In this video, I'm going to show you how to create a perspective-bending effect in Photoshop.
Hi, Jesus Ramirez here from the Photoshop Training Channel.
In this video, I'm going to show you how to create a cube earth.
This is an effect very similar to what you would see in the movie
Dr. Strange or Inception.
This is going to be a really easy effect to recreate, and no matter your skill level you
should be able to follow along.
Okay, let’s get started.
So, we’re going to work with this document here.
This document contains two layers and full disclosure this is the original file.
I wasn't too happy with the sky, so I did a sky replacement.
We’re going to work with the sky replacement, but I just wanted to show you that the original
file had a different sky.
Also, you can use whatever landscape photo you have to follow along, or you can download
a watermark version of this photo from Adobe Stock.
There's a link to it in the description.
I'm not going to spend any time doing sky replacements in this video because I really
want to get into the actual cube effect that we’re trying to recreate.
But if you’re interested in learning how to do sky replacements, I have a 90-second
video that I really think you will enjoy.
It uses blend if to replace skies really easy.
So, check out the link, it's going to be down below in the description.
Okay, since we’re not using this layer, I'm just going to delete it and just work
with this layer.
And the first thing that we’re going to do is right click on the layer, and convert
it into a smart object.
Now, this step is not necessary, you can do it without a smart object, but I think that
it helps later on.
So, you can do it without a smart object, but you'll see why this becomes helpful.
Then I'm going to duplicate the smart object, but be very careful how you duplicate the
smart object.
If you simply duplicate it by pressing Ctrl J or dragging it into the new layer icon,
then you’re going to create a smart object that is linked to the original.
So if you make a change to one, that change will be applied to the second.
I don't want that, I want two smart objects of the same thing, but I don't want them to
link.
So, to create a duplicate of a smart object without being it being linked, you can right
click on the layer, and select new smart object via copy.
So they’re both the same, but they’re not linked.
I'm going to press Ctrl T, Command T to transform right click and select flip horizontal, then
right click and select rotate 90 degrees clockwise.
I'm going to click and drag that rotated layer and place the bottom left corner on the bottom
left corner of the canvas.
Then I'm going to zoom out; then I'm going to hit enter, return in the Mac to commit
the changes.
And I'm going to select the Polygonal Lasso tool, and I'm going to make a selection from
the bottom corner of the canvas to the top corner of that layer.
So, I’m going to disable the background so that you could see it.
So, I’m going to click here and drag up here, so to the top right corner where the
transparency starts and just make a loose selection in the outside.
So, now I have a selection on the top left corner of this layer, so this is really, really
important.
Then I'm going to enable the background layers so that you can see the magic.
With this top layer select and I'll just call this top layer side because it’s going to
be the side of our cube, and this one will be the top part of our cube, so, I’ll call
it top.
So, with the side layer selected, I'm going to click on the Layer Mask icon and just watch
the magic happen.
Right away we create sort of the effect that we're going for, so this could be a different
effect that you can apply but is sort of the opposite of what we want.
We want it to be the other way around, we want it to go down not up, but you can use
this technique to create an effect where the side of the cube is going up instead of down,
in this case, it really wouldn't be a cube, It's more of a wall.
But anyway if we want that face to go down, we simply need to select this Layer Mask and
in the properties panel click on invert and notice what happens.
Now it looks like that face is going down instead of up, so this technique should work
on all photos, let me know in the comments if it was new to you.
The next step is to unlink the Layer Mask from the layer.
So notice how when I click on each individual thumbnail the focus changes, the focus is
that white outline around it.
So make sure that the focus is on the Layer Mask, and we're going to click on this chain
link icon to remove it.
So now the Layer Mask is no longer linked to a layer that means that we can move them
independently of each other, and that's what we want to do.
So with that Layer Mask selected I'm going to click on the move tool, and I'm going to
click and drag that Layer Mask to the right while holding Shift so that I can’t move
it up and down I can just move it left to right.
And I'm just going to place it right about here, on your image you will have to experiment
to see what looks better.
It all depends on the contents of your photo, but no matter where you place the mask you
will have the same problem, which is the visible pixels on the right.
So I'm going to click on the rectangular marquee tool and make a selection around those pixels.
Black is my foreground color, so if I select the Layer Mask and press Alt and Backspace
that fails but the foreground color and it hides those pixels from the Layer Mask.
If I enable the top layer, the top face of the cube you can see what that looks like
now.
