Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Posted on March 15th, 2009 under Photo Effect

Ensure your success in exam by subscribing for testking 640-863 as well as testking 642-825 and testking 70-647 training program.

In this tutorial, I will show the steps I took to design this absolutely magical, floating Eiffel Tower scene in Photoshop. The inspiration of this tutorial came from this wonderful design done by matu02 in PSD Vault Flickr Group.

Along the way, we will be using a lot of layer masking techniques, blending options, selection technques, pen tool and dynamic brushes. Hope you enjoy it and find it useful and inspirational!

Here is my final result for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

PSD File Download

You can download the PSD File for this tutorial via the VIP Members Area for only $6.95/Month (or less)! You will not only get this PSD File, but also 70+ other PSD Files + Extra Goodies + Exclusive Photoshop tutorial there. Signup now and get exclusive :) Find out more about the VIP Members Areas

To complete this tutorial, you will need the following textures:

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Load the “Misty Ocean” stock image into Photoshop. Duplicate the background layer once and set blending mode of the duplicated layer to be “Soft Light”.

We can see the overall image become darker a little bit and the colour contrast increases comparing with the original image:

1 soft light duplicate 500x374 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Rename this layer as “soft light” and make a duplicate of this layer, set the duplicated layer blending mode to “overlay” and this will further increase the light and contrast of the image:

1 overlay 500x369 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Rename this layer as “light overlay”.

Step 2

Now you will see the ocean portion disappeared and we don’t really want that. To reveal the ocean portion, add a vector mask to the “light overlay” by clicking the following button on the layer palette:

2 vector mask Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Click on the mask thumbnail to select it, grab a big soft brush (I chose a 300px round brush), erase the ocean portion off the “light overlay” layer.

You will now see the ocean become more visible:

2 effect2 500x376 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Optional: I feel the colour tone of the image is a bit dull and a bit more variation will make the image looks a bit more lively. So I add a new Adjustment layer (Color Balance) and apply the following settings:

2 colour balance Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Change the blending mode of this adjustment layer to “lighten” and you will have the following effect:

2 effect 21 500x368 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Step 3

Now let’s again focus on the ocean portion of the image. Currently we have a very smooth ocean without much movement at all. This can be a bit of problem because the end result we would like to achieve is a dynamic, active image.

So let’s load the “Dark Water” image into Photoshop. Go back to our document and use the Rectangular Marquee Tool with 20px feather to select the ocean portion of the image:

3 rect mar 500x125 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Drag this selection onto the “Dark Water” Texture to position the selection as shown below:

3 drag 500x216 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Copy and paste it back to our document, and you will see now the image become a bit dynamic and not so boring:

3 effect2 500x189 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Step 4

Load the “Tower Image” into Photoshop. Use the Pen Tool to make a working path around the Tower:

4 pen tool 500x670 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Make a selection (Right-click and choose “Make selection”) from the working path (0px feather), copy and paste the selection onto our document. Desaturate the layer, resize and position it as shown below:

4 tower position 500x369 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Rename this layer as “Tower”. Then add a vector mask to this layer, grab the Gradient Tool and apply the following gradient to the mask: (You can go the mask by Alt+left-click the mask thumbnail on the layer palette)

4 gradient 500x376 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Go back to our document and you will see the tower is seamlessly linked to the cloud:

4 effect3 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Step 5

Load the “Moon” image into Photoshop, use whatever selection tool you feel comfortable with to make a selection of the moon, as shown below:

5 moon sel 500x332 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Copy and paste the selection back to our document, resize, rotate and position it on the top right corner of the canvas:

5 copy paste 500x374 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Name this layer as “Moon” and change the layer blending mode to “soft light”, you will have the following effect:

5 effect2 499x373 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Duplicate the “Moon” layer a couple of times, you will see the the Moon become more visible:

5 effect 21 499x376 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Step 6

Load the “cloud scene” image into Photoshop, use the Lasso Tool with 100px feather to make a selection as shown below:

6 select 500x328 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Copy and paste the selection back to our document to the tower position, use Free Transform Tool (Ctrl + T) with Warp, perspective, resize, transform the cloud into a flaming effect:

6 warp 500x429 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Name this layer as “Flame” and set its blending mode to “Overlay”. After this, duplicate this layer once, change the duplicated layer blending mode back to normal, use the Eraser Tool to erase off the bottom part of the flame on the duplicated layer:

6 erase Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Step 7

Load the “Eagle” image into Photoshop, use the same Pen Tool technique to make a selection of the eagle. Tip: after you make the selection, use the refine edge option to further enhance your selection: (The setting below can be used as a guideline only, you might have to apply slightly different settings according to your own selection)

7 refine edge Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Copy and paste the image onto our dcoument to the position as shown below:

7 copy paste 500x364 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Name this layer as “eagle” anc change the layer blending mode to “linear burn”. Make several duplicated of this “eagle” layer, resize and rotate each layer and position the eagles in different places: (Assign different opacity, fill opacity to each duplicated layer as well)

7 duplicate 500x370 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Step 8

Create a new layer called “shining effect” on top of all layers, use the Pen Tool to create a working path like this:

8 pen tool 500x224 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Stroke the path using the following dynamic brush:

Shape Dynamics

8 shape dyn 1 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Scattering

8 scattering 1 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

And you will have the following end result:

8 effect1 500x374 Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! You can of course add some of your own texture or filter effect and see what the end results are!

Here is my final image for this tutorial. I Added a few light beams – If you like to know a quick way of rendering this, I have another tutorial here containing a part about doing so. Also tried aonther colour scheme:

Hope you enjoy this tutorial, drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!

Fresh Posts from PSD Vault

Imagination Unleashed: Best of PSD Vault DeviantART Group – Vol. 23

Easily Apply Texture with Clipping Mask to Produce Unique Text Effect in Photoshop

Unique and Curious Photoshop Tutorial Showcase – January 2012

Creativity Fine-Tuning: Best of PSD Vault Flickr Group – Vol. 54

Design Abstract Surreal Text Effect with Metal Texture in Photoshop

VIP Exclusive Tutorial – Create Advanced Photo Manipulative Artwork via Grunge Textures and Colour Effect

http://jenoscreamo.multiply.com Jeno

Admin, You’re my Idol!
admin

Thank you Jeno!!
photolover

Thats awesome! I’ll give it a try!
http://www.joyoge.com/ joyoge designers’ bookmark

very nice thanks for tut..
http://www.sourcedigital.com.au mark joncheff

Well done chubby que, I like it, fantacy is all ways a good genre to mess with.

peace out G
CjFOR

Realy is cool … respect u :)
admin

Thank you for the support guys! glad that you like this post :)
ivan

cool man thank you
http://www.booto.net/?p=2339 Photoshop CS4 经典教程推荐 – Booto’Blog

[...] 1.Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower [...]
CjFOR

James , u has mail or ICQ i have offer for u .
ROLA

more then great, it`s really awsome
thanx for this tut
http://chinmayherwadkar.tk Chinmay

Amazing tutorial….. thanks a lot….. i got a learn a lot of things in the tut…..
Hmeli

great !
aya

Superrbbb tutor….
thanks
Brandon

Thanks this tutorial was so easy to understand and to do and im a beginner at photoshop the only part that i had trouble with was the gradient part i couldnt det it off the black and white gradient for the eifle tower but i guess that just comes in time THANKS :)
http://www.cornerofart.com Abdullah

Great. It’s amazing.
admin

Thank you very much for the comments guys! very much appreciated!
Michael

This is like Pepsi……..too good to be true
Grace

hi james … thanks for sharing your talent…hope to see more of your great works!!!
admin

@Grace: no worries, thanks for your comment and support!
Tonystark

Extra extra wonderfull
http://muliati.com/blog/web-six-revisions/70-excellent-photoshop-resources/ 70 Excellent Photoshop Resources | The Muliati.Com goBlog

[...] PSD Vault PSD Vault is a Photoshop tutorial site that writes about things like designing a floating Eiffel Tower in Photoshop and creating a vintage car poster. They also regularly give away design-related [...]
Thomas

now I use photoshop CS
And I have a bit trouble with the tower, after I cut out the pixels then ALL the blue from the cloud behind appear on my “floating tower”.
Can you help me with that?
http://yodspica.eu/yodspica_blog/2009/03/25/70-excellent-photoshop-resources/ 70 Excellent Photoshop Resources | Blog YODspica Ltd

[...] Vault is a Photoshop tutorial site that writes about things like designing a floating Eiffel Tower in Photoshop and creating a vintage car poster. They also regularly give away design-related [...]
http://www.uprinting.com/Brochure-Printing.html Brochures

Wow, you are amazing! Thanks for sharing this! I definitely learned lots of cool stuff to try out. You write really good tutorials, very easy to follow.
Erin Shaw

wow this is really going to help me out a lot thanks so much for this tutorial!!!
http://parisonashoestring.com/eiffel-tower-paris/ Eiffel Tower Paris

Wow, this is unbelievably beautiful. Is it possible to try this on GIMP ?. I am a great fan of all things related to (even remotely) Eiffel tower. Can see many possibilities where I can apply this tute.
Thanks !
coupons

Nice pic but the Eiffel Tower sort of kills da picture tho…..
jorge

excelente tutorial gracias por compartirlo, saludos desde jalisco en mexico
photoshop lover

thanks for teaching me ,man, this is awsom.
http://www.miraztutorials.com huwaw69

Wow awesome! i remember a video of gorillaz! when i saw the result of this tutorial!
http://www.photoshoproadmap.com/Photoshop-blog/2009/05/11/40-extravagant-surreal-and-fantasy-scenes-photoshop-tutorials/ 40 Extravagant Surreal and Fantasy Scenes Photoshop Tutorials

[...] Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene [...]
http://sixrevisions.com/photoshop/70-excellent-photoshop-resources/ 70 Excellent Photoshop Resources

[...] Vault is a Photoshop tutorial site that writes about things like designing a floating Eiffel Tower in Photoshop and creating a vintage car poster. They also regularly give away design-related [...]
orogreen

hey where is the colors? doing the colors….
http://www.templatis.com templtae

Excellent, thanks!
http://speckyboy.com/2009/09/02/50-imaginative-fantasy-art-tutorials-for-photoshop/ 50 Imaginative Fantasy Art Tutorials for Photoshop : Speckyboy Design Magazine

[...] Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene [...]
http://www.sezerozkara.com/blog/archives/585 Photoshop icin 50 Imaginative Fantasy Art Tutorials

[...] Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene [...]
http://77even.net/2009/09/03/50-imaginative-fantasy-art-tutorials-for-photoshop/ 50 Imaginative Fantasy Art Tutorials for Photoshop | 77even

[...] Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene [...]
http://huibit05.com/tutorials/50-imaginative-fantasy-art-tutorials-for-photoshop/ 50 Imaginative Fantasy Art Tutorials for Photoshop | huibit05.com

[...] Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene [...]
http://www.rajagrafix.com/?p=7 50 Imaginative Fantasy Art Tutorials for Photoshop « rajagrafix

[...] Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene [...]
http://www.ethiopianreview.com/scitech/1240 50 Imaginative Fantasy Art Tutorials for Photoshop | Ethiopian News

[...] Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene [...]
http://www.sezerozkara.com/blog/photoshop/photoshop-icin-50-imaginative-fantasy-art-tutorials/ Sezer Özkara Kişisel Web Sitesi

[...] Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene [...]
natasha

great tutorial! easy and very visiauly dinamic
Antonela

Amazing awesome greatlooking picture!
And I tried something similar…
Thanks for inspired me.
http://tonela.deviantart.com/art/Magic-floating-castel-138873360
taryarL

:)
love this so much :)
u r the ONE :D
http://onlinembadegreeprogram.co.uk/ David Coburn

Great and inspirational
http://amazingphotoshop.nl/tutorials/25-fantasy-photoshop-tutorials/2009/ 25 Fantasy Photoshop Tutorials – Amazing Photoshop

[...] Zwevende Eifeltoren [...]
http://www.beautifullife.info/web-design/50-the-most-spectacular-photoshop-tutorials-of-2009/ 50 The Most Spectacular Photoshop Tutorials of 2009

[...] Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop by Psdvault [...]
http://www.ubervu.com/conversations/www.psdvault.com/photo-effect/design-a-surreal-floating-eiffel-tower-scene-in-photoshop/ uberVU – social comments

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by vm_designut: Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop http://bit.ly/aZFVF...
hedda

Great tut! Thanks :)
Lian

Great tutorial!
But I’ve a question! Step 3 won’t do the way I want it! I use the rectangular marquee tool, but when I mark the part you showed in the picture, it doesn’t make t square! It’s making a sort of Ellipse! Do you know how I’m able to fix that?

