I am a little hesitant about labeling this as a tutorial as there are other sites that cover this method.  It would perhaps be more appropriate to describe this as following me along my creative processing of an image.  Basically, after processing several images from a recent model shoot and getting the usual images out the door, I then moved to do something a little bit different with some of the other images.

With this image, the model Zan J has an awesome serious look, but an even better smile.  I want to play on that and bring in some vivid colors and show some movement and dynamics with the imagery.  To follow along, you will need Adobe Photoshop, Nik Color Efex 3.0, and a free account with SXC.

As always, I do not pretend to know everything in Photoshop.  I am sure there are always better ways and possibly easy ways to accomplish these effects.  I am merely working as I know how.

Here is the image that I started with:

First, I wanted to wash out the image and give the contrast a bit of a blast.  With the image in CS3, I then used Nik Color Efex bleach bypass filter.  The filter processes the effect and then places the results in a new layer on top of the photo layer, offering non-destructive editing.  From there, promote the bleach bypass layer into a new layer and change the blending mode to Hard Light.

Using a large and soft eraser brush, trim out the center of the newest layer.  What this will do is further wash out the edges.  Here is the worth:

Next, I wanted to apply a color gradient to the image.  Using the settings

Create a gradient layer above the current layers and change the blending mode to overlay.  To allow the model to stand out more, I added a layer mask to the gradient layer and masked out the model.

To give the image a little bit more strength in terms of color, I added a solid color adjustment layer. I selected a dark red (Hex # 492222) and then changed the layer blending mode to Soft Light and dropped opacity down to 75%.

With the image pretty much where I want it, now it is time to add in a few effects.  Following the lead from a tutorial on PSDTuts.com, I snagged some brushes from Brusheezy, namely these.  I then used them, with foreground color set to white, on top of the model in a new layer.  From there, I applied a layer style of outer glow using the following settings

The brushes are nice, but I feel that they interfered with the model too much and she should be the focus, not solely the effects.  So I masked out the model.

Next, I grabbed some images from SXC, namely this image, and applied it in a new layer on top of the recently added brush layer.  I changed the blending mode to screen.  After some rotating of the image to get it lined up the way that I wanted it to be lined up, I duplicated the layer and rotated it again.

Next, I added another image from SXC, namely this image, above the most recent abstract images.  I set the blending mode to soft light.  I brought a copy of just the model above this most recent layer and set the blending mode to Soft Light and also dropping the opacity down to 60%.

Again, this was not really meant to be a tutorial as it was to explain some of the processing.  I get a lot of questions about how I process certain images and want to explain images a little more here on this site.

Hit me up with questions.