I'm going to press Ctrl D Command D to de-select, I'm going to double-click on the hand tool
to fit the image to screen.
Now I'm going to click on the layer thumbnail.
Click on the move tool, click and drag that to the right.
and what I really need to do at this point is to find something in my image that is recognizable.
So, look at your image and look for something that is recognizable, so in my case, this
red truck and I mean recognizable close to the edge ideally.
So, this truck is close to the edge, so I need to find that same truck on the other
image
So, I'm just going to click and drag till I find that truck and maybe I already went
past it, no I haven't yet so let me find it, there it is it's right here, so find something
recognizable.
I'm going to zoom in, and I'm going to try to place it into position, and you can use
the up and down arrow keys on the keyboard so you can move the layer up down left right.
So right about there, that looks right I'm going to double-click on the hand tool to
zoom out and just make sure that everything looks right.
And that looks pretty good already what do you think?
So, what we've got to do now is work on the lighting because in the real world each face
will have different light, so we need to change that in the composite.
So what I'm going to do is double-click to the side of the layer and click on Gradient
Overlay.
then I'm going to click on this drop down and select the second option, which is foreground
color to transparent.
The foreground color is black, which is what we want.
And now I can bring the scale down to 10, and I'm going to try to match this line to
the angle of the cube.
And I can do so by simply putting my cursor inside of that input box and using the up
arrow to rotate it accordingly.
So, find the right angle for your shadow, tap on the up and down arrow keys until you
get it right about there, then I can increase the scale, and I can click and drag to place
it into position better.
So, that looks pretty good I think, maybe I need to rotate it a little more the other
direction, something like that and press okay.
Now obviously we have a big problem here this very sharp line.
So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to teach you a trick where you can separate the Layer
Style from the layer, and you can control it independently, you can even add a mask.
And you can do so by right-clicking on the FX icon and selecting “Create Layer.”
This removes the Layer Style, but it creates this new layer with that effect.
So now you can simply apply a Layer Mask to that.
I'm going to hold Alt, that's Option on the Mac as I create the Layer Mask to create an
inverted mask.
So that's going to hide everything that layer, notice how it's black now.
And I can simply paint on that Layer Mask with white to bring back that effect.
And then I can paint with black to hide it, and I'm going to make a smaller brush
Hold Shift, click-and-drag down to make a straight line.
So, when you hold Shift, you can make straight lines when you're painting.
And I'm going to bring down the opacity accordingly, maybe something like that, before and after.
Now the problem now is that we actually have a really sharp line, so I'm actually going
to bring that up so you can see the problem.
So I'm going to zoom in and notice that we have a very sharp line and I don't really
like that I want a smoother line.
I'm going to go into the Layer Mask, and it's controlling the side of the cube, and I'm
just going to smooth it that way around the bevel.
So, to do that just simply select the Layer Mask and then increase the feather on the
properties panel, so notice how that removes that sharp line and I think that looks much
better.
I'm going to fit the image to screen, and I'm going to bring the opacity to this layer
to 50%.
So what we're going to do now is add a highlight to that edge just to make it more realistic,
so I’m going to click under the side layer and create a new layer.
And I'm simply going to paint with white I’m using a soft brush, and maybe I'll make it
smaller by using the left bracket key on the keyboard.
And I click once hold Shift and click on the other side, and that creates a straight line
like so.
I can reduce the opacity and maybe even change the blend mode to something like overlay and
reduce the opacity even further.
So now we have sort of that nice highlight there at the edge.
And by the way, if I'm going too fast in some of these parts remember that you can always
pause and rewind the video.
All right, so now this is looking pretty good I’m going to zoom in, and you can see that
this is looking much, much better.
And I think I might have gone over the edge there so let me create a Layer Mask and paint
with black just to hide that there.
So, what I'm going to do now is just work on some details, so look at what I'm doing
and see how you can apply these techniques to your image.
The first thing that I'm going to do is zoom in, and we're going to work with this red
truck.
Because obviously if cars are going down the road then they would get into a car crash,
and you don't want that.
So, we don't want any car accidents.
So what we need to do is we need to remove or clone out this truck, which is why I asked
you to create a smart object.
If I double-click on this smart object it opens up in a brand new tab, and we can work
on it, so now I can create a new layer, zoom in and there's that red truck.
I can select a clone tool, reduce the size of the brush, hold Alt, Option on the Mac
and click to sample from that area, and I can simply clone out the truck.
