Create a Pop Art Style Poster with Urban City Background in Photoshop

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In this tutorial, I will show you the process I used to create this  Pop Art Style Poster with urban city background in Photoshop by using a combination of Photoshop Filter effects. Again this effect is discovered by accident and I thought I can share it with you guys :)

Along the way, we will be using a lot of filter effects,  masking technique, layer blending options, a number of selection techniques including the use of edge refining and magic wand. The steps are quite simple for this tutorial, however the end result looks good in my opinion.  Have a try!

Here is a preview of my final image for this tutorial:

Black and White version:

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Firstly let’s download this wonderful model image and load it into Photoshop. Duplicate the background layer once and go to Filter > Artistic > Cutout and apply the following settings:

Name this duplicated layer as “cut out” and change the blending mode of it to “Hard Light”. Then make another duplication of this “cut out” layer and you will have the following effect:

Now you will see the the bottom part of the photo is completely black, which is not very nice in my opinion. To reveal the original image, we can add a vector mask to each “cut out” layer and grab a big soft eraser to erase the portion as shown below:

And you will see the original texture come back:

Step 2

Go back to the background layer and make another duplication of it. Drag the duplicated layer on top of all previous layer and go to Filter > Sketch > Chrome and apply the following settings:

Name this duplicated layer as “chrome” and change the layer blending mode to “soft light”. Then duplicate the “chrome” once more and you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Now we can add a light source (I chose from the top right) for this image so later on we can have some dynamic light effect. To do this, go back to the background layer and duplicate it once more. Drag the duplicate layer above all other layers, go to Filter > Noise > Median and apply the following settings:

Rename this layer as “Median” and add a vector mask to it, grab a big soft eraser and erase the portion as shown below:

And you will have the folloiwng effect so far:

Step 4

Now we can add a urban city background to the image. Download a copy of this city image and load it into Photoshop. Drag the entire image onto our canvas and resize until it covers the whole canvas.

On this newly created layer, apply the following adjustments:

Black and White

Then apply the following filters:

Halftone Pattern

Box Blur

Name this layer as “city” and you will have the following effect as a result:

Step 5

Go back to the background layer, grab the Magic Wand tool and make a selection of the white area:

Hit Ctrl + Alt + R and bring up the Refine Edge tool, apply the following settings:

Hit Ctrl + Shift + I and inverse the selection, go back to the “city” layer and go to Edit > Clear and you will have see the model image pop out:

Step 6

Duplicate the “city” layer once and on the duplicated layer, go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur and apply the following settings:

Change the blending mode the duplicated layer to “Screen” and you will have the following effect:

Make a duplicate of this duplicate layer, and change the layer blending mode to “color burn”. You will have the following effect:

Step 7

Now the upper portion of the image seems a bit empty and we can add a bit of cloud texture to it. So download a copy of this cloud brushset and simply create a new layer and paint some cloud over it:

Hint: to create a light source on the cloud, simply paint over the same position a few times. (In this case, it’s top right corner)

Step 8

To finalise the image, add two new adjustment layers as shown below:

Colour Balance

Shadow

Midtones

Curves

And you will have the following effect:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! You can of course add some of your own texture or filter effect and see what the end results are!

Here is my final image for this tutorial: (I slightly adjusted the colour balance and ) – Click to enlarge:

Black and White version:

Hope you enjoy this tutorial, drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!