Tyler G. Merkel Blog: 20 Photoshop tutorials for creating movie posters

Posters are surprisingly a concept that has been around for decades. The evolution of poster designs has been phenomenal the quality and concept of a good poster gets better as time progresses. Posters have played a key part in the marketing and promotion of movies, and really makes a first strong positive impact for any film a well designed poster.

In this round up where showcasing a of jaw drop dropping collection of movies posters, which are surprisingly tutorials, which you can recreate the design with a little help from Photoshop. These tutorials for learning a solid foundation of knowledge of how to recreate your very own posters effects whether it’s for a movie or even for an event.

1. Making a Superhero Movie Teaser Poster

n this tutorial I will give you an example of how to create a movie teaser poster. It will show you how to draw a mask for your character using the pen tool , blend modes and textures.

2. How To Create a Vintage Style Zombie Movie Poster

The build up to Halloween has inspired the topic of this week’s tutorial. Follow this step by step process of designing your own retro/vintage style horror movie poster. We’ll be creating the poster for ‘Hot Zombie Killers’ as a modern comedy horror with inspiration from artwork from the 50’s.

3. Create a Post-Apocalyptic Movie Poster in Adobe Photoshop

In this tutorial you’ll combine satellite imagery and digital painting techniques to make a high impact movie poster in Adobe Photoshop.

4. Create a Cool Movie Poster in Photoshop

In this tutorial you are going to learn a few good techniques and tips for color correction. Hope you like it. Hopefully this tutorial can benefit in your pursuit of becoming a better designer.

5. Design a Grungy Western Movie Poster in Photoshop

Follow this step by step tutorial to create a grungy western poster design, see the whole design process from start to finish as the various stock resources are manipulated to complete the composition.

6. Dark Knight Rises Poster in Photoshop

So in this tutorial It will show you how to create the Dark Knight Rises poster in Photoshop. Be ready, it might take you a few hours, but the result is really nice and you will be able to apply this technique in other future projects, I am really sure of that.

7. Create an Epic Godzilla-Inspired Movie Poster in Adobe Photoshop

The original Godzilla movie is probably one of the most important and influential monster movies of all time. If you’re a big fan of cinema, you have probably already heard about the new Hollywood remake, which is currently being promoted with some astounding artwork. In this tutorial, we will create a fan-made movie poster, astutely named Goodzilla in Adobe Photoshop.

8. Design an Awesome Grindhouse Style Movie Poster

You’ll be working on a fake movie poster with a grindhouse-vibe.

9. How To Create Your Own Hateful Eight Movie Poster Design

Quentin Tarantino’s latest movie The Hateful Eight has been highly anticipated by film fans. During the build up to its launch a series of movie posters were released that were made using one of the free design resources from Spoon Graphics, hat tip to James White for the spot! Given that we have the exact Photoshop Brushes that were used to create the official designs available to us to download, I figured it would be fun to show how you can use them, along with some other techniques to create your own Hateful Eight inspired movie poster design.

10. Designing a war movie poster

In this tutorial I will show you guys some simple but efficient techniques that will help you make great movie posters.

11. Create an intense movie poster in Photoshop

Designers love to be critical about movie posters, and while you may think you have better ideas about how to sell a movie to an audience, how many times have you actually tried doing it? In this tutorial, we’re going to create a poster for a fictional movie called “Fugitive.” The movie is meant to be a suspenseful thriller that features one’s escape under the cover of darkness, despite man’s attempt to capture the lone hero.

12. Man Of Steel Movie Poster Tutorial

You’ll also learn how to create the Superman logo, the “S”, using the pen tool, and use textures to make it more realistic.

13. Create an Action Packed Movie Poster in Photoshop

In this tutorial it will explain how to create a character-centered movie poster using photo manipulation techniques. it will also explain how add text to give our poster a cinematic feel.

14. How To Create The Expendables Winged Skull Poster Art

When I saw the bad-ass poster design for the upcoming movie The Expendables, I just had to open up Photoshop and have a go at recreating it. Follow this step by step guide on how to create the menacing winged skull design for yourself, complete with an overkill of weaponry surrounding a sinister looking skull face.

15. How To Create The Expendables Winged Skull Poster Art

16. Medieval Movie Poster Photoshop Tutorial

In this tutorial I will show you how to create a 3D grunge metal movie poster title in Adobe Photoshop CS5 by using the Repousse tool. Every movie poster needs a spectacular title whether it is in a grunge, metal, typographic style. Due to the release of Creative Suite 5, we are finally able to create 3D titles within Photoshop without the use of complex and expensive 3D software such as 3DSMAX, Maya or Cinema4D.

17. Create Classic Horror Movie Poster – Laura’s Counterplay

Horror movies are all quite cheesy, very predictable and always disappointing, I drew my inspiration from one of the infamous and unpopular movies – “Long Distance“, starring the beautiful Monica Keena. Don’t be surprised if it does not ring a bell, I’d be surprised if it did. I myself however love the cover / poster of this movie, the original plot and I decided to make my own little scenery with my own little plot, which is more or less reflected in the film’s poster.

18. Create a Dramatic Film Poster in 5 Minutes Using Photoshop

Designing a film poster is pure fun. There’s no question about it. It’s one of those projects that you look forward to as a designer. Designing a film poster can also be incredibly fast and easy… Given the right reference photos and subject matter, a stunning poster can be created in minutes. In this tutorial I will walk you through some easy steps to do just that.

19. Create an Awesome 3D Anaglyph Poster

In this tutorial, we’ll take inspiration from these movies of yesteryear and recreate a retro B-movie styled poster. I’ll walk you through entire creation process, step-by-step using photography and 3D renders. Then we’ll take a jump into the third-dimension — by adding effects only visible when viewed through anaglyph 3D glasses. So hold onto your seats, because stunning sights really will leap at you in 3D: just as the poster says!