3
Step 3.

Here comes the trick!

Change the blending mode of the texture rust layer to soft light, see where the red arrow points on figure 3a.

Your picture should now look like figure 3. Point you mouse on figure 3, to see a close up of the result so far.

Now you have yourself a pretty realistic wound, see :-) but we are not finished yet!
figure 3a

 

figure 4
Step 4.

Open texture-beach.jpg. Desaturate the image by pressing Ctrl+U and turn the slider of Saturation down to -100 (figure 4a) press OK.

Now, do the same thing with the beach image as you did with the rust image, from step 1 to step 3: Cut & paste, place on top of her face, add mask, change blending mode to soft light etc.

Rename the layer to texture beach. Turn opacity of texture beach down to 30% in the layer panel.

Help to the novice:

When you desaturate an image you make it black and white.

It is almost always necessary to desaturate images when using them as textures.

figure 4a

 

figure 5

Step 5.

To make it extra detailed, we will add some touch-up. Create a new layer, name it touch-up. Choose Edit -> fill -> fill with 50% grey. Press OK. Choose overlay from the layers panel, and the grey disappears. Activate the touch-up layer.

Pick the dodge tool (figure 5a) with a brush of 2-3px and exposure around 40-50%. Draw with the dodge tool along the edges of the wound. And use the burn tool in the shadows of the wound.

Play around with different exposures, different brush sizes and different ranges.

 Help to the novice:

When you dodge you add light to an area, when you burn you darken the area instead. You can dodge and burn either the highlights the midtones or the shadows, with different exposure.

figure 5a

 

FINISHED

See an alternative version of Desiree with the wound - click here.