How To Make A Horror Movie DVD Cover

Final Image Preview: In this tutorial you will learn how to make a horror or sci-fic movie DVD cover. Beginning with a photo, it will be altered adding elements to create the desired effect. Click to enlarge In this case I used a photo of xtwizx-Stock. You can see his work in his gallery of Deviant Art. I'll also use Photoshop, but you can do this tutorial in your favorite application (Gimp, Paint Shop Pro...), following similar steps. First, select the image of the model using the Magnetic Lasso Tool. If something is left out, use the Polygonal Lasso Tool to add it to the selection. Create a new document of 369x524 pixels. Remember that if this is for printing it must have a resolution of 200, but as in this case this image will be seen on the web, its resolution is 72. Next, pass the image of the model to this document dragging with the Move tool. Select the hood using the Magic Wand Tool, and add or remove pixels that may have not been selected using the Polygonal Lasso Tool. Then, adjust the Color Balance to make the hood more brown, for example using +72 +24 +6. This will make the cloak similar to a priest's. Adjust Hue/Saturation to 0 -21 -26 to make the tunic darker. Now, select the face of the model inverting the selection (Select/Inverse) and using the Magic Wand Tool to remove the white background from the selection, so only the face remains selected. Change the color of the face using Image/Adjust/Hue-Saturation with these values: -165 +9 -16. Select the eyes of the model using the lasso tools, and copy and paste them into another new layer. Then, use Image/Adjust/Invert to get this effect: Use a layer effect to add depth to the eyes: double click the layer in the Layers tab, and in the Layer Style dialog select Inner Shadow. Now, change the Color Balance of the layer that contains the eyes to +100 -1 +2 to turn the eyes red. Use one of my free sparkle star photoshop brushes and place a start in the pupils to make them brighter. You can also use the same brushes but with black color to add darkness around the eyes. Add an adjustment layer (Layer/New Adjustment Layer/Levels). Double click this layer to open the Layer Style dialog, and select Satin. Use another of the sparkle star brushes (Star28) using 4 px as size to paint in the adjustment layer. Add marks to the face following the facial and muscle features, so it looks this way: Now create the background of the image. For that, create a new layer and paint it black. Then, apply a Filter/Render/Fibers. Modify the color of the background fibers by using Image/Adjustment/Hue-Saturation with these values: +198 +36 -18 and check the case Colorize. Apply a new filter on this background: Filter/Render/Lightning Effects, and in Style choose Flashlight from the drop-down menu. This is what you get: Now only lasts to place the titles. Remember that red is a very interesting color for an horror movie. Other colors for such a cover may be white, purple, or orange. Another option is to use the colors picked from the images of the cover. That is always a good option. This is the final result: (click to enlarge) -Emma Alvarez- © 2008 by Emma Alvarez. Link to this post without copying the text. Some Related Posts: If you liked this post, subscribe to Emma Alvarez Site or give yourself a gift Stumble it! Add me to your del.icio.us network