There are two main reasons I decided I wanted to write this tutorial. Number one , I had a friend of mine request it, but the other reason was because I wanted to explain my thinking for the choices I made in it. I've received a lot of feedback from people most of it positive. The construcive criticism I've received though from quite a few is that they like it, but feel the lyrics divide the wp too much and that the other side doesn't feel like it fits because of the texture. So I'll try to explain my reasoning as I go on. All the screencaps were taken by me.

1. The first step is to create a blank document, in this case 1024x768. File>New, and then a menu will pop up. On that menu should be a drop-down menu called "presets" click it and go down until you see 1024x768.

2. Next you will need this image from Kristen-B.net and this image. And then place the first image in the 1024x768 document like below. It's not absolutely important that you erase around the edges like I did, but the reason I did this was so that the original picture edges don't end up showing through later on. I choose to use the first image rather than another screencap also, because I really liked the way she was laying on the bed in this image, and couldn't find an actual screenshot that I liked of Veronica just laying there.

3. After this, erase around Veronica's head in the second image (the screencap) from above. Use a soft eraser though, so it will blend better. I also decided to leave a small amout of the dress below the lace on the Veronica's dress in the screenshot, to help make the manip more believeable. After you have done this, place the head over the head of the other image. You will have to make sure the head is shrunk down to the proper size, to create correct proportions.

4. You'll probably notice that the skintones in the screenshot and in the photo don't match, so that'll have to be fixed so people won't be able to see that this is a manip. The fix in this case is really easy. Go to Image>Adjustments>Auto Levels. Now they are pretty close. This doesn't always work when doing manips, so alternate ways are Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Curves, or Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Brightness/Contrast, and then make your adjustments from there. I tend to make adjustments layers (rather than image>adjustments) when working with curves and brightness/contrast because then you can go back and change the adjustments later if you need too, which you can't do when doing Image>Adjustments, because it creates the adjustments on a new layer, rather than making them to the layer the images is on. If this is confusing (which it probably is with the way I'm explaining, try each way, you can always undo it). I also added a background color in this step. So you now have this.

5. Next I wanted to start getting rid of some of the graineness of the screencap. So I took the blur tool at 22% and this fixed most of it. Some of the features sometimes get a little too blurry though, so to fix this, use the sharpen tool. I also wanted to add tears to the image. To do this I used the burn tool with a soft 10px brush. Have the range set to midtones, and the exposure at 33%, and then just draw in the tears. Be sure to follow the contours of the face, to make it realistic. Then I followed this up with filters>blur>gaussian blur>3.0 then edit>fade gaussian blur>hard light. I do this with a lot of my art, because I like the effect it has on images. It makes them softer.

6. Now it's time to start adding some textures. The first one I used is this from Immortal-Memories.net. I flipped this texture 180 degrees, set the opacity to 59% and then used a soft brush eraser to erase the texture that covered Veronica. Then I went to Select>All (Ctrl + A), Edit>Copy Merged, Edit>Paste (Ctrl + V). This will give you a layer with everything merged together without actually getting rid of the other layers. What I mean is you could go to Layer>Merge Visible or Flatten Image, but this makes all your layers into one and you can't go back later and edit them. This way you still have all the original layers but one with everything merged as well. The disadvantage to this is that it makes files larger in size (in terms of memory). Then go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur 2.0, Edit>Fade>Soft Light. It makes Veronica's face a little too blurry, so I took an eraser and erased her eyes, nostrils and mouth from this layer, so the original ones show through. Then I right clicked on this layer, and clicked duplicate layer. A menu will pop up, where it says "Document" click that drop-down and click "New". This will create a new document with this layer only. Then double click the top color (foreground) on your tool window, and a color menu will pop up. At the bottom where the # symbol is type 172640. Then click the color below the foreground color and make that white. Then Layers>New Adjustment Layer>Gradient, and click ok. Then set the opacity of this layer to 66% (another advantage to adjustment layers is being able to change the opacity whenever). Then Select>All, Edit>Copy Merged>. Go back to the original document Edit>Paste and then this will be your new top layer.

7. Now it's time to place in these three screencaps (1, 2, 3). Again I used a soft eraser and erased around Veronica. I set the opacity on each to 30%. Then I placed this texture, again from Immortal-Memories.net, flipped it horizontally, set it to hard light, made the opacity 70%, and erased it from the rest of the wall, so that it was only covering the screencaps. I did all this because I wanted it to seem that Veronica was thinking about this stuff, and that it seemed blurry and almost that maybe it didn't happen to her, and was just a dream. So I wanted it to seem seperate from the main image of her that's more clear and definitely there.

8. Next select>all, edit>copy merged, edit>paster, filters>blur>gaussian blur>2.0 then edit>fade gaussian blur>soft light. I used an eraser with a 50% opacity and then erased some of the areas that were too dark. Then repeated the first part again, but this time erased everything (with an eraser at 100% opactity) but the images on the right side this time, to make them darker. Then the final step was to add the text. The lyrics come from Pink's song A Long Way to Happy. I thought it fit perfectly and again wanted to seperate Veronica from her thoughts again helping to push my idea. Some people said the text was too much, but I felt it did what I needed. The final result is this!!!