How to Create a Spooky Magic-Themed Photo Manipulation in Adobe Photoshop

What You May Need:

• 20 Smoke Backgrounds
• Girl with scary beautiful makeup 
• Haext Plain
• Child 1
• Child 2
• Child 3

1. How to Create a Dark Solar Eclipse Background

First, we’ll create a solar eclipse background. Making a simple background helps us draw all the attention to the main character, keeping the viewer’s eye focused on what matters.

Step 1

Create a New Document px 2359 x 3332.
Create a Color Fill Layer, filling it with black #000000.
Using the Ellipse Tool, create a large white circle in the middle of the canvas.

Step 2

Duplicate the white circle, cut it, and move it onto the original circle. Change the color of the duplicate circle to black.
Create a crescent moon shape by moving the cut black circle down about 30 pixel and to the left.

Step 3

To add to the left edges of the eclipse, we’ll add both an Inner and an Outer Glow to the original white circle. Settings:

Step 4

Create a new layer below our eclipse layers.
Using a circle hard Brush 1 to 3 px, paint white dots across the upper part of the canvas to create a starry sky.

Step 5

Next, we’ll create a white glow around the eclipse using texture “03” and “13” from the texture pack 20 Smoke Backgrounds.
Place the vertical texture “03” and shape it around the eclipse using the Warp mode in the Free Transform Tool.
Set the texture to Screen.
Repeat the steps above with texture “13.”

Step 6

Add a Filter > Blur > Radial Blur to the textures. Settings: Amount 4, Blur Method “Spin” and Quality “Best.”

Step 7

Duplicate the two textures and merge the copies together. Set the merged layer back to screen.
Rotate the merged texture around the eclipse, duplicating and rotating it until the glow forms a complete circle.
Don’t worry about the bottom of the eclipse; it will be hidden by our subject.

Step 8

Finish the background by creating a new layer above all your current layers and filling it with black.
Go to Filter> Noise> Add Noise, adding noise at 3%.
Set the layer to Screen.
Group all your current layers together and name the group “Background”.

2. How to Place & Add Shadows to the Subject

Next, we’ll place and shade the main subject, since our monster has some significant dark shadows obscuring her face.

Step 1

Extract everything but the subject’s hair and place the subject in the middle of the canvas.

Step 2

Create a Color Lookup Layer and clip it to the subject. Settings: (3DLUT) NightFromDay at 75% Opacity.   
Select the color lookup’s Layer Mask and press Control-I to invert it.
Using a soft round Brush, mask the color lookup onto the subject’s body, inner hair, forehead, chin and neck area, but not her face or outer hair.

Step 3

We’ll adjust the color of the shadows using a couple of adjustment layers. Both of these layers should be clipped above the color lookup layer.
First, a Color Balance Layer. Settings: Red -27, Green -23, and Blue -33.
Second, a Vibrance Adjustment Layer. Settings: Saturation -42. 
Copy the color lookup’s layer mask to the color balance and vibrance layers.

3. How to Extract the Hair and Strands.

Now for the tricky part: extracting the subject’s hair. The subject has a significant number of tiny hair strands, so extracting them all will be quite difficult!

Step 1

Right-click > Apply Layer Mask if the subject already has a layer mask applied.
Using the Quick Selection Tool, select the rest of the subject’s original background around the hair.

Step 2

Add a Layer Mask to the subject and invert it by pressing Control-I.
Click the Layer Mask or press Control-Alt-R to open Refine Edge.
Set the settings as follows: Radius 6 px with Smart Radius checked. These settings may differ for you. If they don’t work, adjust them.

Step 3

With the Refine Edge Brush Tool (R) active, brush around the edges of the subject’s hair.
If too much hair or some of the background gets selected, hold Alt and the brush will subtract from the selection.
Resize the brush as needed. You can always use Control-Alt-Z to undo a selection or deselection.

Step 4

Keep dragging the brush over the edges of the hair.

Step 5

Finally, with a hard round Brush set to black, mask out any unwanted edges or leftover background.

Step 6

Create a new layer and clip it to the subject’s layer.
With a soft round Brush, paint white around the edges of the hair and the hair strands.

Step 7

Create and clip a new layer to your subject. Repeat step 6, only this time set the layer to Soft Light.
Create and clip another layer to the subject, setting it to Overlay. Using a small, soft round Brush, highlight some of the thicker hair strands with white.

Step 8

Create a new layer below your subject’s layer.
Using a soft round Brush at 10% Flow, paint white behind your model, giving the subject a faint glow effect.

Step 9

Create a new layer and set it to Overlay. Bring the new layer above the last layer we created.
With a large, soft round Brush, paint white behind your model in a circular motion, creating a soft white circle the size of our eclipse.
Create a new layer and repeat the step above, only this time set the layer to Soft Light and lower the Opacity to 30%.

4. How to Paint Black Blood Reflections

To finish our model, we’ll turn her face into black oil paint / blood, while also intensifying the shadows to keep her dark and menacing.