And I'm not going to spend too much time and make sure that I get it 100% right because
this is just a tutorial, but in your own images do spend the time to get it right.
So, I’m going to save by pressing Ctrl S.
Command S on the Mac and that truck is now gone.
So, you need to go into your image and find issues like that and just clone them out.
Also, another issue with cars is that they're facing the wrong way, so if we want to add
cars that are facing the right way we need to copy them from another area.
So, we'll work with these cars here so you can see what I mean by that.
I want to double-click on that smart object again, and I'm going to find that same spot,
which is right over here, this area here.
So what I need to do first is clone out these cars, so let me clone them out really quick.
And again this is not going to be the best cloning job you've ever seen, but it's going
to illustrate my point, there we go.
So, now those cars are gone, if I press Ctrl S, Command S on the Mac to save you will see
that those cars are now gone from here.
Now I want to make it seem as if cars are going down this road not up.
So, what I need to do is I need to take cars from this side of the road and clone them
on to the other side of the road.
So, I'm going to create a new layer, and I'm just going to clone that car on to this side
like so.
And then I can create a Layer Mask, paint with black in areas where it doesn't quite
match, then I can press Ctrl S, Command S on the Mac to save.
Go back into my composition, and now you will see a truck going down the road not up.
I'm not going to take the time to clone out all the other cars because it's the same process
over and over again.
And that's where I spent a lot of the time in my composite.
I spent a lot of time working on those finer details, so you need to do that.
We're going to finalize the tutorial by creating that main road that goes off screen.
So, to create that we're going to work with the original layer.
So, first I'm going to select all the other layers and press Ctrl G, Command G on the
Mac to put that into a group.
And I'm going to call this side because that's the side of the cube and we're always working
that nondestructively.
So, now I'm going to show you this really cool technique to make it seem as if the road
is coming right at you.
And it's really simple all you need to do is select the background, which is that top
face, the bottom-most layer.
Go into the Polygonal Lasso tool and simply make a selection around the road and I'm going
to hide the top group so that we can see it better.
I'm just going to loosely follow the edge like so.
And I'm clicking to set the point of that selection, and when I come into the other
side.
I can close that selection, and it’ll select the road.
Then I can press Ctrl J, that's Command J on the Mac to duplicate.
You can remember that keyboard shortcut by thinking of jumping a layer, so it jumps up
to a new layer.
So, we have that road in a single layer as you can see there.
Then I'm going to convert this layer into a smart object so that I can transform it
nondestructively.
Or rename the layer overpass , and I'm going to press Ctrl T Command T on the Mac to transform,
and I'm going to zoom in so that you could see.
We have this little pivot point here that I can click and drag or I can hold Alt Option
on the mac and click to place the pivot point in that spot.
So, I'm going to place it right in the center of the street; then I'm going to zoom out,
I'm going to right-click on that layer and select perspective.
And I'm simply going to click on one of the corner handles and drag outward like so, so
that makes it seem as if the road is coming right up at us.
Then I'm going to right-click and select warp, and I'm going to use these handles to warp
the road in so that it's thinner at the bottom.
And that helps create the illusion of the road coming up.
And I'm just going to click and drag this point outward like so.
Then I'm going to right-click and select distort; I'm going to click on this middle handle and
just drag it out just a little bit like so.
Then I'm going to hit enter, and we have created the overpass.
What I'm going to show you now is a really cool technique of creating shadows in Photoshop
especially when you're compositing.
So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to click on the top layer, then I'm going to create
an exposure adjustment layer, and I'm going to decrease the exposure, so right about there.
Then with the Layer Mask active I'm going to click on the invert button in the properties
panel so black hides, so we're hiding the effect.
Now I can come into the brush tool and paint with a small soft brush with white, because
white reveals, and that is my shadow right there, and I'm just painting that shadow in.
And we can adjust the shadow by adjusting the exposure.
What I need to do now is drag the overpass layer above the side group.
And I need to do the same for the exposure adjustment layer, which is the shadow.
And at this point, all that you need to do is work on the fine details of your composite
to take it to the next level.
Let me know in the comments, which of the techniques that I showed in this tutorial
was your favorite, also if this is your first time at the Photoshop Training Channel don't
forget to subscribe.
If you decide to create something using this tutorial please share it and post the link
down below or share it on Instagram with the hashtag #ptcvids.
Thank you so much for watching, and I will talk to you again very soon.