Surrealist art is usually an amalgamation of countless different art tropes and usually reflects an artist’s active and multifarious mind-process, combining fantasy, dreams and various elements of danger in one painting or drawing. So in this post we present 30 surreal illustration photoshop tutorials. Each tutorial is well-written and will teach you how to create surreal illustrations.

How to Create a Surreal Scene of Flying Bombs on Fire

In this tutorial, we’ll make a scene with flaming bombs pouring from the sky. This tut is made to show some down and dirty Photoshop tricks that beginners can quickly pick up.

Create a Mysterious and Eerie Surreal Image in Photoshop

In this tutorial, we will learn how to create an eerie depiction of a dream through photo-manipulation. We are going to learn how to create a seamless surreal image of a mysterious window-headed man in a haunting, desolate road. We are going to learn the process of creating depth of field using a few Blur tools. We will learn how to create light and darkness to make the background look seamless. We are going to learn how to use textures and give life to our image, and we are going to learn how to create a moody, black and white tone using a few adjustment layers.

How to Create a Surreal Traveling House Photo Manipulation in Photoshop

Create a fantasy photo manipulation of a floating house. This Photoshop tutorial will show you how to combine photos seamlessly with little effort to create this out-of-the-world image. You’ll also learn how to give your house an uprooted look and enhance the lighting of the image for a grungy mystical look.

Create a Surreal Vintage Futuristic Design with Photoshop

How to create a striking vintage-style design with awesome “wear and tear” effects that will reinforce the theme we are aiming to accomplish. We will make a star-filled background, create quick and easy nebulas using stock photos, make light streaks from scratch, and all sorts of other goodies.

Surreal Train Cabin Photo Manipulation with Photoshop

In this Adobe Photoshop tutorial, we are going to create a simple but effective photo manipulation that blends different images together to create a bold and surreal scene. This tutorial covers how to add realistic blood and shadows, easy-to-use techniques to blend images together, and applying image adjustments automatically using a Photoshop action.

Create a Surreal Upside Down Mountain Painting in Photoshop

In this tutorial we will demonstrate how to create a surreal upside down mountain illustration using digital painting techniques in Photoshop.

Make a Stunning Black & White Falling Scene in Photoshop

You will learn how to cut out body parts, add rain to a composition, use Gradient Map adjustment layers and other techniques that are useful in performing artistic photo manipulations.

Surrealistic Room Photo Manipulation

In this tutorial, we will be creating a surrealistic room with realistic water as its floor, real clouds as its wallpaper with a clock on the wall and a boat on the water floor. We will learn a lot of technical aspects like visualizing and creating a perspective using the ruler and the transform tools especially the distort tool, creating realistic waves using the brush tool and two wave brush sets, using brush textures and apply it to the walls to make them realistic.

How To Create Dark Surreal Photo Manipulation

You will learn how to create a dark surreal scene using few Photoshop techniques and a lot of stock images. Following this tutorial, you will learn how to add a dark unsubstantial effect to your image. We will start this tutorial with Cinema4D, and then we will use a lot of photo manipulation techniques, like blending modes, cloning and we will work with colors and filters. So let’s start to learn new techniques.

Photo Manipulate a Surreal Space-Age Landscape

Learn how to combine various photographic elements into a cohesive, surreal space-age scene. You will learn how to work with lighting, blending options, and adjustment layers.

Create a Cosmic-Inspired Dreamy Scene in Photoshop

In this tutorial you will learn how to use stock photography, 3d elements, and various techniques to create a cosmic-inspired dreamy scene in Photoshop.

Create a Surreal Turtle Image

This tutorial shows the creation of one of my images. It shows how I adjust lighting and colours in my images to create this surrealistic turtle. Hopefully, you’ll be able to transfer these methods to your own work.

Create Surreal Environment Inspired by the “Inception” Movie in Photoshop

In this tutorial, We`ll learn to create this Surreal/Sci-fi Environment Inspired by the “Inception” Movie in Photoshop. Some steps can be a little tricky, but why not have a try!

