Perhaps one of the most satisfying gratifications of designing with Photoshop is the ability to create the impossible—making unrealistic things look possible. Here we’ll combine dancers with splashes to create a unique “splash dance.” 1 [WHITE BACKGROUNDS WORK BEST] Like many techniques in Photoshop, this one will be easier if the photo you choose is on a white background. We’ve chosen this istockphoto.com image of a leaping dancer. (Toward the end of the tutorial we’ll look at what’s involved if the background isn’t white.) 2 [FIND SOME SPLASH PHOTOS] A quick search of “splashes” and “paint splashes” on istockphoto.com provides a bunch of nice splashes. We chose this one of red paint because it gave a good solid surface to work with, even though the color isn’t right. (See the variation at the end for working with water splashes.) 3 [DRAG-AND-DROP] Drag-and-drop the splash photo onto the photo of the dancer. (For the purpose of illustration only, we added a stroke to the splash layer so it’s easy to see here; but the stroke’s not necessary).

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