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Photo manipulations are fun to create and fun to look at. The illusion produced by a good photo manipulation can leave a lasting impression on it’s audience and be very persuasive. That’s why we often see them used regularly in print advertising. To give you some inspiration for your next photo manipulation, we’ve rounded up 20 excellent examples. You’ll notice some are surreal while others are quite funny.

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Photoshop actions can be a huge time saver when trying to add a specific effect to a photo. Since WDL is all about helping you save time and be more productive, we’ve rounded up some Photoshop actions that should come in very useful. This particular collection is for adding a vintage or retro look to your images. There are 49 actions here, so you should be able to find several to help you achieve that perfect vintage or retro look.

photoshop actions – 139 (8 actions)

photoshop actions – 101 (4 actions)

Magical Effect 4.2 (3 actions)

Retro Action

Old Photo Action

sa-cool actions 1.05

Old style sepia effect

Vintagefeeling (5 actions)

Kitty’s Actions (7 actions)

Classic 3.8 (4 actions)

Powerful Colors 3.2 (5 actions)

action 009 “RETRO SPLASH”

Vintage Colors (8 actions)

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Photo manipulation is by far one of the most popular applications of Photoshop. Images can be manipulated in various ways to communicate a message. Sometimes the manipulation is subtle, like adding something to a photo that wasn’t originally there. Then sometimes the message or idea is unrealistic, but executed in a realistic manner to make it appear believable. These types of spectacular manipulations can have a big impact on their audience, and have them asking, “Is that real?”. So for your inspiration, here are 20 Spectacular Photo Manipulations.

Cako_SK

Ari Mahardhika

Ben Goossens

morph

morph

Bogomilov

Jose Laíño

Radoslav Penchev

Ralf Mack

Ralf Mack

Tommy Ingberg

clintnewsham

Ben Goossens

clintnewsham

Øyvind Idland

Mariusz Warsinski

Leszek Bujnowski

Sarolta Bán

Eric Bryant

Evgenij Soloviev

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Part of being a designer is keeping your skills sharp and up-to-date. Skills may span a broad range of tools, but probably the most used tool of all designers is Photoshop. In this post, we’ve collected 15 fresh and useful Photoshop tutorials to help you brush up on your skills and learn new techniques. The types of tutorials in this collection include text effects, photo manipulation, interface design, and more.

Simple Underwater Scene in Photoshop

In this tutorial I will show you how to create a underwater scene with some bubbles and light effects. We will use the Brush Tool to create the bubbles and basic tools and filters for the rest of the effects. The whole process won’t take more than 45 minutes and as usual you can download the Photoshop file in the end of the tutorial.

Creating Retro Folded Typography

In this Photoshop tutorial, we’re going to create retro-looking text that seems like it’s constructed using folded strips of paper. We’re going to step away from the computer a little bit and use a real model as a reference for our project.

How to Create a Photo Realistic Camera

In this tutorial we will demonstrate a powerful combination of vector shapes, layer styles, and manual drawing to create a photorealistic camera. So realistic you’ll think it’s just an ordinary photo.

Making a Book of Magical Playground Scene

This tutorial will show how to create a fantasy book scene. We will be using various advanced Photoshop techniques to make the composition as realistic as possible.

3D Water Text Effect with Repoussé in Photoshop CS5

In this tutorial I will show you how to create a water text. Even though it might look complex it’s a very simple effect. We will be using the new Repoussé then some stock photos to create the effect.

Elegant 3D Text Effect in Photoshop

In this tutorial you’ll learn how to create an elegant 3D Text effect using simple the shape tool, layer styles and paths.

Design a Multimedia Website Layout in Photoshop

In this tutorial you’ll learn how to use photos, brushes, and textures, and 3D objects to design a creative multimedia website layout in Photoshop.

Hexagon Bokeh Effect in Photoshop

In this tutorial I will show you how to create a digital bokeh effect with hexagons. We will use the brush engine, patterns, blend modes and basic filters to achieve this effect.

