Abstract Photo Manipulation

1. First off start by opening photo, I used a photo of Evangeline Lilly, of course.

You can get the photo I used here.

Open the photo and sharpen the background layer Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen. Fade the sharpen to 65%, Edit > Fade Sharpen.

2. Make a Black to White Gradient Map by going to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map...

Making the gradient map will make the image grey scale without losing the contrast.

3. Duplicate the Background layer & move it above the Gradient Map. Set the layer mode to Color and the opacity to 40%.

Now make a Brightness/Contrast layer, use the following settings:

Again duplicate the Background layer and move it above all of the layers. Apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur with a radius of 2.0. Set the layer mode to Soft light & the layer opacity to 40%.

Head over to TheDesignWorld.com and pick out a nice Abstract Render. I picked the Trace Render.

Move the render onto the canvas like so:

Change the layer mode for the 'render' layer to Lighten.

The result of changing the layer mode to Lighten will be like so:

4. It's optional, but you can sharpen the render once Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen, I did.

Create a new layer and drag a bright gradient from one corner to the opposite corner like so:

The bottom left is #c7f92a & the top right is #4e9107.

Set the layer mode to Screen.

Make another Gradient Map, Black to White, change the layer opacity for that layer to 30%.

The final touches I added was some 2d 'tech' stuff with the pencil tool.

Thanks for looking, the PSD can be downloaded right here.