This tutorial teaches how to create a photoshop effect of balloons floating in a room using layers, selections, and filters. The 21 steps include: cropping and positioning a room photo, adding and masking balloon layers, adding shadows and highlights to balloons, duplicating and transforming balloon layers to create the illusion of multiple balloons floating at different angles, adding lighting and cloud layers, and applying filters to add movement and emphasize certain areas. The full tutorial with screenshots guides the reader through each step to produce a surreal composite image.

1. Photo manipulation tutorial
by
for Photoshop CS6: Flying balloons
Some time ago I wrote an article on my blog about 10 tutorials any designer should know how to do.
They inspired me to make this new tutorial about beautifull surrealistic ballons flying in the giant
room. So in this tutorial I will show a quick way to simulate that effect using only Photoshop and some
brushes.
Final design
Before we get started, let’s take a look at the image we’ll be creating. Click the screenshot below to view
the full-size image.
Start: Step 1
Create a new document and place the photo, you can download the one I used at: Room. Grab the
crop tool and rotate the image till it perfectly aligns to horizontal 0 degrees level. Crop some extra
corners too.
Step 2
Place a balloons image in your document and rename it to balloon. The one I used in this tutorial can
be downloaded at this link.
Step 3
Use the Path Tool (P) and stroke all over the first (bigger) balloon. Than with the pen tool selected
press right mouse button and choose “Make selection”. Make sure that the layer balloon is selected
and press ctrl + j (or cmd + j in mac) to crop out the balloon from the sky.
Step 4
With the cropped image layer selected create a layer mask (Layer>Layer Mask or a small icon in
Layers panel). Then select the Brush Tool (B), with black for the color, and changing the brush size
delete small sky areas around the bag and inside. Tip: white brush undoes what you had erased.
Step 5
Grab Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) and select the balloon area as it shown in the picture. Once you
done duplicate it Layer>Duplicate Layer or just press ctrl + j. Change this layer blend mode to Soft
Light and lower the opacity to 50%. Then create a new group, rename it to balloon and put all balloon
related layers there.
Step 6
Select the burn tool and paint shadows as it shown with the black arrow. Then take a dodge tool and
highlight the illuminated spaces on the balloon (arrow white). Use 10% opacity soft brush settings.
Step 7
Grab the balloon copy layer from the group and put it on the top of all layers. Grab the Pen Tool (P)
and trace the stroke aroud black balloon like you did before. Once you done, with Pen Tool selected
press right mouse button and choose “Make selection”. Apply it with regular 0px settings. Press ctrl
+ j to duplicate the selected area and rename the new layer to balloon 2. At this point you should
have cropped balloon from the sky.
Step 8
With the balloon layer selected grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) and trace the selection
around the balloon canvas. On the top of menu press Select>Transform selection and align a balloon
to make it look as at 90 degrees. Press enter to apply selection. Duplicate the layer (ctrl +j). Grab the
Dodge Tool to draw highlights (O) and Burn Tool (O) for shadows. Smoothly draw as it shown with
lines in the picture. Change the layer blend mode to Soft Light and lower the opacity to 55%.
Step 9
Add brightness, contrast and color filters from the Adjustments menu to the second balloon layer
like it shown in imagine. Values of Brightness: -30, Contrast: 10, Midtones: +7/-10/+12, Shadows:
+16/-6/-10, Highlights: +11/+4/+7. TIP: in order to apply settings to concrete layer press alt + left mouse
click on the space between layers (marked as red)
Step 10
Create a new folder and new layer inside and rename both of them to “raw”. Grab the pencil tool and
aplly 1pt white stoke settings to it. Don’t forget to turn off the fill settings. Slightly draw 2 nice ellip-
sis from the one boarder to another. Once you done change line color to black and draw 2 sticks to
hold up the raw.
Step 11
Create a new layer on the top of the others and rename it to lighting . Go to the top menu>Edit>Fill...
and fill it with grey. Grab soft brush, and add extra highlights with color white and shadows with
black. Change layer bend mode to “soft light” to make it transparent.
Step 12
Select a Eliptical Marquee Tool (M). With the background layer selected draw big elipsis all over the
design work . Select on top menu Selection>Transform Selection and then resize and rotate it until
they will look as in the picture. It should. Press enter to apply the changes.
Step 13
without deselecting the previous selection, on the top of menu press Selection>Inverse. Once you
done, press command ctrl + j (cmd + j on Mac) to extract the selection from the image. Select
Filter>Blur>Gussian Blur” and put ~5 px for Radius. Change the layer name to ”sides”.
Step 14
We need the Cloud brushes that you can download at this link. Next we will create the folder and
rename it to “Cloud”. Inside of it create 4 new layers and rename them to “Cloud 1,2...”. Then with the
Brush Tool (B) selected, from the brush menu choose 4 different cloud brushes, and with white color
draw each of them to a new layer.
Step 15
Select the closest cloud layer and duplicate it (ctrl +j). Then select both layers and press ctrl + e to
marge them. On top menu press Filter>Blur>Gussian blur and set the value to ~5 px. This tweak will
let us to imitate a 3d effect. Select another cloud layer and drag it behind the balloon group.
Step 16
Select the lighting layer. Chose the white soft brush and draw some extra highlights to the clouds to
make more realistic lighting effect.
Step 17
Create new group and call it “Composition”. Put all layers there. Duplicate the group by pressing
right mouse button on the Layer>Duplicate Group. Once you done select the new group and press
ctrl + e to marge it.
Step 18
Select the “Composition copy” layer and on the top of menu select Filter>Stylize>Find Edges. Next,
change the layer blend mode to multiply and lower the opacity to 30%.
Step 19
Open the composition group and duplicate balloons group. Like before, slect new balloon group
layer and restarize it by clicking command ctrl + e. Go to top menu and press Filter>Stylize>Wind
and apply it with the basic settings. Lets add some blur to make it smoother. Press Filter>Blur> Gus-
sian blur and put 4 px to the Radius. Here we are trying to achieve more realistic movement effect
for balloons.
Step 20
Select saturation filter in the Adjustments menu and put it on the top of the others. Set -20 values to
saturation and lightness.
Step 21
Grab the rounded Gradient Tool (G). Select the saturation filter mask. Choose black and white colors
in your Color Picker and drag with mouse from the middle to corner without realizing the button.
Here we are trying to highlight the main object.