For this project I took an image of a steampunk model and made it into a poster for an imaginary festival. Below are the steps I took to Get from the original image (on the left) to my final product. (right)

Step 1: First I needed to remove my steampunk girl from her gray background. I did this by first using the quick selection tool. Once I had most of what I wanted selected I moved to the select and mask workspace to clean things up and really hone in on the details.

Step 2: Once I was in select and mask I switched to overlay mode so that I could easily see what areas needed to be touched up. Using a combination of the refine brush and regular brush tools I was able to get a clean mask of my subject with crisp edges. I clicked the decontaminate colors checkbox to soften my edges a bit then exported as a new layer.

Step 3: I was back to my original photoshop workspace and had a nice cutout of my subject with a transparent background. The next step was adding in the new background. I did a bit of searching and eventually found this image of a brick wall (by Pete Willis on unsplash.com) that I liked. The grungy, urban feel of the worn brick and neutral color scheme seemed like it would be a good fit for my subject, so I placed it behind her.

Step 4: Pleased with the overall look of these two images together, I began adding details and making tweaks to really bring the composite together. I moved my subject down, defringed her, (Layers>matting>defringe) and added a drop shadow to help her blend in with her new background. The background was also a bit bright compared to my subject, so I added a brightness/contrast adjustment layer to my background.

Step 5: Next I used the crop tool to view a rule of thirds grid on my photo. I then created guides on top of the grid without actually cropping. Once I had exited cropping mode, I used these guides to reposition my subject.

Step 6: I liked the look of the brick wall, but thought it would look cool to add in some extra texture and color with brushes. I downloaded XResch’s gear brushes from deviant art and used them to create an array of gears behind my steampunk lady. I played around with blending modes and settled on multiply and color burn.

Step 7: My last step was adding in the text. To go with my grungy steampunk theme I decided to use the font Pulpo Rust. In an attempt make my text pop and foster readability, I also used some of the dry and wet media brushes that come pre-installed in Photoshop to create the light cream colored sheen you see behind the words.

And there you have it! I've now taken an otherwise boring image and made it into a funky poster.