Step 1

Create a new layer and clip it to your subject, placing it above all previously clipped layers.
With a large, soft round Brush, paint black toward the bottom of the subject. Make it a fairly intense shadow. Since our main light source is behind the subject, she will cast a dark shadow in front of her.

Step 2

Next, we’ll add shadows and reflections to our subject.
Create a new layer and clip it above all previous layers inside your subject.
Using a small, hard Brush with Flow from 3 to 15%, draw white dashes, lines and dots over the model’s black paint. Setting your brush to 30 to 40% Smoothing can help as well.
The trick here is to let the light build up gradually.
Create and clip a new layer set to Overlay and paint soft shadows and highlights on your reflections to give them more contrast and brightness if needed. This can help them blend, but it all depends on whether you need it or not. I only needed a small amount under the subject’s left eye.

Step 3

To darken our monster even more, create and clip a Curves layer to the subject and drag the left anchor down. Settings:

Group all your subject layers from the last four steps into one group, named “Model.”

5. How to Create the Crying Ghost Children

Step 1

Extract and place our three children, Child 1, Child 2 and Child 3, at the bottom of the canvas, and set their layers to Screen.
Group them together into one group and name it “Children”.
Add a Layer Mask to the group. Then, using a large, soft round Brush, fade out the bottom of the children

Step 2

To give them a ghostly color, we’ll add six different adjustment layers. All of these layers will be clipped to the “Children” group and are listed from bottom to top.
1. Color Lookup Layer: (3DLUT) HorrorBlue
2. Color Lookup Layer: (3DLUT) Moonlit

3.Curves Layer:

Hold Alt to split and move the toggles.

4. Curves Layer:

5.Vibrance Layer: Vibrance -68 and Saturation -82
6. Color Balance Layer: Red -64, Green +22 and Blue -12

Step 3

Add an Inner Shadow to the “Children” group. Settings:

Step 4

Group all the adjustment layers and the “Children” group inside another group, also naming the new group “Children”.

6. How to Add Ghostly Eyes and Ghosts

Step 1

Duplicate the “Children” group and bring it above all current layers.
Right-click > Merge Group to merge the duplicate group into one layer.
Using the Warp mode of the Transform Tool, warp and stretch the merged children so they look pulled and distorted.

Step 2

Go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur for the children. Settings: Amount 2, Blur Method “Spin”, and Quality “Best.” 

Set this layer to Lighten. 

Step 3

Next, add Filter > Blur Gaussian Blur. Settings: 4.0 px.

Step 4

Clip a Brightness / Contrast Layer to the children. Settings: Brightness -19 and Contrast 100.
Group all three layers into one group and name it “Ghost”.

Step 5

Finally, we’ll give eyes to our ghost monster.
Create a new layer set to Screen.
Using the Ellipse Tool, create two light blue dots#defaff over the eyes of our main subject.
Using a small, soft round Brush, mask out the pupils.

Step 6

Duplicate the eyes and place them over the children’s original eyes, as well as in random places in the lower background around the children. This will give the effect that there are many stolen souls in the background, deep in the shadows.
Reshape and tilt the eyes as needed to make them fit the children.
Group the eyes into one group and name it “Eye”.

7. How to Create a Ghostly Horror Font Effect

Now we’ll add the title of the horror movie.

Step 1

Using the font Haext Plain, type your title and place it above your ghost’s head.

Step 2

Create a copy of your title and Right-click > Rasterize Text.
Go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. Settings: Angle -33 and Distance 40. 

Step 3

Duplicate the blurred text and add another Motion Blur with Distance 162.
Duplicate that layer and set it to Overlay to increase the brightness.
Group all your text layers together and name the group “Font”.

8. How to Add Horror-Inspired Color Grading.

To finish our image, we’ll color grade the whole scene with a horror-inspired dark blue tone, as well as add some subtle wisps of fog.

Step 1

Go back to your smoke textures and add them to the children and the ghost monsters, placing them over our subjects and setting the layers to Screen.
Transform and warp the textures using Warp mode in the Transform Tool.
Use a very large, soft, round Brush to erase any hard edges or parts of the fog that are too thick, while also lowering the Opacity of the textures to 15-30%.
Give all the textures a Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur. Settings: 5 to 9 px.
Group all the fog layers together into a group named “Fog”.

Step 2

For the final color grading, we’ll use a total of five adjustment layers. These layers are listed from bottom to top and must sit above all previous layers in a group named “CC”.
1. Color Lookup Layer: (3DLUT) FoggyNight at 26% Opacity
2. Color Lookup Layer: (3DLUT) HorrorBlue at 29% Opacity
3. Gradient Map: Dark Blue #0d3c49 to Dark Red #110000

4.Color Lookup Layer: (3DLUT) Filmstock at 12% Opacity
5. Curves Layer:

We’re Done!
We have successfully created our horror movie villain! Take a look at the change before and after color grading.
As always, keep experimenting with different techniques, and don’t forget to post your version below, along with any questions, comments or critiques!