Creating a Building Destruction Photo Manipulation in Photoshop

In this photo-manipulation tutorial we’ll destroy a beautiful theater. Usually such image manipulations take a lot of time but this is a quick one. This is a simple (yet stunning) picture edit but you might also wanna add a couple of orbiting stars to give it an apocalypse feel.

Remember I promised in my earlier tutorial that photo manipulation tutorials will soon be published. This is the first of those photomanipulations and there are many more to come. I greatly appreciate your feedback on this post, this is my first photo-manip.

Initial image

This was the image from where we started this photo-manipulation. I saw this image on MIT‘s website and immediately decided to make this.

Background

Now we need some clouds in the background. For that I grabbed a wallpaper I had in my PC you can use clouds from any image, there’s a lot of stock out there.

Step 1 – Extraction

So lets start with the Lasso Tool and cut the theater building from the image. Remove the background.

Step 2 – Toning

When we done with the cutting off the theater, place it on a new layer and adjust the curves by striking Ctrl+M or Go to Image > Adjustment > Curves. Set the channel to the Red and put these values.

Here we set the channel to the RGB and put the values.

Here we set the channel to the Blue and put the values.

Here we done with the toning of the background

Step 3 – Crop

Now I crop the specific area of the background and move it to the new layer.

Step 4 – Selection

Here return to the Lasso Tool and extract the clouds. We only need the clouds.

Here we have cut off the excessive part which was disturbing the effect of the scene and turn it’s Layer Style to the Hard Light. Now put this layer on background

After some copy-pasting, here’s the final background.

Step 5 – Water Effect

Next step is creating a water effect. For that, I selected the whole background and copied it on a new layer and using Transform pressed it down and Flipped it Vertically by pressing the left click.

Step 6 – Effect

Now I’m making the water effect more realistic by adding Motion Blur Filter > Blur > Motion Blur on that background layer which we transformed previously.

Step 7 – Realism

Here we Select the Blur Tool and rub on the edges of the water effect layer, this will make the effect more realistic.

Step 8 – Applying Layer Mode

Here, I set the theater and set the mode to multiply.

Step 9 – Adding the Aura

To add a little concept, we copy the theater into a New Layer and add Motion Blur in it. Go to the Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. Here we change the angle of the Blur effect.

Step 10 – Flip it

Here I scaled it down by pressing the Ctrl+T and Flipped it Vertically in the right click option menu.

Step 11 – Break-up

Now come the real deal. I randomly made selections for making cracks. I hide all the other layers and that is why you are seeing the building without it’s color toning. Once the background images will be displayed, the colors will get back to normal. The cracks should not look smooth so the selection must NOT contain any sort of feather.

Here we are done with cracks.

Step 12 – Finishing Touch

Now what’s left? One thing, the cracks do not look as real as they should. The missing element is shadow. The broken parts should be making shadows. We can of course use Drop Shadow layer style for making shadows but I used Brush Tool to create shadows. Brush tool provides unlimited customization capabilities that is why I recommend you to use customized brush over automated drop shadows. You can see the result of shadows in the final result below.

Final Result

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