original image

made S-curve, hue and saturation, and levels adjustments

created outline of face, and cloned in the apple. changed the angle of the cloning in the clone stamp control dynamics (i think thats what its called) window at approximately 20 degrees

image of model from DA... you can find this stock in the links on the main entry page

created 2 copies, COMPLETELY DESATURATED, set one to hard light (about 80%) and the other to overlay (about 50%), and masked out accordingly.

copied and pasted and masked out the eyes and teeth

added knife

added ripples around the skin using dodge and burn for the knife entry wound, and added a shadow to the apple that the knife is casting. also added a blur to the handle to give the feel of depth, but failed miserably... ill just blame it on fog that was on my lens when i took the shot. ^_^

added a levels adjustment layer on the knife, inverting the mask, and painted in where the blade and bottom bolt is for proper lighting

made color adjustment by creating a new layer of all the layers i think.. lol (option+command+ctrl+E) also, with the entire layer in tact as one now, i used the warp tool to make the chin blend better with the apple.

added shadow onto thumb.

created another layer like in step 10 and added a highpass filter at about 3 pxls and set to hard light (this makes the image a lot sharper and brings out detail. you can get a similar effect by using the UNSHARP MASK filter but i prefer this better. this is usually really good for retouching hair, but thats another project, not this one, so lets stay on topic, shal we? hehe)

created ANOTHER one of those layers, put some adjustments to it. i think it was some sort of gaussian blur with an overlay set to around 20% i think.. not sure. also, did some fixing up, like got the apple part away from his eye... missed that earlier.

took a bite outta his butt.. or something. i used the pen tool for this, then made the selection and cloned in the blue from the background.

fixed the white around his nose... also added a vignette around the edges.. just a tip, when done right, an vignette can make an images impact much greater with this un-noticed subtle effect. it makes the image better on a sub-conscious level. always a little secret to know. doesn't mean it should be used on ALL images though, there are some that can do without it ;).

i created this vignette by changing the feather radius on my rectangle marquee tool to 100 px, inverted my selection and filled with black. i repeated this process on the same layer only with 50 px feather radius, then brought the opacity to around 60%

added a lil reflection in my knifey. oh wait, that was done in the last step... :-s

added a little glare to the blade.

added some lighting effects on the apple. as you know, if the light is that strong on the blade, and on the apple, some HAS to reflect off the blade onto the apple, so i put my little 'flare' into it. in the last layer.

in the final image, i made a final hue and saturation adjustment layer colorized it and set it to a reddish blue (sort of) and set the blending mode to screen. i ended up getting the exact vintage overexposed, washed out, yet high contrast effect i was hoping for the whole time. and on ACCIDENT!!! I thought i was putting the light glare on the apple the screen blending mode, and instead added it to the hue and saturation adjustment layer... thank god! (this result was one of those awesome accidents that actually improves the image when you least expect it. accidents in some cases are good. lol)