The Giant Coke – Surreal manipulation Tutorial

This is an intermediate difficulty tutorial in which we will see how to create a surrealistic photomanipulation using stock photos and a 3D render. As always the first thing we will create is the background. Creating a background in Photoshop using stock photos is easy. We will use the Gradient Tool (G) to mix the photos.

I created the background with 4 photos downloaded from Unsplash, but you can use as many photos as you want. Use linear gradients and other tools like the Brush Tool (B) to improve the blending between the photos.

I like extreme dimensional contrasts so I used a giant can of coke, but it could be any everyday object. To make it a bit more realistic I erased the bottom with a rather hard brush (80-90%) and in an irregular way, i.e. not in a straight line. With that we get the feeling that the object is semi-buried.

Now, to integrate the can into our background realistically we have to create some light and shading effects. You can use any technique or paint them by hand. I have used layer styles and painted some shadows by hand with a soft brush.

For the layer styles I used a Gradient Overlay to get the light effect of the top of the can and a Color Overlay to get the color change. The shadows on the floor I painted with a soft brush and low Opacity.

I have put a very small size person on top of the can to create the contrast. It could also be left without putting anything if that is what you are looking for. My initial idea was to create a tin converted into a house, but I abandoned the project. I’ll let you do it if you want

For more details see the video version and don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel to receive my tutorials. Below you can see the final result of the photomanipulation after some adjustments that I show in the video version.