Hello all, today I am going to show you how to take a normal portrait and turn it  into a breathtaking surreal photo. The image we will be using today has been taken from this deviantart account. This tutorial would be great for beginners learning how to fully take control over Photoshop’s many features. To open larger photos in this tutorial, just click on the smaller photo. You can use this photo, or select one of your own. Lets Begin.

Step 1:

Open your image and make sure the layer is a locked background. If you are unsure how to do this, right click on the layer and press ‘Flatten’.

Step 2:

Now we would be adding a shadow around the image where intense light is present; we want the picture to have a dark fantasy look, so we need to remove excess light and add shadows. Use the paint brush and select the foreground color as black. Paint the white area in a smooth fashion so it blends in with the picture to give it a more natural look.

Step 3:
As you can see, the final image has sharp and attractive eyes with good shine and darkness altogether, with emphasis on the iris. We will be using the dodge tool under highlight range and add shine to iris by painting a semicircle around the pupil and use the burn tool under midtones range and add darkness to the pupil and the outer lining of the iris.

Step 4:

Now we will be changing the color of the image using Ctrl+B to alter the color balance of the picture. Change the slider according to your picture.

After adding the color, darken some more areas like so.

Step 5:

Now we will be adding eye shadow and makeup to the model. For this, we need to create a new layer and paint over the eye using color of your choice, I will be using a slightly darker red. Now use a Gaussian blur to blur it and set the mode of the layer to overlay.

Step 6:

Now we will be adding some extra elements to give the image more of a fantsy look. I am adding circles above the eyebrow in a dark red color.

Add inner shadow to the circled by using blending options of the layer (double click the layer).

Step 7:

Now to finish the photo, add some shadows and highlights where needed and finish it off by adding some text.

Voila! Enjoy your surreal portrait.