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ByJames Qu
February 14, 2009

Transform a Daylight City Image into a Epic Warzone Scene in Photoshop

In this tutorial, I will show you the processes I used to transform a daylight city image into a epic warzone scene in Photoshop. The inspiration of this tutorial came from a random war image I came across while reading a magazine. Together, we will explore a variety of Photoshop techniques such as image adjustment option, a number of filter effect and some basic selection skills. This is an intermediate tutorial and some steps could be a bit tricky, but why not just have a go? ;)

In this tutorial, I will show you the processes I used to transform a daylight city image into a epic warzone scene in Photoshop. The inspiration of this tutorial came from a random war image I came across while reading a magazine.

Together, we will explore a variety of Photoshop techniques such as image adjustment option, a number of filter effect and some basic selection skills. This is an intermediate tutorial and some steps could be a bit tricky, but why not just have a go? ;)

Meanwhile, I would like to take this opportunity to raise the attention to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal, as you may have already known. If you would like to make a donation, you can do so throught the Australian Redcross Website.

Here is a preview of before and after images:

Before

before

After (Click to enlarge)

warzone-city-scene-final-2

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Download a copy of this city image from stockvault.net and load it into Photoshop. Once loaded, duplicate the background layer once and name the duplicated layer as “Black and White”.

On the “Background Copy” layer,  hit Ctrl + Alt + Shift + B and bring up the Black and White image adjustment tool (If you’re using an earlier version than CS3, you can use Channel Mixer instead, just make sure you tick the “monochrome” option down the bottom).

Apply the following Black and White image adjustments:

1-bw1

Change the layer blending option of this duplicated layer to “Multiply” and you will have the following effect:

1-effect

Step 2

Duplicate the “Black and White” layer once and name the duplicated layer “Curves”, hit Ctrl + M and bring up the Curves Image Adjustments, apply the following image adjustments:

2-curves

Keep the blending option of this layer as “Multiply” and you will see the image darkens further:

3-effect1

Step 3

Now let’s add some particles on the image. Duplicate the “Curves” layer three times. On the “Curves Copy” layer, go to Filter > Distort > Glass and apply the following settings:

4-glass

Change the layer blending option to “Screen” and reduce the layer opacity to 70% and you will have the following effect:

4-effect2

Then on “Curves Copy 2” layer, go to Filter > Brush Strokes > Spatter and apply the following settings:

4-spatter

Change the blending option of this layer to “Screen”  and you will have the following effect:

4-effect-1

Step 4

Grab the Lasso Tool and set its feather to 40px. Make a selection on the Sky area and the high rises as shown below:

4-select

While maintaining the selection, hit Ctrl + J and make a layer via copy. Name this newly created layer as “Smoke” and go to Filter > Render > Cloud and render some cloud:

4-cloud

Duplicate the “Somke” layer once. On the duplicated layer, go to Filter > Render > Difference Cloud. Apply this filter a few times and change the layer blending option of this layer to “color burn”.

You will see an effect similar to the following image:

4-effect3

Step 5

On the the duplicated “Smoke” layer, hit Ctrl + B and apply the following Colour Balance:

5-colour-balance

5-effect3

To reduct the noise a bit on the smoke, we can apply the following medium (Filter > Noise > Medium) settings:

5-medium

You can see the noise has been reduced:

5-effect-21

Step 6

Now we can add some fire effect to the image. Download a copy of this fire image from cgtexture.com and load it into Photoshop.

Drag the entire image on our document and name newly-created layer “fire”. Set the layer blending option to “Screen”.

Grab the Eraser Tool (E) with a big brush, erase the black part of the fire image and leave just the fire:

6-eraser

Then use the Clone Stamp Tool (S) with different size of brushes, flow and opacity, clone this fire until it reaches desired burning effect:

6-effect2

Step 7

To add a bit more dynamics to the image, I duplicate the background layer once more and put it just below the “Curves” layer in Step 2, then apply the following Radial Blur Settings:

7-motion-blur

Desaturate the layer and change its blending option to “Screen” and you will have the following effect:

7-effect2

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! You can of course continue enhancing the image by adding some more effects, such as filter, texture or just have a play with its hue and saturation!

Below is my final image for this tutorial: (Click to enlarge, I added a planet of the sky, adjusting the hue and saturation of image)

warzone-city-scene-final-2

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!

ByJames Qu
Updated

  5. Thankyou very much for ypour amazzing tutorails it teach me a lot
    I like youre explanation where can I find other tutorails for u ?

  7. Hi Haroh, thank you so much for imforming me. I did not give any permission of letting her re-publish my tutorial in any form.
    I’m just sick of dealing with those people really…

  10. Hello
    I have been doing about 5 tutorials and i have noticed that i follow the exact instructions and i turn out with a different result that i cannot mimick. For example when you did the curve layer, mine turned out blue and it was not as dark. And when i added the smoke its dark black and tiny bits of white. Do you know what can assist us in following better cos im stuck trying to make it look like your one.

  11. @Timmy: yeah the end result won’t always be exactly the same (especially with the cloud rendering) however make sure you set the layer blending mode correctly, and make sure the curves are as close as the one shown in the tutorial.
    Hope this helps

  12. Great Tutorial, i really like the transformation, its simple yet effective to achieve. Makes me think James Bond films lol (not sure why), anyway keep up the good work.

  13. this is incorrect. unless you are using the EXACT same city skyline this isn’t gonna turn out the way you’re typing brother. The 3 cloned Curvers layers get LIGHTER when you keep setting them to screen. your result is only possibly by setting those layers to multiply. I’ve tried your tutorial with your instructions with 4 different skylines and it comes out a million times lighter each time.

    Everyone, when homeboy says set to “screen” set them to multiply.

  14. @dru: Thanks for your input. However with step 3, you do have to set the blending mode to “Screen” – Listen to homeboy and you won’t go wrong :)

  15. Awesome tutorial you’ve got here. Very imaginative as always. Your outputs never disappoint and are always an enjoyable learning experience.

  17. I have tried your tutorial but I am having much difficulty, I am new to Photoshop and I want to create a warzone / desolated future image. Your image seemed perfect. But I copied your’s word for word.

    But I could not see the fire when I put that image in and then when I finished it was always black and white and it was black and white all the way through the tutorial and I couldn’t do anything to make it colour again.

    What am I doing wrong?

  19. Warzone and Baltimore….so very Ironic. Gotta love my city. That’s an old image—the skyline has changed a bit. we’ve added more buildings.

  22. superb awesome work….well done…………i mean mind blowing…….can u help me………can u tell me how to change a dark person into a white person
    ?????????????????

  24. The other tutorials are better, this one is so unreal, to begin with, the reflexion of the water…and all the buildings burning at once? some destruction would have been better with smoke…

    well, hope u understand with my pathetic english :s . keep this site as allways, cya and many thanks for the rest of tutorials, they all are very good! ;)

  27. hi. I am from Myanmar and a student.Nice to meet you and you website.I am interested in Photoshop.Thanks.

  28. Man I seriously am hooked at these tutorials!! You are not only extremely talented but the way you write it down is awesome and great! Keep up the good work!

  31. Very good tutorial :). I have played around with the flames and have notices if you put the fire layer on hard light or pin light it makes the fire darker and gives it more intensity

  32. hi there ..i actually followed it the way,it was scripted………………..it actually helped me a lot………….n budy ur color sense are just amazing………..Keep up the good work………….i have been following your tut’s since past few months……………..  Gr8 job…………..Thanks

  34. uhh… not sure if it’s only me but there’s no link to the fire pic in step 6? for now i’ll just use one i find myself… thanks for the very useful tutorial anyways!

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