This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to create this ethereal, ghost scene of a long-gone spirit descending
from a staircase of an old, once-splendorous castle.
I included two files for you to download.
One is this photo of a castle stairway and the other is a vintage photo of a woman in
a flowing gown.
Their links are in my video's description or in my project files.
The first step is to create a selection around the woman,
so we can separate her from the background.
I've done hundreds of tutorials showing how to do this, so for your convenience and to
save time, open your Channels panel.
If you don't see it, go to Window and Channels.
Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the alpha channel, which makes a selection of its shape.
If your Move Tool isn't open, press "v" on your keyboard.
Drag the woman onto the tab of the castle.
Without releasing your mouse or pen, drag it down and release.
It's already pretty much the size we want, but if you're using a different photo and
want to resize it, press Ctrl or Cmd +T to open your Transform Tool.
Go to a corner.
If you're using a version earlier than CC 2019,
press and hold Alt or Option + Shift as you drag it out or in.
If you're using a later version, just press Alt or Option as you drag it.
To reposition it, go inside the Transform's bounding box and drag it.
Then, press Enter or Return.
We'll convert the figure into a Smart Object, so we can add filters to it non-destructively.
To do this, click the icon at the upper, right of the Layers panel and click
"Convert to Smart Object".
We'll make two copies of it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J twice.
To save space in the Layers panel, let's group them into a folder.
Shift-click Layer 1 to make it and the Layer 1 copy active, as well.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + G to place them into a folder.
Let's name it, "Figure".
Temporarily, hide the folder and make the castle layer active.
Make a copy of it.
Click the Adjustment Layer icon and click "Hue/Saturation".
Check "Colorize".
Make the Hue: 120, the Saturation: 25 and the Lightness: minus 80.
Open the Adjustments panel.
If you don't see it, go to Window and Adjustments.
Click the "Levels" icon.
Make the Input mid-tone level: point 7 and the Input white level: 200.
Shift-click the castle copy to make it and the adjustment layers above it active and
place them into a folder.
Name it, "Castle dark".
Make the "Figure" folder active.
Click the Adjustment Layer icon and click "Hue/Saturation".
Since this will be at the top of our Layers panel, it'll ensure that the figure under
it and the lens flare we'll adding later will have that eerie, greenish color.
Check "Colorize".
Make the Hue: 120, the Saturation: 25 and the Lightness: 0.
Make the Castle folder active and click the Layer Mask icon
to make a layer mask next to the folder.
We're going to brush black over areas of the castle, which in effect, reveals the brighter
castle layer under it in the layers panel.
Layer masks act as stencils - white reveals and black conceals.
Open your Brush Tool and Brush Picker.
Pick a soft, round brush.
We'll adjust its size in a moment.
Make its Hardness: 0% and the Opacity and Flow 100%.
To make your brush bigger or smaller, make sure your CapsLock key is off and press the
left or right bracket key on your keyboard.
Brush over areas of the castle that would be illuminated by a single source
emanating from approximately here.
To mask out areas you brushed over, invert your foreground and background colors by pressing
"x" on your keyboard.
Feel free to adjust your brush's size and opacity to address distance and location of
parts of the castle relative to the light source.
Make the "Figure" folder visible and open it.
Hide the top two figures and make the bottom figure active.
Go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur.
Make the Radius: 20 pixels.
Then, click OK or press Enter or Return.
Go to Filter, Distort and "Wave".
Make the Number of Generators: 9, the "Wavelength: 10 and 275, the Amplitude: 1 and 37
and the Scale is 100%.
The Type is "Sine" and the Undefined areas is "Repeat Edge Pixels".
Change the Blend Mode to "Screen".
Make the middle figure visible and active and reduce its opacity to 50%.
Go to Filter, Blur and Radial Blur.
Make the Amount: 20, the Blur Method: Spin and the Quality: Best.
If you want, you can drag the blur center to a new position, which will re-center the
blur on your image, however, for this particular example, I'll keep it at its default center.
Make the top figure visible and active.
Go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur.
Blur it 1 pixel.
Change its Blend Mode to “Hard Light” and reduce its opacity to 70%.
Close the Figure folder and make a new layer above it.
In this layer, we'll create piercing, bright irises.
We want white to be the foreground color, so press "x" on your keyboard to invert them.
Open your Brush Picker and make the size: 2 pixels.
Make sure the Hardness is 0 and the Opacity and Flow are 100%.
Press "z" to open your Zoom Tool and drag it over the eyes.
Press "B" to open back your Brush Tool and place the brush over one of the eyes.
Click once, move it to the other eye and click again.
To zoom back out, press Ctrl or Cmd and the "plus" key a few times
or you can press Ctrl or Cmd + 0 to fit the entire image onto your canvas.
Let's name the layer, "Eyes".
Since the eyes are part of the figure, let's drag it into the Figure folder.
Lastly, we'll add a bright, mystical light.
Make a new layer.
We'll fill it with black and since our background color is black, press Ctrl or Cmd + Delete.
Change its Blend Mode to "Screen", which shows through to the layers below it.
We'll make a composite snapshot of our visible image, so we know where to position a lens
flare over it.
To do this, make the top adjustment layer active and press Alt + Ctrl + Shift + E on
Windows or Option + Cmd + Shift + E on a Mac.
Go to Filter, Render and Lens Flare.
The Brightness is 100% and the Lens Type is "50-300mm Zoom".
Drag the lens flare over the outstretched hand.
Now that we have the lens flare in position, delete the composite snapshot by either dragging
it to the trash or, in later versions, by pressing the "Delete" key.
Make the black layer active.
Repeat the last filter by pressing Alt + Ctrl + F on Windows or Option + Cmd + F on a Mac.
Photoshop applied the lens flare in the exact position you placed it.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!