Photoshop Effects: Strolling Through The Inverted Forest
Photoshop Effects and Photo Effects at Photoshop Essentials.com
Written By Steve Patterson
In this Photoshop Effects tutorial, we're going to look at how to invert the colors in a photo to create interesting effects.
Most people would agree that taking a stroll through the forest can be very calming and peaceful, with all of its natural green and brown colors. But who says forests have to be green and brown? Certainly no one with a copy of Photoshop.
We can have any colors we want in our images, and in this tutorial, we'll see how easy it is to flip nature upside down and invert its colors, creating a strange, even mystical appearance.
Here's the photo I'll be starting with:
And here's the finished "inverted forest" effect:
Let's get started.
Step 1: Select Any People In The Image And Place Them On A Separate Layer
In my image, there's a young guy with his backpack strolling through the forest. I'm going to be inverting the colors in the forest, but I want him to keep his original colors, which means I'll need to select him and place him on his own layer. To do that, I'm going to grab my Lasso tool from the Tools palette and draw a selection around him:
If you're unsure of how to make a selection, be sure to check out our tutorial The Full Power Of Basic Selections to learn how to add to and subtract from selections as needed.
Once I have him selected, I'm going to use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac) to copy him onto his own layer above the Background layer:
Step 2: Duplicate The Background Layer
I'm going to click back on my Background layer in the Layers palette to select it, and then once again I'll use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac) to duplicate the Background layer. I now have three layers in my Layers palette:
