If you don't have the Layers pallet open in your program, you should do that now --> View - Pallets - Layers
and If you haven't got the tool options open, open that one too --> View - Pallets - Tool options
First I start to collect my pictures, which are all in the public domain so free to use. There are tons of public domain websites out there and I use flickr a lot too, there are so many wonderfull people out there willing to share their pictures with us. You should however always check if a picture (or the main subject in the picture) has restrictions just to make sure that you can use them in the way you want (personal or commercial).
I usually start by collecting 3 texture pictures for my background. Sometimes I will add more in the process or I'll leave one out. That totally depends on the way the picture is progressing, what I think looks right or not. I also choose them random, but I do make sure that if one has a lot of little details, that the rest of the pictures don't. That would look way to busy imho, but then again that's up to what you like.
For this tutorial I have used:
http://www.photos8.com/broken_window_glass-wallpapers.html
http://www.photos8.com/elephant_skin_texture-wallpapers.html
http://www.photos8.com/brown_rock_texture-wallpapers.html
And the venus statue from:
http://public-domain-images.blogspot.com/2010/06/venus-de-milo.html
Open up a new document, I usually work on a4 size (1654 x 2339 pixels) that's 21cm x 29.7cm (roughly 8 x 11 inch) you can print out with 300 ppi (pixels per inch)that makes a print of good quality. But you can use any size your comfortable with. From now on I will refer to the new document as digital painting.
Now I have my 3 textures I just pick one (by random, no science here, if I don't like how it's progressing I can alway's move the layers around) as my base. In most cases the pictures are "laying" pictures like these are, you can easily rotate them by--> Image - Rotate Left or Image - Rotate Right. I have rotated all three textures to the left.
Now copy your first picture --> Edit - Copy
and paste it as a new layer on your digital painting --> Edit - Paste as new layer. You can rename the layer to texture 1 but I'm way to lazy to name all my layers so mine stays named raster 1. You could also delete the first blank layer since we're not going to use it but I'm to lazy for that too LOL.
Since this picture is smaller than the digital painting, I'm resizing it to 130% so it fits the canvas. You can do that with the Pick Tool on your toolbar on the right
You can always resize the picture to fit the document if needed, just remember that if you make it a lot bigger you will have a loss of quality, although in this case you will probably not see it in the end result because of the grungy look of the digital painting.
Now it's time for the second texture, repeat the same steps you did for the first one, copy the texture and paste it as a new layer in your digital painting and resize it to 130%. And now it's time for the magic!
Adjust the blend mode setting in the Layer palet from normal to difference. That looks cool huh!
Try the other settings! This is my secret ingredient to all of my digital paintings and you can get numerous results when you add layers with different textures with different settings!
Next I added the brown rock texture as a thirth layer, I didn't need to resize it for it is big enough. I adjusted the blend mode setting in the layer pallet from normal to hard light. If you are adventures you can play around with the second and thirth layers blend mode settings and see if you can come up with something you like more. The trick is to use 1 base layer and 2 or more layers of textures that are adjusted to any of those settings in the blend mode in the layer pallet to get some interesting combinations.
Now I'm ready with the background it's time for the focal image, copy the image of the venus statue and paste it as a new layer like you did before with the textures. Make sure it is on top of the other layers. This image is a little to small for my taste so I adjusted the size to 130% with the pick tool.
Again it is not a good idea if you make pictures larger than 110% if you want to keep a good quality, but in this case it doesn't matter, I promise you that you will not see it in the end result.
Now it is time to remove the background of the statue, I used the freehand tool with the selection type; point to point, the mode to add and the anti-alias box checked. The reason I did this is because the wand tool wasn't working for me and I use the add mode so that I can work in little sections to select the whole statue.
I decided to select the statue, but we need to select the background, you can do that by --> Selections - Invert
Now we have the background selected you can hit delete on your keyboard. Now we are left with a nice statue without the background.
I set the blend mode of the layer to hard light, and changed the opacity to 80%.
But this doesn't look quite right to me yet so I duplicated the layer, you can do that by --> Layers - Duplicate
Now I'm going to play with the blend mode and opacity settings in the layer pallet on the duplicated layer, I choose multiply and changed the opacity to 75%. 
There , I think that looks finished! But I like to add a little bit more interest to the painting to make it more "whole"
I duplicated the first layer of the venus statue again and selected that layer (not the duplicate you just made) and I mirrored that layer --> Image - Mirror
Then I enlarged the layer to 140% with the Pick Tool.
Now I duplicate this layer again so we have 2 layers of the bigger statue, and set opacity of the lower one of the two layers to 25% and the blend mode to Hard Light. The opacity of the upper one is set to 90% and the blend mode to Multiply. Playing with the blend mode and opacity settings will give you numerous results, just play with those until your happy with the result. And sometimes one layer is enough, you don't always have to create 2 layers with different settings to achieve the look your after.
I just noticed that little logo of the top layer of the textures in the upper right corner, I fixed that by moving that layer to the right with the Pick Tool so that the logo is outside the canvas. Because these pictures are in the public domain, removing the logo is not prohibited.
Now for some finishing touches, I used the eraser to erase the bottom part of the upper layer of the bigger statue, to make it blend in more. The settings for the eraser; round shape, size 700, hardness 0, step 1, density and thickness 100, rotation 0 and opacity 100. I decided to do this on this layer because of the settings in the blend mode and the opacity, this is the layer that is most visible. You can do this on the other layer as well but in the end it would not matter because of the settings in the blend mode and opacity to that layer.
To see what I am erasing I set the blend mode to normal, it is hard to see what you are doing if you keep the blend mode to multiply. If youre pleased with the results change the blend mode back to multiply.
I also changed the position of the "little" statue a little bit more to the left, the fastest way to do that is to delete the upper layer of the 2 "little" statue layers; --> Layers - Delete
But remember the blend mode and the opacity settings in the layer pallet of the layer you are about to remove!
and move the remaining layer to where you want it with the pick tool. Then duplicate that layer.
Adjust the settings of the duplicated layer to the settings you have remembered of the deleted layer, in this case, blend mode to multiply and opacity to 75%.
And there we go, we finished the digital painting!
Like I said, the blend mode in the layers pallet is the key to my digital paintings. The posibility's are endless when used with different textures and settings. This works the same with the focal image as well, when you go and make a digital painting of your own, you will see that not all the settings will work the same as done in this tutorial, every picture works different to the layer underneath it. And every focal image will work different with the background, so it's always a suprise when you go and change the blend mode.
I hope this tutorial was usefull! This is actually the first tutorial I've written so If you got any questions or you find something you don't understand, don't hesitate and contact me!
And as a little bonus I give you permission to use this digital painting in your own artwork. But remember you may not print out the file as is and sell them like that, and you may not destribute, share or resell the file in any way. Other than that you can alter, change, destort, resize, use them for transfers or do anything else you can think of, it's all okay by me and only limited to your imagination!
Have a great day and play!
Love Lydia