How to Create an Outstanding ‘Out of Frame’ Horse Scene

How to Create a Dark and Mysterious TV-Head Scene

For this Photoshop tutorial, I will be showing you how to make a dark and mysterious scene with the subject having a TV for a head. You will see how to seamlessly replace a person’s head with another object—in this case, a television—and how to create a stormy sky using brush strokes.

Create a Realistic Space Landscape Photo Manipulation

In this tutorial, we are going to create a unique photo manipulation that blends outer space and a scenic landscape to make an amazing and surreal image. This tutorial makes use of masking techniques as well as having a consistent color/lighting throughout the entire image, among other techniques.

The creation of “A Life Of Aquatic Sounds”

In this tutorial you will learn how you can created “A Life Of Aquatic Sounds”. We will realize it using a variety of blending mode tricks, photo filters and other useful Photoshop techniques.

Make a Surreal 3D Outdoor Room Scene in Photoshop

In this photo manipulation tutorial, you will learn how to create a realistic composition of a painter using a room as his canvas. There’s a twist. It looks like the room is outdoors in a vibrant field!

Design a Surreal Desert Scene in Photoshop

The name of this photomanipulation is “Time Guardian” and it was originally created by Mariusz Karasiewicz.

Design Surreal Composition Fallen Angel’s Dream Fly

First thing you need to remember that every photo or digital artwork must have 1 point that catches the viewer’s attention. It can be (and mostly is) face or the eyes, but it can also be any other spot, that is the leitmotif of the canvas.

How to create a fairy using photos

Here is a tutorial showing how you can create a fairy out of a human, as shown below.

How to Make an Eerie Looking Photo Manipulation Scene

In this Adobe Photoshop tutorial, we will create a dark photo manipulation scene with a very creepy/eerie/mysterious atmosphere.

Create an Intense Apocalyptic Photo Manipulation

Learn how to create this amazing apocalyptic photo manipulation with Photoshop! You’ll learn how to blend elements such as water and moon, create seamless structures with the Clone Stamp tool, and finish it off with a cold movie photo effect.

Create a Moonlit Night Scene in Photoshop

Photoshop is an excellent tool to combine several photos into one seamless image. In today’s tutorial we will use different tools and techniques to create an abandoned automobile in a moonlit night scene in Photoshop.

Create a Out of Bounds Surreal Photo manipulation in Photoshop

Photo manipulation is an art that requires a lot of patience along with the expertise in Photoshop. With our creativity and imagination, we can manipulate any photograph the way we want. Its all about how we use our imagination and properly understand the effects that can be achieved in Photoshop and other similar tools and employing them with a lot of experimentation.

Make a Story Book Come to Life in Photoshop

Learn how to create this surreal photo manipulation in Photoshop. You’ll learn the basics of combining stock photos, how to blend them in by adding light and shadows, and complete it with a vintage photo effect.

Create Beautiful Surreal Photo Effect

In this tutorial, I will show you how you can Create Beautiful Surreal Photo Effect via Cloud, Star and Vexel Hair in Photoshop.

Castle in the Sky

The easy way to create beautiful photo manipulation with green landscape, dramatic sky, rainbow and castle in the white clouds.

Skating in clouds Magic scene Photoshop

Create A Distressed Surreal Cityscape

In this tutorial you will learn some techniques in matte painting to create a distressed surreal cityscape.

Quickly Create Surreal Scenary via Combining Landscape Images in Photoshop

In this tutorial, you will learn how you can quickly and effectively Create Fantasy Scene via Combining Landscape Images in Photoshop.

How to Create a Fantasy Banana Ship in Photoshop

Today we will create a fantasy flying ship from a photo of a banana. Let’s get started!

Create a Surreal Atmospheric Phone Booth Scenery

In this tutorial we will be creating a Surreal Atmospheric Image.

Create a Fantastic Surreal Representation of Time

In the tutorial you’ll learn some manipulation methods and have a glimpse on how to create a surreal image, taking in consideration a solid theme or idea, in this case the theme is naturally about time and its (un)possibility to redeem itself.