35 best photoshop tutorials created in 2021

• November 22nd, 2021
• Photoshop

This post is part of our “Best of the Year” series and is a compilation of the most outstanding Photoshop tutorials created throughout 2021. Learning Photoshop through tutorials is one of the most effective ways to acquire new skills and develop your designer abilities. By following these step-by-step guides, you’ll learn a variety of techniques while becoming more familiar with the tools available in Photoshop.

Included in this post are an impressive array of tutorials that cover everything from creating textures to text effects. Whether you’re a novice or an experienced Photoshop user, there’s something here for you. This diverse selection of tutorials is an excellent way to expand your skillset, and each one is guaranteed to teach you something new and valuable. By following these tutorials, you’ll be sure to gain valuable insights that will help you create better designs in the future.

1. How to Make a Perfectly Corrugated Cardboard Texture

Sometimes we spend so much time trying to figure out what right texture would apply to a design project that we have. Then there are those times that we think we found the right one but then learn that it doesn’t match the size or color that we’re looking for. Lucky for us, Photoshop has all the tools we need to make almost any texture we can think of, including corrugated cardboard textures! Here’s a quick tutorial on how you can create that perfect corrugated cardboard texture in Photoshop.

2. How to Create a Vintage Logo T-Shirt Design in Photoshop

Photoshop tutorial will show you how to easily create cool looking vintage logo designs by combining antique illustrations with some visually interesting text styles and layouts. This kind of artwork is really popular as T-shirt graphics, so I’ll show you how to set up your document at the appropriate size for a T-shirt design. To finish off the artwork, we’ll apply some vintage print effects and make use of my Washed and Worn textures to make the digital design look like a real old T-shirt print.

3. How to Create Viking Portrait Art in Photoshop

You will be learning how to create Viking portrait art in Photoshop using snow overlays and quick lighting techniques! Vikings have always captured artists’ imaginations, but thanks to popular Norse lore and culture being incorporated into things like comics and superhero movies, they are more popular than ever. 

4. Create “Rage Planet” Photo Manipulation in Photoshop

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create “Rage Planet” photo manipulation in Photoshop. This tutorial is suitable for intermediate skill Photoshop users.

5. How to Create Lettering Illustrations the Easy Way!

This popular art style combines a silhouette graphic and a quote that is distorted and manipulated to fit within the outline of the surrounding shape. Usually, illustrations like this would be created by hand with pen and paper, but it takes some artistic skills to be able to plan and craft the image with no ‘undo’ button! This digital technique makes use of ready-made graphics, fonts, and textures to achieve the hand-made look, but with the added benefit of being able to tweak and adjust the layout until it looks just right.

6. How to Create Custom Brushes to Render Fur in Adobe Photoshop

In this fur tutorial for Photoshop, we’ll create a small set of custom brushes from scratch and learn how to render animal fur with them. We’ll focus on rendering a fox tail in grayscale, using custom brushes and the Smudge Tool to create both soft and coarse fur, and using Blending Modes to add color and warmth to the rendered piece.

7. How to Make a Retro 90’s Photo Effect in Photoshop

Since the 90s are back in trend, many artists want to recreate that 90s look on their projects. Thanks to Photoshop, accomplishing that 90s look is achieveable. While some methods are time consuming, there are others that are quick like the one I will show you today. It will not only give you a professional result, but also the chance to change the parameters after doing the effect to use it as many times as you want without having to make the whole thing over again.

8. Create Surreal Underwater Scene in Photoshop – Featuring a “Fish-Head” Lady

In this Photoshop tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a surreal underwater scene featuring a woman with head of fish and boat. You’ll learn how to combine different stock images together using adjustment layers, masking and brushes, make an underwater environment, enhance color, create lighting effect and more.

9. Video Tutorial: Vivid Neon Chrome Text Effect in Photoshop

This ultra rad style uses the most intense RGB colours available to create the brightest, most fluorescent effect possible that smoothly transitions through a variety of hues. We’ll use Photoshop layer styles to create the foundation of the effect, then add the vibrant colours with a combination of gradient tools.

10. How to Make a Crystal Effect in Photoshop

How to make a quick and easy crystal texture Photoshop effect using nothing but a handful of Smart Filters! We’ll also be creating a dreamy pastel color grade to pair with a gold foil frame design.

11. How to Make a OpArt Text Effect in Photoshop

Back in the 50’s there was an artistic trend in the United States known as “Op Art”. This kind of art uses optical phenomena to produce abstract pictorial images and create a sensation of movement on two-dimensional surfaces.

12. Create “Drift in Space” Digital Art in Photoshop

In this Photoshop tutorial, I will show you the process of creating this “Drift in Space” Digital Art in Photoshop. This is an intermediate level difficulty tutorial and some steps can be tricky. 

13. How to Make Digital Camo Patterns in Photoshop

 All those camo patterns are comprised of random blobs and shapes, so this tutorial will focus on creating the more modern digital pattern styles that are made up of tiny pixel-like squares. Using a similar process, we can create disruptive digital camo patterns that can be regenerated with a random result every time. By modifying the colour scheme, we can even replicate modern-day military camouflage patterns such as the US Marines MARPAT camo, or the Canadian CADPAT.

14. How to Change Eye Color in Photoshop

Would you like to see how you’d look with eyes of a different color? In this tutorial I’ll show you how to change eye color in Photoshop. With my method, you’ll be able to make the eyes brighter, darker, and change their hue, no matter how bright or dark they currently are. You won’t only learn how to recolor the eyes drastically, but also how to enhance eye color in Photoshop, if this is your preference!

