A Good Looking Grunge Effect

Okay so this tutorial will show you how to make a grunge photo effect. Like this one:

COPYRIGHTED IMAGE - GB DESIGN

For this I used 2 stock images from http://www.stockvault.net

Step1 open up your 2 images in Photoshop. Drag you clouds into your building image and use “Free transform (Ctrl+T)” to resize the image to fit. If needed you can lower the opacity to see better. When you’re finished set the opacity back to 100%. Hide the cloud layer by clicking on the eye next your selected layer (Should be clouds layer).

Step2 select the building layer and use the “Quick selection tool” and select the sky on the building layer. Unhide the cloud layer and select the cloud layer. Go to your layers pallet and add a layer mask by clicking on the little button that looks like a page with one corner lift up. This should automatically hide all the excess of the cloud image. Flatten your image when you’re done.

Step3 next you a copy of the background layer (Ctrl+J) and go to Image – Adjustments – Black & White. Type these settings in when the box comes up:

·        Tick the “tint” box

·        Hue should be at 50

·        Saturation anywhere between 20-25

·        Yellow – -200

·        Cyan – -72

·        Blue – -101

You don’t have to have these settings exactly like mine, I would recommend playing with them to get your desired look and feel.

Step4 your image should be looking more like the one I showed you on the top of the page. Next we have to make the whole thing a bit darker. You can do that by going to Image – Adjustments – Brightness/Contrast. Use the “Brightness slider to make the image darker and put some more contrast.

Step5 to get that dark yet colourful effect you will need to use the “Hue and Saturation” sliders. For that go to Image – Adjustments - Hue and Saturation. Put these settings in, but remember to experiment with them to get what you’re looking for.

·        Hue – leave it at 0

·        Saturation – at +27

·        Lightness you have to be careful with, it’s  very sensitive. Put it at -10 or so.

 Step6 this is the final step, for this you will need the “Dodge and Burn” tool. But you’re just going to use the Burn tool. Set the Range to Shadows and Exposure to 23% there about. It will be easier to use a pretty big brush size, but not a colossal one, around 150px would be fine, just remember it will change from picture to picture. Okay burn the dark areas of the clouds and around some of the windows and at the bottom of the building.

And that’s it. Remember to experiment with different colours to get what you’re looking for. Please feel free to comment, especially if you want a request or if you have a problem.

Cheers guys and gals