How to Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation in Procreate

Today we are going to have some fun with Procreate and create a surreal photo manipulation. We will use tools and features in Procreate that may be advanced. But don’t worry, we will guide you through the process. In this tutorial, we will be manipulating a few photos like a butterfly flat lay photo and wedding bouquet photo. We have thousands of stock photos you can use.

Please note: we are using the latest version of Procreate 5X. If you do not see a feature mentioned below, make sure your Procreate is up-to-date.

Step 1 - Download your Photos

For the surreal photo, you will need to download all the photos you want to use to your iPad. You can use as many photos as you want for this process. When compositing, think about what will be your main subject (focal point), background, and additional element/s to bring it all together.

For this tutorial, we will use our two photos, as well as a sunset with clouds and hair salon photo.

Once the photos have been downloaded to your iPad, remember where you saved them (Files/Photos). This will be useful when you import the photos into Procreate.

Step 2 - Main Editing

For our main editing, we are going to focus on the woman and bouquet of flowers. These two photos make up our main subject (focal point) so most of the editing and manipulation will be here.

Import your photos

Start by importing your photos. To do this go to the “Actions” panel, tap on the wrench icon then tap on “Add”. From the list select where your photos are saved on your iPad. After you import your photos, position, scale, and rotate as needed.

Edit the woman photo

Next, we are going to select our woman photo. To do this open the layers panel (stacked square icon) at the top right and tap on the layer. Using the eraser brush we are going to erase the background from around the woman. We have selected and used the Monoline brush.

Next, once again go to the “Actions” panel and tap on the magic wand icon. Select “Hue, Saturation, Brightness”. Set the saturation to “None” and darken the photo by lowering the Brightness to 44%.

Duplicate layers

Go back to the “Layers” panel and duplicate the two layers. We will only work on the copies for now and leave the originals if we need a clean copy again. We have a tutorial on how to duplicate in Procreate if you need help.

Color adjustment

Select the copy of the bouquet of flowers and go to the “Adjustments” panel. Now select “Hue, Saturation, Brightness”. We need the bouquet to have good contrast. You can choose to change the color but it’s not needed.

Combining photos

With the next step, we are going to manipulate the woman and bouquet photos to combine them. First, we need to move the bouquet photo to the top of our layers and the woman photo below it. Using the blend modes in Procreate we are going to change the blend on the bouquet from “Normal” to “Lighter Color”.

Select the woman layer. Next, use the eraser brush to remove any white spaces left around the hair and shoulders. Once you are done cleaning it up you can merge the two layers.

Clean up around flowers

In this section, we are going to clean up the headpiece by removing the background from the bouquet of flowers. Go to the selection tool at the top that looks like a ribbon S shape. Now, select “Freehand” and trace around the flowers and woman’s shoulders. Try to get your selection as close to the edges as possible to have a clean cut.

Next, tap on “Copy & Paste”. In your “Layers” panel you will see a copy of your selection.

Add the face

We need to add the face back to finish off our focal point. Duplicate the original woman photo again and move it to the top of your layers. Using the eraser brush all we are going to do is erase around the face. We want to bring the eyes back. We also want clean up the blend mode that affected the mouth, chin, and neck.

Once you are done you can merge the face layer down. You can also delete the original layers to keep things tidy.

Step 3 - Add Final Details

We are going to add the final details to our surreal photo. We will go ahead and import our other photos like the butterfly flat lay and clouds photo. Move the clouds photo to the bottom of all of your layers. Add a “Hue, Saturation, Brightness” adjustment layer. The clouds are just a filler for our background so feel free to make adjustments where needed.

Next, use the “Freehand” selection tool again. Crop out our butterfly, using the same method as before. Then place the butterfly over the woman’s mouth. We are also going to adjust the “Hue, Saturation, Brightness” on the butterfly so it’s not too vivid.

You can leave your surreal photo as is with color. I’m going to use a “Hue, Saturation, Brightness” layer to make the headpiece greyscale. This is completely optional and can be adjusted however you like.

Well done on creating a surreal photo using these photo manipulating steps in Procreate. Next up, check out our guides on how to create 3D typography, and how to draw hair in Procreate.