In this tutorial we'll learn how to add a little touch of glamour to this already nice lady face.
Will start from this:
and finally the result will be something like this:
Tutorial is organized in steps, each step will contain the description of actions taken, and the result you should get. All work was done in Adobe Photoshop CS2, and I assume that you have the knowledge of navigating through menus.
This tutorial will be useful for portrait photographers by adding a little bit of 'graphic' value to their work.
First we'll have to notice that this glamour effect is a combination between some classic painting effects with real photos. So the edges are processed to look like an oil or pencil drawing, while face remains still photo like with some lighting effects.
You will start with the a black background and the portrait nicely extracted from its background.
So here are the steps:

Step 1. Duplicate and reduplicate the layer portrait, so now you have have a black background, layer 1,layer 2, layer 3, layer 4 all layers with the same portrait image.Here is the layers structure:
Step 2. Select layer 2, on layer 2 do the following:
Image->Adjustement->Foto Filter set the color f56d15 (orange) and density 100%. Here is what you should have:
Step 3. Select layer 3, on layer 3 do the following:
Image->Adjustement->Foto Filter set the color 1a8e07 (green) and density 100%; Here is what you should have:
Then, on the same layer 3 do:
Filter->Brush Strokes->Angled Strokes with parameters:
Direction Balance:30, Stroke Length:9 Sharpeness:9
here is the result:
Step 4. Select layer 4, and with this layer selected do the following:
Image->Adjustement->Desaturate then
Image->Adjustement->Brightness/Contrast set Brightness to value -80
then then hide background, and with layer 4 still selected, choose lasso tool, and make an oval selection inner the face at aprox 30-40px from the edge; select feather at value of 40, and cut pixels; here is what you will have before cutting pixels:
Step 5. Select layer 3, choose lasso tool again, and make an oval selection just like before, but at aprox. 80-100px from the edge, just in order to catch inside a part of face, eyes, mouth etc; Select->Feather, set feather to 40, and Edit->Cut pixels. Here is what you should have before cutting pixels:
And this is what you should have after cutting pixels, the orange color in the middle of the face, and green for the edges:
Step 6. Select layer 4 and duplicate it; then do:
Filter->Brush Strokes->Angled Strokes with parameters:
Direction Balance:30 Stroke Length:9 Sharpeness:9
make the black background visible again, and on duplicated layer 4 still selected, clear the nasty white margins with delete tool, then
Layer->Matting->Remove White Matte; continue to deal with edges for both layers 4 add layer 4 copy until all is smooth and soften; the clear operation will be done with erase tool mode brush, master diameter 45; set for layer 4 copy opacity to a value like 75-80%. At this point you should have something like this:
Step 7.Now the background; select background layer; duplicate it, select color foreground color: #70ce09, background color #000000,and on selected background copy layer do the following:
Filter->Render->Difference Clouds this will be your background: Step 8. At this point the difference between background and portrait edge is too straight, so let's soften a bit: with erase tool, select a blurred brush mode, set the master diameter at aprox. 300, opacity at 85-90 and start delete from background copy near the portraits edge; experiment until you get a perfect blend of the portrait in the background; next to obtained the painted effect for the background, go again to:
Filter->Brush Strokes->Angled Strokes with params: Direction Balance:52, Stroke Length:38, Sharpeness:10
Here is the result:
Step 9. For now you should have already a nice image; You may want to go a little bit further: duplicate current layer again, sent it to the top:
Layer->Arrange->Bring to front, with the same erase brush tool clear the face, changed color a little bit:
Image->Adjustement->Hue->Saturation with values hue=-36, set opacity 85% and finally to underline some shadows on the face just create a top layer:
Layer->New->Layer, fill with black color:
Paint Bucket Tool set Opacity for this at 40%, and with the same erase tool, clear the middle of the face. Here is the final result:

For more images made with the same technique check this glamour wallpapers.

That's all friends, have fun !

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