3D Layered Text Effect

In this Photoshop tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a 3D text effect using actions, basic transform operations and filters.

Design a Multimedia Website Layout in Photoshop

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a isometric microchip icon using basic drawing tools and transformations.

Create a Distressed Vector Typographic Poster Design

Starting with custom made type in Illustrator, we’ll move our vector graphics into Photoshop for some serious distressing with Photoshop brushes, blending modes and more!

The Creation of “Lost in Memory” Epic Fantasy Artwork

In this tutorial, you’ll learn the the steps taken to create this epic Fantasy Style artwork “Lost in Memory” in Photoshop. It’s a combination of a meteor effect, some matte-painting tricks plus lighting effect in this tutorial.

Create Abstract Fake 3D Objects in Photoshop

This tutorial will demonstrate how we can use the Pen tool to create abstract vector shapes that form into a beautiful piece of fake 3D artwork.

Create a Sleek and Stylish MP3 Player

In this tutorial you’ll learn how to create a sleek, stylish, and simple MP3 interface in Photoshop to play audio files for your Flash projects.

Create a Photo Realistic USB Cable

In this tutorial you’ll learn how to draw a photo realistic USB cable using Photoshop’s pen tool.

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Give a talented and creative Photoshop user some photographs and the possibilities are only limited to the imagination. Photo manipulations are illusions created by photo editing techniques. There are subtle photo manipulations and there are those that depict a far-fetched illusion executed in a realistic way. The latter are normally meant to have some shock value with their audience. In this post we’ve rounded up 40 jaw-dropping photo manipulations. Some are funny and some will make you think, but they are all visually stunning.

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In the world of print advertising, there’s a small window to grab the audience’s attention. Being restricted to a still image means the message must be very strong and catchy. Ad agencies often rely on humor to achieve this. A humorous print ad campaign starts with a funny idea, but must be brought to life with clever art direction and great visuals.

For this post, we’ve rounded up 30 funny print ads that’ll make you laugh.

8in1 Dental Snacks: Bad dog breath

Rowenta: 2100 Watt Vacuum Cleaner

Fast-working laxatives

Beautiful taps

Granny’s fries without the Granny

Folgers: For mornings less complicated

Duende Azul Costumes: You, but funnier than you

Hyundai Coupe. 0 to 100 km/h in 8.4 sec

No insects left

Energizer: Never let their toys die

Suplicy

Pattex Superglue: Instant hold

Bad food, bad dog

Kerozen

Purina Bark in the Park

Face Detect

Tires that grip to the road

Kagatani knife: Don’t Drop It

Juicy Fruit: There’s a much juicier chew

FinePix F70 with smile capture

Cafe Rico, an intense wake up call

Steady shot

Olympus Optical zoom

If you don’t move, you get fat

Wide-angle lenses

Dog Toast: You eat what you touch

Don’t let them get comfortable

Yoga classes now on

Cures car smells

Spring Cleaning

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Vintage style design is all about making things look old. This can be achieved by using using elements in your designs that appear to be from decades ago, and when done well can create a mood for your web design that will leave a lasting impressions on visitors. In this article, we’ve rounded up a bunch of Photoshop brushes that will be very useful to you when trying to achieve that vintage look.

Vintage Camera Brushes

Vintage Grunge

Vintage Anatomy Set 1

Old Brushes

Vintage Postcards Set 1

Old Brushes

Old Paper Brushes IV

vintage brushes

Vintage Script Brush Sampler

Vintage News Ad Brushes

Vintage Images + Ephmera

Steampunk PS Brushes

Old Ephemera

Postage label brush set

The Vintage Effect-brushes

Book Ornaments Brushes 3

Old Paper Brushes 2

vintage polaroid brushes

Old Letter

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In our “Best of 2009″ series, we’ve already shown you the best free fonts and the best free icon sets. So as this year is getting closer to it’s end, we’re going to continue in this article and present to you our picks for the best Photoshop tutorials of 2009. There were so many amazing Photoshop tutorials written this year, but unfortunately we couldn’t pick all of them. Below you will find the tutorials that we felt stood out from the rest within several different categories.

