Create Unique Hair Style with Leaves Texture in Photoshop

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to create this unique hair style with leaves texture in Photoshop. We will combine several stock images and use a number of custom brushes along the way, and use filters and layer blending modes to spice up our effect.

This is an intermediate level tutorial so some steps can be challenging.

Note: The Photoshop tutorial is done in Photoshop CC – therefore some screenshot may have slighting different layout as in the earlier version. Some brushes are exclusive to Photoshop CS6.

Here is a preview of the final effect I have for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

Version 1

Version 2

To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stocks:

Forest Image

Model

Pink Leaves

Nebula 1

Nebula 2

Step 1

Create a new document sized 800px *1132px with black background. Load the forest image into Photoshop and select a portion of the ground texture as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection to our document and use the free transform tool to set the following perspective:

and use a soft eraser to remove the edges as shown below:

Add the following black and white adjustment layer on top:

and here is the effect so far:

Step 2

Load the model image into Photoshop and cut out of the facial area, paste it over to our document:

Apply the following adjustment layers as clipping masks to the model layer:

Black and White

Layer mask on the black and white adjustment layer:

Levels

Curves

and here is the effect so far:

Use a grunge/crack brush with black colour, paint some texture over the model’s face as shown below on a new layer:

Step 3

We will work on adding the leaves texture as hair in this step. Load the pink leaves stock image into Photoshop. Use the lasso tool with 40px feature to select the lower left part of the stock image, as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection to our document, use the free transform to re-size and warp the leaves as shown below:

Add the following adjustment layers as clipping masks to this leaves hair layer:

Levels

Curves

and here is the effect so far:

Step 4

Load the Nebula 1 and 2 stock images into Photoshop. We will copy and paste parts of those texture over to our documents, and set the copies layers’ blending mode to “Screen”:

Repeat the above process and copy a few more nebular texture, use the “Hard Light” layer blending mode for those extra textures:

Step 5

We’re almost done! For final touches, we can flatten the image and duplicate the background layer, apply the following Oil Paint Filter (you need to have CS6 or later) to the duplicated layer:

Add the following layer mask to this duplicated layer:

Add the following adjustment layers on top:

Curves

Vibrance

Layer mask on the vibrance adjustment layer:

and here is the final effect I have: (click to enlarge)

Here is an alternative version I have with different colours:

That’s it for this Photoshop tutorial! Hope you enjoy it and find it somehow useful. Drop me a comment if you have any questions. Till next time, have a great day!