15. Melting Liquid RGB Text Effect in Photoshop

This effect is ideal for creating poster art or an album cover design with a retro-futuristic style. We’ll use a couple of simple tools within Photoshop to create the effect, then finish off the piece with textures to enhance the retro vibe.

16. How to Make a 3D Book Mockup in Photoshop

If you have a book cover design but the book isn’t printed yet, the only way to see how it’s going to look after printing is to use a book mockup. The more realistic it is, the better! In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to make a 3D book mockup using a photo and a couple of Photoshop tricks.

17. How to Create Rainy Night Scene in Photoshop

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a rainy night scene in Photoshop, with a dark & mysterious mood. The scene is comprised of a Japanese girl wearing kimono carrying a umbrella, standing outside in a restaurant, waiting for something or someone.

18. Video Tutorial: How to Create a Vintage Pin-Up Effect in Adobe Photoshop

In today’s Adobe Photoshop tutorial I’m going to take you through the process of creating a WW2 aircraft ‘nose art’ inspired image, featuring the classic ‘girl-riding-a-bomb’ style pin-up.

19. How to Make a Graffiti Text Effect With Photoshop Layer Styles

In this tutorial, I will show you how to create a graffiti text effect in Photoshop. We will use layer styles and the “Blend If” function from the blending options.

20. Making 80’s Style Chrome Text Effect In Photoshop

In this tutorial, you will learn how to make this 80’s Style Chrome Text Effect in Photoshop.

21. How to Create a Double Light Effect in Photoshop

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a double light effect in Photoshop. I’ll explain everything in so much detail that everyone can create the effect, even those who have just opened Photoshop for the first time.

22. Create “Cold Winter Night” Text Effect in Photoshop

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to create this interesting cold winter night text effect in Photoshop. We will go through some texturing techniques, as well as an interesting method of creating break-apart effect. We will also use image adjustment layers to fine-tune the final effect.

23. How to Apply Texture to Text in Photoshop

Want to learn how to apply texture to text in Photoshop? In this tutorial, we’ll walk through how to fill text with texture, Photoshop style. These techniques would apply to almost any font, as well as shapes. So grab your favorite text and let’s start designing.

24. How to Create a Photoshop Peeling Sticker Text Effect

This quick tip tutorial will teach you how to create a sticker peeling effect mockup, using simple steps to transform text into a realistic sticker effect using Adobe Photoshop. The effects used to achieve this Photoshop sticker are Smart Objects, Transform, Layer Styles, and Blending Options.

25. How to Create an Easy Digital Glitch Text Effect in Adobe Photoshop

This tutorial will show you how to use Photoshop’s layer styles, filters, and layer masks to create a quick and easy digital glitch text effect.

26. Puppet Warp Tool in Photoshop – A Beginner’s Guide

In this Photoshop tutorial, I will demonstrate one of the powerful tools you can use for object distortion – the Puppet Warp Tool.

27. How to Create a Melting Portrait Photo Effect Manipulation in Photoshop

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a melting effect in Photoshop. First, we’ll add a curtain background and retouch the model. After that, we’ll build a melting candle on top of the model’s head and some wax around his body. We’ll refine several details, paint the light effect, and use an adjustment layer to enhance the final melting face painting.

28. How to Create a Living Galaxy Photo Effect in Adobe Photoshop

Creating stars, galaxies, and nebulas requires a unique set of techniques, and in this tutorial, we are going to be taking a quick look at a slew of different effects, ultimately creating a being made of the stars themselves!

29. Video Tutorial: How to Make It Rain in Photoshop

In today’s video tutorial we’re going to use the power of Photoshop to change the weather by making it rain within a photograph. We’ll incorporate various tools and filters to not only create a downpour of raindrops, but also make adjustments to the image to give the appearance of a wet surface with reflections of the surrounding environment. This effect works best with street images set at night because the darker backdrop helps make the raindrops visible, and the hard asphalt roads and pavements can be adjusted to create realistic puddles.

30. Design an Interesting Cloud Text Effect in Photoshop

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to Design an Interesting Cloud Text Effect in 3 Easy Steps in Photoshop. We will mainly use custom brushsets and utilise brush options to achieve this text effect. 

31. How to Make a Leather Texture in Photoshop

In the following steps we will demonstrate how to create a leather texture in Photoshop. Using multiple filters and lighting effects, you will learn how to make a leather texture in Photoshop in just a few minutes.

32. Create “City in Flame” Digital Montage in Photoshop

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I used to create this “City in Flame” Digital Montage in Photoshop. We will mix several objects such as city buildings, solider, vintage car, plane and flame in order to the achieve the final result.

33. How to Create a 3D Anaglyph Effect in Photoshop

You can create an easy 3D anaglyph effect in this Photoshop tutorial showing you how to make anaglyph pictures. We will show you how to create this 3D photo effect in less than 60 seconds with this anaglyph tutorial.

34. How to Draw Realistic Lips Step by Step In Photoshop

35. Torn Paper Collage Effect in Photoshop

In the tutorial It will show you how to create a series of surreal ripped paper collaging effects that give the appearance of an image being ripped away to reveal a different image underneath. We’ll use a variety of fundamental tools and techniques, such as layer masks and adjustment layers, which makes this tutorial perfect for Photoshop beginners.