Create creepy skin peeling off effect in Photoshop

This tutorial will teach you how to create an effect like the skin would have peeled off.

01. First you need to have two pictures opened – a picture of a person (doesn’t have to be a face, can be any skin part) and cracks or paint peeling off the wall. When you have both pictures opened then drag the crack picture on the skin picture.

02. Then drag the the crack where you would want it to be on the skin. To make it smaller, go to Edit – Transform – Scale and make it smaller. Press Enter. Then it may be necessary to give it some sense of perspective. For that again go in the menu Edit – Transform – Distort and change the cracks perspective by pulling the edges of the selection. If you are satisfied with the results, press Enter.

03. Then go to Layers menu (Window – Layers if yours is not showing), click on your cracks layer and select the layer style Multiply. Now your crack is more transparent on the skin. Feel free to try our other layers styles, since they may be more suitable for your cracks. Then take the Eraser Tool and erase all the unnecessary parts of the crack.

04. Continue working with the Eraser Tool, erasing carefully around the edges and do not forget to erase on the parts that should not have any cracks on them, like the picture below has fingers that are not part of the cracked area. Use Ctrl + Z if something goes wrong and keep erasing til you are completely satified with the result.

05. Next lets give the cracks more suitable color. For that go in the menu Image – Adjustments – Color Balance and move the bars around til the crack color is with the same tones as the picture is. I, for exapmle, tried add the crack more warmer tone.

06. Now lets take the Burn Tool, set the Exposure relatively low, something like 25 – 30% so we’d avoid too strong results. With the burn tool go around the edges and add some shadow where it should be. I added some shadow around the fingers and brought the edges out.

If you are added all the neccessary shadows then you are done with your picture.