PS Tutorial:Learn How To Make A Mechanical Sunflower

Posted in Photo Effects, Tutorials • 622 days ago • Written by Andris Pētersons • 2 Comments

In this tutorial you will learn how to make a flower made of mechanical components. You will learn how to embed a variety of images together to make it look quite realistic. By following this tutorial you will learn how to nicely adjust blending options and use Photoshop tools to make a grim atmosphere. This is my first tutorial and I hope that you enjoy it and learn something at the same time!

How to make a mechanical sunflower

Used resources :

• Background stock – http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1330848
• Gears 1 stock – http://www.sxc.hu/photo/786370
• Gears 2 stock – http://www.sxc.hu/photo/787889
• Cog wheel stock – http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1054958
• Chains stock – http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1136259
• Crane stock – http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1208739
• Light bulb stock – http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1241346
• Valve stock – http://www.sxc.hu/photo/781096
• Glass ball stock – http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1341348
• Cloud brushes – http://javierzhx.deviantart.com/art/Cloud-Brushes-34277964?q=boost%3Apopular%20cloud%20brushes&qo=0

1. Creating a new document

Open a new document 1000 pixels width, 1500 pixels height.

Step 2 Creating background

Open the Background stock and resize it (Image > Image size), then drag it into your document.

Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels and put in these settings:

Now the image should look like this.

Step 3 Making the flower

Open up the Gears 1 stock and cut out the closest gear, then drag it in our document, resize it and name the layer Gear 1.

Now, duplicate Gear 1, make it smaller using Edit > Transform > Scale or Ctrl+T and, holding shift, make it a little smaller and place on top of Gear 1. Continue doing so, and it should look like this (after you’re done, merge these duplicated layers to original layer pressing Ctrl+E).

Use the Burn tool (O) and Dodge tool (O) to shadow it, highlight it, use Eraser tool (E) on the bottom, to make it feel like it’s really growing out of dirt.

Now, open the Gears 2 stock, cut it, paste it in the document, resize it and shadow/highlight it, place it here.

Keep adding Gears 2 stocks, change their position, rotate them (Ctrl+T), you don’t really have to give it a thought, just make the impression that it’s mechanized. Name the most frontal gears layers Front Gears left and Front Gears right accordingly.

Open the Cog wheel stock, cut it out and paste it in our document, resize it. Paste another one, make it slightly smaller. Put both these cog layers under the frontal gears layers.

Step 4 Decorating the background

Now we would want to strengthen our idea, so open up Chains stock, copy it, paste it in our document, resize it and change this layer’s blending options to Darken.

Select Brush tool (B), select white color (#ffffff), and grab a cloud brush from the pack, which I included, create a new layer and brush the bottom of the chain.

Step 5 Adding features to flower

Open the Crane stock copy it and paste it in our document, put it behind the Cog layers and, once again, change the blending options to Darken.

Now, open the Light bulb stock, position it here, then, create a new layer on top of Light bulb layer (Name it Light source), change its Blending options to Linear Dodge, pick a yellowish color (#bb9003), select a 100 px soft brush and brush it on the bulb.

Now, open the Valve stock, cut it out like this:

Put it in our document, resize it and position it there. Feel free to use Dodge/Burn tool.

Step 6 Atmosphere

Now this photo manipulation does not look that serious or grim. Time to change that. Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient map, choose black and white gradient map. Don’t change the settings.

Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Photo filter and fill in these settings:

Now, open the Glass ball stock, cut out the ball and paste it in our document. Select Eraser tool (E), use 100 px soft brush to erase the edges of the ball and position it here:

Step 7 Final touch

Use Text tool (T) to strengthen your idea. That’s about it.

Here you can download PSD file.