Quick Tip: Create a Realistic Broken Glass Effect in Photoshop

Preview:

Click to enlarge

Step 1

The process behind this tutorial is very easy and quick. All we need is a background image and one of our shattered glass brushes. You can download the free sample if you’re not a member.

For a background image, I downloaded this beautiful panoramic shot and opened it in Photoshop.

Step 2

Reduce the saturation by going to Image>Adjustments>Vibrance. Enter a saturation value around -70 and +15 for vibrance.

Step 3

Just to add a nice detail to the scene, let’s write something with a sans serif font. I usedPirulen, which is a clean and crisp free font.

Font color is #56767d.

Step 4

In order to merge the text with the background, grab the eraser tool, select a grunge brushand eliminate some parts of the text. You need to rasterize the text first (right-click on the text layer thumbnail>Rasterize type). Use the eraser tool especially on the bottom area of the text, along the horizon.

Layer opacity is too high in my opinion. Reduce it to 40%. This is my result:

Step 5

At this point we can add the never-boring lens flare! Create a new layer and fill it with black. Then go to filter>Render>Lens flare.

Set the layer blending mode to screen to eliminate the black areas. Done!

Step 6

We can now create the broken glass effect. Download our shattered glass brushes, select a brush and click once on a new layer. Foreground color is black.

Note that you could obtain the same effect with a broken glass image, however using a Photoshop brush is easiest.

Step 7

To make the effect realistic, we need to blur the background area which is covered by the glass. From the layers window select all the layers except the one with the brush, and click alt+ctrl+E (option+cmd+E for Mac) to merge them into a new layer. Then apply the blur filter (Filter>Blur>Gaussian blur) with a radius around 3px.

Step 8

With the blurred layer still active, add a layer mask by pressing the apposite button at the bottom of the layers window.

Now you can use a black round brush to eliminate some areas from the blurred background. Basically with the layer masks you can use black brushes to eliminate areas, and white brushes to replace them, without ever losing pixels.

Step 9

After all the “broken area” has been deleted, the crisp original background will be visible and you’ll get a realistic broken glass effect:

Step 10

To finalize the work, just play with a couple of adjustment layers. Start by radically modifying the color combination with a gradient map layer (Layer>New adjustment layer>Gradient map). Select the default gradient going from purple (#6f156c) to green (#00601b) to orange (fd7c00). Set the layer blend mode to screen, with opacity around 70%.

Step 11

To make the style even more vintage, let’s play a bit with a color balance layer (Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Color Balance). I just modified the midtones until I was satisfied:

Finito!

Here is my final result! I hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial.