How to Create a Paint Splatter Photo Effect (With a Photoshop Action)

Final product image — What You'll Be Creating

Welcome to our Photoshop in 60 Seconds series, in which you can learn a Photoshop skill, feature, or technique in just a minute!

Photoshop in 60 Seconds: Paint Splatter Effect

You can achieve an awesome paint splatter effect for any photo or background using a handy Photoshop Action. And in this quick video, I'll show you how to create the effect using this Paint Splatter Photoshop Action.

Inspired to make more photo effects? Browse the incredible selection of Photoshop Actions available through GraphicRiver and Envato Elements for more wonderful options.

How to Create a Paint Splatter Effect

Open your photo into Photoshop. Here I'll be using this Male Portrait at 1920x1280 pixels.

Male Beard Portrait From Pixabay — Male Portrait

Now create the action. Go to Window > Actions and load your Paint Splatter Action into the Actions palette. This particular effect also comes with a set of brushes, so go to Window > Brush Presets and Replace your current brushes with the new splatter set.

Next, create a New Layer above it named,"mask." Use the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) to create a clean selection around your subject, before filling it with color using the Paint Bucket Tool (G). Then select the action and press Play.

Give the effect a few minutes to play out. When it's done, continue modifying your result by experimenting with the Adjustment Layers located in the new action Group. Lower the Opacity of the foreground base layer, add paint splatters by Unhiding the Visiblitiy of those layers, and add a Color Lookup Adjustment Layer set to Teal Orange Plus Contrast.

Add a Teal Orange Color Lookup Adustment Layer

Here's the final result.

Paint Splatter Photo Effect Photoshop Tutorial

Want to see this in real time? Check out the video above to see this lesson at work!

A Bit More Detail

Learn more tips and tricks to improve your photo retouching skills from our experts. Check out the following tutorials below:

60 Seconds?!

This is part of a series of quick video tutorials on Envato Tuts+ in which we introduce a range of subjects, all in 60 seconds—just enough to whet your appetite. Let us know in the comments what you thought of this video and what else you'd like to see explained in 60 seconds!