Photo Manipulation

Creative Photoshop Animal King Photo Manipulation Tutorial

How to Mold Paint Splatter to a Face in Photoshop

Creating a Spy Fly Photo Manipulation

How to Create a Fantasy Landscape Photo Manipulation

Photo Manipulate a Falling Angel

Text Effects

How to Create 3D Text Blocks in Photoshop

Awesome Milk Typography Effect in Photoshop

Create Destructive Black and White Lettering with a Dramatic Splash Effect

How to Create Stunning and Bold 3D Text

Web Design

How to Create a Clean Web 2.0 Style Web Design in Photoshop

Design a Beautiful Website From Scratch

How to Create a Unique Colorful Site Layout

Create a Magic Night Themed Web Design from Scratch in Photoshop

Icon Design

Design a Stylish Mail Icon in Photoshop

Create a Leather-Textured, Realistic Briefcase Icon

How to Create a Basic House Icon in Photoshop

Create a Magnifying Glass Icon in Photoshop CS4

Retro and Vintage Effects

Create Vintage Traveler Diary in Photoshop

Create A Retro Cosmic Design in Photoshop

Super Cool Retro Poster in 10 Steps in Photoshop

Lighting Effects

How to make a Typographic, Retro, Space Face

Very Easy Heroes Eclipse in Photoshop

Create a Trendy Galactic Poster Design in Photoshop

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If you’re the type of Web Designer that doesn’t like to get your hands dirty with XHTML and CSS, SiteGrinder 2 could become your best friend. It’s a plugin for Photoshop that can turn a design into a fully functional website. This means you will no longer need to outsource the programming of your designs.

Enabling Photoshop to Do More

Out of the box, Photoshop is a robust graphics package with a powerful set of tools that enable designers to work their magic and create visually stunning web designs. In a typical web site creation workflow, when the design process is finished, so is Photoshop’s role. However, if you’re using SiteGrinder 2, Photoshop becomes a fully functional web page building solution. It’s a plugin that makes the transition from design to code seamless.

SiteGrinder 2 also ensures that the integrity of the design is maintained. This is so important for designers. Often times in a typical web site creation process, important aspects of a design have to be omitted because they require complex coding. SiteGrinder 2 makes sure that your design will look just as good in the browser as it does in Photoshop.

The main aspect of SiteGrinder 2 that designers will love the most is the fact that no coding knowledge is required. All of the code is generated by the plugin and it happens behind the scenes. And if you are the programming type, SiteGrinder 2 is going to be a huge time saver. There’s no longer a need to switch to Dreamweaver or TextMate after your design is finished. SiteGrinder 2 does all of the coding for you, leaving you more time to tweak your design.

So How Does it Work?

This explanation of how SiteGrinder 2 works is going to be short, because it’s such a simple process. It’s all about how you name your layers in Photoshop. The plugin requires special “hints” that tell it what each layer should be. For example, if you have a button in your design, just add “-button” to the end of its layer name, or “-rollover” to define its rollover state. Of course, for some designers this will mean actually being organized with their layer naming and overall PSD structure, but this is something that web designers should get in the habit of doing anyway. Plus the time saved by using this plugin makes it a non-issue. These hints are also used to create more complex web site elements, such as drop down menus, forms, multi-media content and more.

Basic or Pro

SiteGrinder 2 comes in two flavors: Basic and Pro. The right version for you will really depend on the functionality requirements of your sites. The Basic version gives you all the standard features, but does limit you to using solid color backgrounds. Going Pro will give you more options for background images and the added ability to easily create photo galleries, include Flash media, and add forms to your pages.

When products come along that claim to make difficult and complex tasks “push button” easy, it’s natural to be skeptical. However after using SiteGrinder 2, I’m convinced that this is a powerful plugin that can make a web designer’s job much easier.

Visit the official SitGrinder 2 site to learn more about this product.

