Create An Exploding Cherry

Create an exploding cherry

Open up the cherry picture. We want a copy of the cherry to manipulate, you can use the pen tool to outline it, or the quick selection tool.

Step 2

Make a path around the edge of the cherry.

Step 3

Right click the path to make it a selection from the drop down menu. Leave the feather radius at 0px. Press Cmd+shift+J to cut and paste it into it’s own layer. Do that twice to make two copies, then hide the first copy.

Step 4

Open the cracked texture picture. Drag it onto the canvas. Press Cmd+T to activate free transform, resize it to fit just over the cherry.

Step 5

Lower the opacity of the texture to 50%. Select the Magic Wand tool (W) set it’s tolerance to 53, Point Sample, and tick Contiguous in the Options bar. Click on one of the sections the select it.

Step 6

Click on the cherry’s layer that was cut out earlier. Press Cmd+Shift+J to cut and paste that selected area onto its own layer.

Step 7

Click back to the texture layer , use the Magic Wand tool and select another area, click on the cherry’s layer, then cut and paste that section into a layer.

Step 8

Use this process to get the entire right and left sides of the cherry. Leave the top and bottom untouched.

Step 9

There should be multiple layers from each crack. Select all the cracked layers by shift clicking the first one an the last one, then press Cmd+G to group them together into a folder. Don’t merge the layers.

Step 10

Chose the move tool, and turn on Auto-Select and set to Layer, in the options bar. Hide layer 1 and the texture, click and drag the cracked parts to the right.

Step 11

Reveal Layer 1 and use the Eraser tool, and remove the in between areas that were left after cutting out the sections.

Step 12

Select layer 1 (the original cherry). Press Cmd+L to open the levels menu, drag the middle marker to the right, frm 1.00 to 0.60. This darkens the area behind the cracks.

Step 13

To get more broken pieces click on the Group and press Cmd+J. Select the move too, un-tick Auto-Select, and then move the group.

Step 14

Turn Auto-Select back on in the options bar for the move tool. Erase parts of the pieces so that they different from before.

Step 15

Click on the second groups’ layer and go to Edit, Free Transform. Rotate the pieces slightly, move the entire group next to the other pieces.

Step 16

Use the Move tool and make sure the Auto-Select is choosen, and arrange the pieces. Use the eraser tool to make the second group look different if there’s obvious repeating pieces.

Step 17

For even more pieces duplicate the second group, use the Eraser tool to make the pieces even smaller and less like the previous group. Rotate the group.

Step 18

Open the firs group, double-click on one of the layers inside the get the Layer Style menu. Add a drop shadow using dark red (#5d0a08) for its color. Set the size to 2px and Distance to 0px.

Step 19

Right click on the layer and select Copy Layer Style. Apply it to all the layers in the group by shift-clicking on the first layer and last layer, right-click and select Paste Layer Style. Do this to all groups

Step 20

Apply a levels adjustment layer from the option at the bottom of the layers palette. Put the levels adjustment above the 3^rd group and go to Layer, Creating Clipping Mask.

Step 21

In the Levels Adjustment slide the middle marker to the right to 0.75. Slide the white marker under Output Levels to 210.

Step 22

For each group go to Filter, Covert for Smart Filters.

Step 23

To blur the pieces like they are moving, go to Fliter, Blur, Motion Blur. Set the distance to 20px and angle to 13. Apply another motion blur to all the groups, changing the distances.

Step 24

Create a new layer and use the brush tool to paint a white strip. Go to Edit, Free Transform and squash it to make it look like its moving.

Step 25

Apply an Outer glow layer style, set it’s color to black. Change the size to 70px and Opacity to 100%. Use the eraser to reshape and fix it, if needed.

Step 26

Select the smudge tool and set it to 60% and turn on Sample all layers. Click on the normal cherry layer and push the edgaes inwards where the white dash was.