QUICK TIP: OBSERVE EVERYTHING
If you want to work with photomanipulation you have to keep in your mind that there isn’t a recipe, what really
counts is your technical knowledge and especially your imagination. So always strive to learn more and pay
attention to everything around you. It may not seem important, but it will make a big difference in your work.20
ADD THE GLASS
It’s time to put the glass on the front of the
bottle. To give the feeling that the elephant is inside,
re-use the 58302712 image from shutterstock.
com. Place the image in front of the elephant and
change the blend mode to Soft Light. To intensify
the effect copy the same layer three times, but pay
attention so the elephant doesn’t disappear. To take
care of it make a mask to erase the edges. Don’t let
the bottle become too bright, reduce the saturation
with the Hue and Saturation tool.19
ADD THE TOP OF THE TRUNK AND WATER
First make the trunk’s top, apply a Feather
effect (Shift+F6) of 4px then use the mask to erase
the parts that aren’t necessary. Use the Warp tool
to correct the trunk’s shape and make the colour
corrections using the Color Balance and Levels
tools. Remember that this part will not be inside
the bottle, so isn’t necessary to make it so green.
Now add the water in the trunk, change the blend
mode to Screen and delete the parts that will not be
used with a mask.23
ADD SOME WATER DROPS
It’s time to add one more detail to the
glass: the water drops. It may seem a small detail,
but will make a big difference in the end. Use image
267521153 from shutterstock.com. Always think
of what else you can add to the scene without
interfering with the main focus. To add the water
drops put the layer in the Screen blend mode and
apply the Warp tool to model the drops to the
bottle. To enhance the effect, duplicate the layer
and set to 20% Opacity. Next make a mask to erase
the parts you don’t need.21
LIGHT THE BOTTLE
To start this step you have to keep in mind
that the details are always what makes the
difference. First you have to fix the bottleneck.
Duplicate the bottle layer and cut the neck; once you
have done that change the layer to the Soft Light
blend mode. To give the feeling of transparency,
make a soft mask to erase parts of the image.
Finally, add the lights. Always make separate layers.
With the Pen tool draw the lights, paint white, apply a
Gaussian Blur (Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur) and
change the blend mode to Soft Light.24
MAKE FINAL ADJUSTMENTS
Now think of anything that you can improve
and refine in the scene. As the elephant is the main
focus you have to make the base and sides darker in
order to give more attention to the central image. To
do this with the Pen tool, draw the shadow, paint it
green (#173e1f) and use a Gaussian Blur at 480px.
Then duplicate all layers, merge, and use the Burn
tool to enhance the shadows of the elephant. Finally,
apply a High Pass Filter at 4px and change the filter
colour to Sepia.22
ENHANCE THE GLASS EFFECT
It’s important to know the Filter Gallery
well. Make a new layer duplicating all of the
elephant’s body layers except the top of the trunk,
which is out of the bottle, and then merge them
(Cmd/Ctrl+E). After that go to Filter Gallery (Filter>
Filter Gallery) and choose the Glass filter (Distort>
Glass). As the name suggests, this command will
leave the image with a glass appearance. To
intensify the effect, duplicate the layer and apply a
High Pass filter (Filter>Other>High Pass).