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Faking aged, printed media has been massive since the ‘grunge’ style first became mainstream years ago. Textured work with a vintage feel is still very popular, but more recently it’s the ‘new retro’ style that’s captured the imagination. The general idea is to create a vision of the future… from the past. This effect is good for all sorts of projects, flyers, websites, posters. It works particularly well with music based projects. I’ll take you through the motions for type and, if you dig then I’ll show you how to incorporate images next time.

Here’s what we’ll be creating. Click on the image for a full preview.

Step 1

Create a new canvas in Photoshop, we’ll be working on a 250 x 180 mm sized canvas in RGB mode at 300 dpi. This is important because the values for filters that work on pixel sizes will need to be amended if you’re working on a different sized canvas.

Step 2

In Photoshop select the Gradient Tool (circled) and click the Gradient Editor (circled) on the Options Bar (Window > Options) to edit the gradient. Change the two colour values as in the screen grab, you’ll need to click the little colour tab and the rectangle marked ‘Color’. Enter the two values in the field marked ‘#’ in the Color window that pops up. Change to a Radial gradient in the Options bar and draw from the center outwards.

Step 3

Select the Horizontal Type Tool and a font you want to use. I’ve gone with a classic, if not overused, sans serif font called Avant Garde. I then did a version using Century (a serif font), which worked a lot better.

Type in SHINY and then go to Layer > Layer Style > Gradient Overlay and set up as in the Photoshop screen grab.

Then add a Stroke and an Inner Shadow layer style to the text using the screen grabs as guides.

It’s also worth mentioning that I had to reduce the Kerning in the ‘N’ and the ‘Y’ to even out the spacing.

Step 4

Create a new layer beneath SHINY, then select both SHINY and the new layer and go to Layer > Merge Layers. This will cause Photoshop to rasterize both the text and the Layer Styles so that we can build more Layer Styles on top. There’s possibly a better way to do this though simply rasterizing the text layer will not do this, not in CS2 anyway.

Then add a Gradient Overlay Layer Style as shown in the screen grab.

Repeat the layer merging process and add another Gradient Overlay (with the black and 50% black). Once again, repeat the merge process so there are no editable Layer Styles left on your text.

Your text should look something like the screen grab.

Step 5

Duplicate SHINY (Layer > Duplicate Layer) and apply an 8 pixel Gaussian Blur filter (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) to the copy. Make sure the original is above it in the Layers palette.

Step 6

Duplicate SHINY (the un-blurred layer) and go to Filter Blur > Radial Blur. Set it to Zoom, Best quality and apply at 100%. Set start point to be centered at the bottom in relation to your text.

Step 7

The zoom isn’t quite the right size for our needs. Go to Edit > Free Transform to bring up the Free Transform bounding box. Hold shift whilst manipulating the corner points to constrain the aspect ratio.

Then add a Smart Sharpen (Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen). Add a Layer Mask (Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All) and erase the parts you don’t need using the Eraser Tool as set up in the screen grab. Rename this layer ZOOM_BLUR.

Step 8

Duplicate ZOOM_BLUR and set the copy’s Layer Blend Mode to Multiply.

Step 9

CTRL+Click on ZOOM_BLUR’s Layer thumbnail (not the Mask thumbnail), this will create a selection from it. Then go to Select > Inverse Selection.

Create a new layer beneath ZOOM_BLUR and call it FILL_LIGHT and fill it with White.

Apply the same Gradient Layer Style (don’t do the Inner Shadow or Stroke) as you did for the text in Step 3.

Create a Layer Mask and use the Eraser Tool to delete any unwanted areas. I find you get better results by reducing the Opacity of The Eraser Brush to around 30% and repeatedly chipping away at the mask so it blends. Use the screen grab as a guide.

Finally, reduce the Layer’s Opacity to 50% and move it below SHINY in the Layers Palette.

Step 10

Select the Line Tool. Set it to Shape Layers on the Options Bar, with an 8 pixel Weight. Draw in a white Line. Use Rectangular Marquee Tool to mark off a rectangle spanning the length of the line you just made.