Thanks! And sorry for my English, I’m Dutch so!
http://www.arfahhusaifah.com Tips Menulis Online

I agree. Admin, you were incredible. Thanks
http://SaudiArabia Alebdaa Alalmy

Peace and mercy of God be upon you
Anna from Saudi Arabia, your educational wonderful
But I have a query which is how it was crayon design in the last step??
Wish you luck
ngoc

how do you make the eagle look smaller? im a beginner in photoshop and i can only add the moon and the water in the pitcuture but not the tower because i can’t use to pen tool as well as the eagle because it looks too big and i don’t know how to make it smaller , please help me!
http://www.printsafari.com PrintSafari

Need your photoshop artwork printed? We are an online printing company based in Canada and the US.If you want your designs printed in high quality offset, please check out http://www.PrintSafari.com. We offer a wide range of printing products at very good prices.Have a nice one!
http://endiaferonta.com/?p=11739 Τα 50 καλύτερα tutorials για το Photoshop για φανταστικά αποτελέσματα! | Endiaferonta.com

[...] Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop by Psdvault [...]
Zilva

Hey this was a great tutorial thanks heeps!!!
http://www.68ds.com/2010/04/40-outstanding-photoshop-tutorials-creating-fantasy-scenes/ 68Design – (68ds.com) Creative Design Transmitor » Blog Archive » 40 Outstanding Photoshop Tutorials Creating Fantasy Scenes

[...] Design a Surreal Floating Eiffel Tower Scene In Photoshop [...]
http://Website Frederic Lievre

Good tutorial, I just pushed it a bit… Made it a bit more dramatic and added Notre Dame. See here
http://frederic-lievre.deviantart.com/#/d2qocui
http://Website Katas

Hi,

I tried all of these steps but I was halted on Step No. 8. How did you get that Shining Effects? Please give me a link to download. I need it to complete mine.

Thanks.
http://Website HammerX

Really thanks for this outstanding tutorial, simply !! easy !!! but an outstanding result, highly appreciated
Could you please show me the link for the lights beam effect !!! Thanks in advance
http://Website chrystal

In the above tutorial you said you have another tutorial about this on how to render the other colour scheme where is the link?
http://Website ali

Very awesome tutorial, with just few images you just thought us how to make this kind of effect, thanks alot for your tuts, great work!!
http://Website narut0

in Step 3 I got confused. I am not an expert in phtoshop so I really don’t know much. anyway in Step 3 I got confused when you said select the rectangular marquee tool which i did and select the ocean bottom part..which i did then you said grab and move it to the “dark water” area and copy and paste back to the other document. PROBLEM: What do i click or press do copy the selected area in dark water and how do i paste?
http://Website naruto

nevermind found out =)
http://www.tradesparq.com Bill

Great tutorial — very useful.
http://Website alex

could you explain how did you do rendering because it is so beautiful with this option and I cant recreated without your help PLEASE!!!
http://Website Cabal18

totaly enjoy making that im no expert only just change to cs5 from cs2 big jump lol . BUT! very good art work and very good tut didnt get confuse . where the bit where you render the image that golden colour .
http://www.kropped.com kropped

Great tutorial – I think I prefer the less orange final image but I can see why you did the orange version its very eye catching and is actually why I read the article.
Thanks
http://Website Rohan ;D

That is well good i just gave it a ry, my first time as well and it looks really good this tutorial and the final outcome is great, keep it up :D
Nidia127

hi i will like to sign up for your monthly membership. Will I have access to any other gorgeous scene tutorials like this one? or is it only for the .psd images?
Jayprakash Arolkar

Thank you! very very eductional! Words are not enough to describe my gratitude…..
Ben_hameda

that’s realy a wonderful work ,, I tried it , I’m still new in photoshop ,I had little problem with the final look of the tower , and the flam effect , I couldn’t do it , but the result was good ,, thank you , wish you the best