In this Photoshop tutorial I will be walking you through the making of an interesting art piece, “The Eye, the Key of the Soul.”
In this tutorial we will use the burn tool, dodge tool, brushes, layer modes and more to add an interesting effect to an otherwise regular stock photo.

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Preface



Before we get started I would like you to know that this tutorial was written by Krinos, and the stock photo used is by xerolime, you can download it from here.
1.



Open up the stock photo you’ve chosen to be working with for this tutorial. Duplicate it once (just in case!) Find and get out the Burn Tool, change the range/mode for it to ‘midtones’ and set the opacity to something light-medium.
Using the burn tool now, pass in turn of the pupil of the eye and in turn of the eye. Now get out the Dodge Tool and set the mode to midtones again. Use the dodge tool to lighten up the pupil and also among where you used the burn tool to darken.
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2.


Again using the dodge tool, make some ‘rays’ just outside of the iris, and lighten up any other areas you think may need it.
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3.


Now use Lighting Effects (filter > render > lighting effects) to add an interesting lighting effect to the overall photo, you may want to mess around with the colors for the lighting effects filter. Try not to over-saturate the photo though on this step, if your lighting effects affect it too much, go to edit > fade lighting effects and put it at around 50%.
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4.


Now it’s time to recolor the center of the eye. Do this by making a new layer (layer > new > layer) and brush a little bit inside of the eye with a soft brush, using the color of your choice (orange). After you’ve made your little bit of brushing inside of the eye, change the layer mode to Color and lower the opacity to around 50-60%.
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5.


Using the dodge and burn tools again, add more light/darkness to the pupil to give it a stronger effect.
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6.


To add more feeling to the photo, go to layer > new adjustment layer > gradient map and made a black & white gradient map. Change the layer mode for this layer to Luminosity and leave the opacity in tact. Repeat step 4 with the eye color part, you may want to use a lower opacity though, and a different color for the brush.
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7.


A little more dodge & burn tool here, remember to mess with the ‘range’ and opacities for the brushes as well, get creative.
I also create another pupil-color layer, brushed inside of it it with a yellow-orange, changed the layer mode to Linear Dodge and lowered the fill to 10%.
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8.


To finish off, apply a Selective Color adjustment layer (layer > new adjustment layer > selection color) and use the settings that you find look best. Again, in finishing, apply lighting effects again, but this time lower the opacity afterwards to around 35%.

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Thanks


Thank you for reading this tutorial, I hope you enjoyed it! I’m sorry, but the PSD file was too large to be downloaded, so you won’t be able to download the PSD file from this tutorial.

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