Step 1: I cropped the picture. I liked the idea of not being able to see his eyes.

Step 2: I duplicated the layer, and sharpened the duplicate. It didn't need screening because the picture was already pretty light, and, I wanted to keep the darkness in his clothes.

Step 3: I added a selective color layer. I noticed that his skin was very red, and I didn't really like that, so I was trying to change that a bit. These were my settings:
Reds: 0,-100, 0, 0
Yellows: 100, 100, 100, -100
Neutrals: 50, 0, 0, 0

Step 4: Now, he is a bit too green, lol. So, I added another selective color layer. These were my settings:
reds: -100, 100, -100, 0
yellows: -100, 0, -100, 0
cyans: -100, 0, 100, 0
magentas: -100, -100, 0, 0
whites: -100, -100, 0, 100
neutrals: 9, 10, 0, 0

There, now it looks like he has the sun up above him, and the sea down below in the shadows. I really liked that, so I left the coloring alone.

Step 5: I added a new layer, and put a cracked brush in black (#000000) up in the corner. I thought the pirates life isn't that 'pretty', so why not add a little bit of grunge to it?

Step 6: In Arial narrow with white, I typed "a pirates life."

Step 7: You couldn't see it too well, so i took a small soft brush, and went under my typing with black.

Step 8: I took a baby text brush, in white, and put it underneath my typing.


Merge all layers, and save as a .png!