Halloween is creeping its way onto our calendars, so what better way to kick off the holiday than with a creepy photo tutorial!

One of my favorite things about Halloween are all the scary movies associated with the holiday. Among my favorite Halloween movies is Tim Burton's "Corpse Bride".

So for this Instructable, I will be using the fabulous FREE photo editing software from Pixlr to create Emily from the "Corpse Bride".

Step 1: Stone Cold: Corpse Skin

The first step in creating this Instructable is opening a photograph Pixlr.
(By clicking on the link above, it will take you to a Pixlr window)

1) Open your image from your computer or a URL.
2) We will first Duplicate our Background Layer by right-clicking on the Background layer and selecting Duplicate Layer.
3) On our Background Copy Layer we will then click on the Adjustment tab on the toolbar and select Hue & Saturation.
3) Play around with the Hue slider and Brightness.

Now you're on your way to looking stone cold dead. How exciting!

Step 2: Lovely Lips and : Emily's Lip Color

Now, if you're trying to imitate Emily's complete look, we'll also add the pink lips she rocks.

1) On the Background layer use the Eraser tool on the left toolbar to erase over her lips. This will leave us with normal looking lips.
2) We will now Flatten our image by right-clicking on any layer and selecting Flatten Image.
3) Now that we only have one layer. We will now make a New Layer by selecting New Layer from the Layer toolbar on the top.
4) Using your color picker box, select a bright pink color and use the Brush tool to paint over the lips.
5) Now, we will change the Mode of the layer. Below the layers, select Overlay from the dropdown menu.
6) Clean up the lips using the Eraser tool.

Step 3: Corpsely Cuticles: Emily's Hair

Okay, I know "Corpsely" isn't a word. But it's time to corpsify our hair. Also, not a word...

1) Using the same technique as in the lips step, we will open a New Layer.
2) Choosing a blue color from the color picker on the left, paint blue over the hair using the Brush tool.
3) On that blue layer, change the Mode to Overlay and adjust to taste.
4) Clean up extra blue using the Eraser tool.

Step 4: Sunken Eyes & Eyebrows

Basically, we now have a smurf looking photograph. We need to make our photo look more...dead.

1) Using the same technique as in the previous steps, create New Layers to paint on black over areas you want to look sunken.
2) Set the Mode to Overlay or simply lower the Opacity using the slider.

Now, I'll be removing my subject's current eyebrows, and I'll paint on some more cartoonish ones.

1) Using the Clone tool on the left toolbar, select the area above the eyebrows to "clone" over the current eyebrows.
2) To select this area to clone, hold the Command key (for Mac users) or Option (for Windows users, I believe). Then just paint over the area you want cloned. This takes some practice, but it is honestly the most useful tool ever.
3) Next, using the Sketch tool (the pencil) draw on some fancy eyebrows.

Step 5: Optional: Cracks & Bones

Now, by this point, your photograph is looking fairly corpse-y. Here's some tips on how to amp up your already deadly look.

Hollow Cheeks & Cracks
1) Add some hollow cheeks by using the Sketch tool and painting them black and changing the Mode to Multiply.
2) Using Pixlr's different brushes, I added the crack brushes from the MORE tab. I added those and lowered the opacity to taste in a New Layer.

Rib Bones
1) I decided to add some ribs from the internet to my image by selecting Layer from the top toolbar and clicking Open Image as New Layer.
2) Using the Eraser tool clean up the excess from the image.

Bride Veil
1) Also, because this is a Corpse Bride tutorial, I decided to add a veil. Using the Sketch tool on the left side, I painted a white line to imitate a veil.
2) Opening a New Layer, I then took the Brush tool and painted inside the veil. I changed the layer Mode to Overlay.

To darken up my photo, I painted black on the background to creep up my photo.

Step 6: Corpse Bride

And if you've followed the steps of this Instructable, your photo should imitate Emily's look from Corpse Bride.

I'd like to acknowledge Pixlr for its wonderful editing tools; I can't believe this software is FREE.

I hope you enjoyed created a Corpse Bride look just in time for Halloween!

Have a Happy Halloween!