When Cheryl moved to the big city, boosting her career wasn’t her only fantasy. Now she must choose between wealth and lust… Our protagonist is a beautiful blonde from a set of stock photos that can be found here. Download the larger file, then open it in Photoshop and have a look at this tutorial for some advice on how to cut her out. Now that she is isolated from the original background go Image>Adjustments>Brightness/Contrast and bring the contrast up to +20. We want to give our leading lady an elegant painted look, like you would see on some older book covers. Go to Filter> Filter Gallery… Choose Paint Daubs from the Artistic folder, and change the settings to those shown in the example above. When you have finished press OK, and now your lady will have a subtle painted look. Next we need our dream man, he can be found in a set here. Download the larger size file and open it in Photoshop, and cut him out. As before, increase the Contrast to +20, and also increase Brightness to +20 this time. Now open the Filter Gallery again, and choose Paint Daubs. This time the Brush size has been decreased by one because it is a smaller sized image. Dreamy. Now you can minimize this window, we’ll come back to it later. Our background image is the charming city of London, which can be downloaded here. Increase the Brightness to +20 and the Contrast to +10. Again, use the Paint Daubs filter, this time increasing the brush size to 20 because it is a much larger image than the previous two. You can minimize this window for now. Open a new Photoshop document with the dimensions set to 827px x 1280px. Use the Rectangle Tool to draw a blue rectangle in the top half of the document. Rasterize your rectangle layer by right-clicking on it in the layers panel, and choosing Rasterize Layer. Now go Edit>Transform>Warp. Click in the centre or the bottom edge of the rectangle and push upwards to create a curve. Tap Enter when you’ve finished. Double-click on the rectangle layer to bring up it’s Layer Style box. Select Stroke and enter the settings shown above. This will create a thick white border around your rectangle. Now you can start to place the images that you created earlier. Start with the London background, Go Select>Select All, then Edit>Copy. Then go back to your cover document and go Edit>Paste. Next select your lady and paste her into your document. We want to give her a white glow, so double-click on her layer and choose Outer Glow in the Layer Style box. Then enter the settings above. And lastly, paste in your dreamy businessman. Now select the Pen Tool, and draw a shape like the one above by creating a series of points. You can use the Direct Selection Tool to reposition the points if necessary. With your shape created, left click on it and select Make Selection. Click OK. Now that it is selected, you can use the Paint Bucket Tool to fill your shape with a darker blue colour. Copy and Paste your shape and fill it with a lighter blue, then use the Transform tools to re-shape both shapes, as shown above. Next use the Rounded Rectangle Tool to create a white rectangle. Add a smaller rectangle on top… …and use the Transform>Perspective tool to widen it’s base. In your layers panel select both these layers by holding shift, then right-click on them and choose Merge Layers. Now that they have merged into one layer, right-click on the layer to bring up the Layer Style box and add the Stroke settings shown above. Here is the Mills and Boon rose. Right-click to save it, then place it in the centre of your shape. For the Mills and Boon Text, create two text boxes either side of the rose using the Text Tool. Use the text settings shown above. Next we will add the ‘ROMANCE’ text on top of the lighter blue rectangle. Create a text box and use these settings. And for the book title ‘Big City Dream’, create a text box below the rectangle and use these settings. Finally for our author ‘Jessica Steele’, use these settings. Finally use the Line Tool, which can be found on the same button as the Rectangle Tool, and draw two horizontal lines either side of the ‘ROMANCE’ text. If necessary it can be resized using the transform tools. Here is the final book cover. Thanks for reading, leave comments below

In this tutorial you will use the Puppet Warp tool to create surreal body transformations, and also learn how to perform digital hand transplants, decapitations, and vaginal skin grafts.

The base model for this photo-manipulation is a nude female stock image that can be downloaded here.

Once you have downloaded the image, cut out the woman from the background (refer to this tutorial if you need help with making selections).

With your model isolated reduce the noise and desaturate it.

First of all we will remove the vagina. Make a square selection of an area of skin at the top of the thigh.

Paste the selection onto a new layer and place it over the vagina. Increase the scale to make sure it is fully covered.

Change the skin layer’s blending mode to Lighten.

Now use a small 0% hard eraser, and erase the edges of the skin square.

Use a much larger 0% hard eraser to blend in the square at the top of the vagina.

Now adjust the Brightness of the layer so that it blends in seamlessly.

Next we will stretch the legs using the Puppet Warp tool. Go Edit > Puppet Warp, then use the cursor to place yellow pins all over the body, as shown above.

Alt-click on the pins on the feet and ankles to select them. Then click on the feet and drag them down slightly, keeping them straight as you do so.

Now hold alt and select the pins on the lower legs. As before, drag the legs down slightly.

Next select the knees, and drag down again.

And finally add the pins on the thighs and drag down again.

When you have finished stretching the legs press Enter.

Because the left hand was obscured slightly by the book that the model was holding, we will replace the entire hand with one from a stock image that can be downloaded here.

Cut out the top arm and place it onto your image. Adjust the scale so that it is exactly the same size as the existing hand.

Desaturate your replacement hand, and adjust the brightness and contrast so that it looks as close the the other image as possible.

Now Go filter > Noise > Reduce Noise and take away the noise.

Create a layer mask for the new hand layer, then use a small soft black brush to mask out the rest of the arm.

Alternate between a black brush and an eraser to blend in the new hand with the arm.

Adjust the brightness again, if necessary.

When the new hand is blended into the arm, you can merge the hand layer with your model layer.

Next cut off the head, then use the elliptical marquee tool to make a selection over the neck. First delete the selected area…

…Then click on the Gradient tool. In the Gradient Editor use the color picker to choose a dark grey from the body, and then use it to pick a light grey form a light area of the body.

Apply the gradient to the selected area.

Your model is now ready to be placed onto a background.

Open a new 3000 x 2000 px document, then download the desert background from here, and place it into the new document.

Flip it horizontally, then select the sky and delete it.

Add the new sky by creating a Gradient adjustment layer going from a dark grey to white. Position the Gradient adjustment layer underneath the desert layer.

Now you can place your model into your document and resize it.

To create a shadow for the model duplicate it’s layer, then go Image > Adjustments > Threshold. Bring the slider all the way to the right to turn it completely black.

Use the Perspective, and Scale transform tools to distort the shadow.

Place the shadow layer underneath the model layer, and use a black brush to paint in more shadow around the feet.

Use the Gaussian Blur filter to blur the shadow slightly.

Change the shadow layer’s blending mode to Soft Light, then give it a layer mask and use a large soft black brush to mask out the area of the shadow that extends into the distance.

Next create a new layer above your desert layer, click on the Gradient tool, and open the Gradient Editor. Create a gradient that is white in the centre and transparent either side.

Add the gradient vertically over the horizon, and change the layer’s blending mode to Soft Light.

The image of the black bird can be downloaded here.

Cut out the bird, place it above your model layer, resize it and desaturate it. Try to position the feet on the wrist in a way that looks convincing.

Make a circular selection around the bird’s eye and raise the Brightness and Contrast.

The photo of the tree can be downloaded here.

Cut it out and place it onto your image so that its below the mist layer and above the desert layer.

The image of the moon can be downloaded here.

Place it above the sky gradient layer and change it’s blending mode to Screen and lower it’s opacity to 90%.

Lastly add a Levels adjustment layer. Use the white picker to determine the brightest part of the image and the black picker to choose the darkest part.

Your layer panel should end up looking like the one above.

And here is the final image.

Thanks for reading. Leave comments below.