Select the Paintbrush Tool and set up a big soft-edged brush. Take the Flow down to 21 and start to draw in some glow, making more passes over the edge that connects with the line. Use the Screen Grab as a guide.

Select this layer and the line layer and merge them. Rename this layer TWINKLE and apply a Gaussian Blur (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) as in the screen grab.

Step 11

Use the Eraser Tool (set up as in the screen grab) to delete the hard edges.

Duplicate TWINKLE and move it parallel. Duplicate it again and use the Free Transform Tool to rotate (90 degrees), resize and reposition.

Step 12

Create a new layer and fill it with black. Go to Filter > Render > Lens Flare and set up as in the grab.

Try and center the flare so all the elements line up on top of each other.

Adjust the Levels (Image > Adjustments > Levels) to knock out unwanted glow and increase the center. Then go to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.

Select your four associated layers (TWINKLE and its two duplicates and the lens flare) and group them, call the group STAR.

Step 13

Use the Free Transform Tool to rotate, resize and reposition the star. Make duplicates of the STAR group and rotate, resize and reposition. As each element of the STAR group is on its own layer you can tweak each part of the star until you’re happy.

Create a new layer beneath all your STAR groups and call it GLOW. Select the Brush Tool and set up as in the screen grab, then draw some extra glow behind each star picking a brush size to match.

Step 14

Group all your image layers (except the background) together and call it SHINY. Duplicate this group and go to Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical. Create a Layer Mask for the group (Select the Group and go to Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All) and use the Gradient Tool, set to Linear with white and black colours to mask off the bottom, creating a reflect effect. Reduce the Layer Opacity to around 50%.

Step 15

Now go grab your favourite old paper textures. These ones from bittbox are pretty good. I used paper2.jpg, pasted it into the document and moved it to the top of the layer palette. Change the Layer Blend Mode to Multiply.

It looks too dark currently so go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels, check the box marked ‘Use Previous Layer To Make Clipping Mask’ and set up as in the screen grab. To increase the texture, duplicate the paper layer, desaturate and set it’s layer Blend Mode to Hard Light. Drop the layers Opacity down to 58%.

Step 16

Select ALL of your layers and merge them together. Put this new layer at the top of the layers palette (we’ll keep the originals just in case). Duplicate this layer and desaturate it.

Then go to Image > Adjustments > Invert. Apply a 40 pixel Gaussian Blur, turn the layer Blend mode to Overlay. Add a Levels Adjustment Layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer >Levels) as in the screen grab.

Step 17

Go to Mode > Grayscale. Select Flatten in the pop-up window. Then go to Mode > Bitmap and follow the screen grabs to deal with the Bitmap and Halftone Screen pop-up windows.

Once it has been applied, select the entire canvas and load it onto the clipboard (CTRL+C). Go to your History palette (Window > History) and click back to just before you changed to Grayscale Mode. Then paste the copied bitmap layer and move it to the top of the Layers palette.

Select the Magic Wand Tool and un-check the Contiguous box on the Options bar. Use the wand to select any patch of white on the bitmap layer, then delete all the white.

Step 18

Change the bitmap layers blending mode to Soft Light and it’s opacity to 80%. Then tweak the opacities of your other three final layers as shown in the screen grab. These should be your merged art layer, the copy which was desaturated, inverted & blurred and the Levels Adjustment layer. The copied art layer should also be set to Overlay.

Conclusion

That’s mostly it… But if you want to get proper old then head over to Deviantart.com or brusheezy.com and get yourself some dirty/grunge brushes and paint in a final layer of scuffs and dirt. Don’t use white but a creamy off-white such as #ddc8b3 as your foreground colour. This will add to the aged feel. It’s worth creating a new layer to draw on and experiment with your brushes.

WDL Premium members can download the source Photoshop file below.

Download the Photoshop source file

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About the Author

James Davies writes tutorials for various magazines and websites when he’s not designing gig posters, t-shirts, catalogs, magazines, etc.