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Create a Distant Desert City Scene with Energy Ray Blast in Photoshop

James Qu — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:00:41 +0000

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In this tutorial, I will show you the processes I use to create this fantasy style, really cool distant desert city scene with an awesome energy ray blasting through the sky in Photoshop.

Along the way, we will be using tons of layer blending techniques, and I will show you how to merge the images together effectively and efficiently. We will also explore skills such as masking, filter effects and various custom brushsets.

This is an intermediate-level tutorial, have a try!

Here is a preview of my final effect for this tutorial: (Click to enlarge)

Alternative version

PSD File Download

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OK Let’s get started!

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

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1280px * 800px, leave the background colour as White. Load the “Desert” stock image into Photoshop, copy and paste the entire image onto our document, position it as shown below:

Name the new layer as “Desert”, add a layer mask onto it. On the layer mask, use the “Mist Brushset” we have just download (any brush in the set), erase the top part of the image as shown below:

This will form a nice misty effect for the image and make it easier for the layer blending later on:

Now duplicate this “Desert” layer once and on the duplicated layer, go to filter > blur > gaussian blur and apply the following settings:

Change the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “Screen” and drop its opacity to 70%, you will have the following effect:

Now we have a very nice, dusty and misty desert scene with a lot of room to expand our imagination.

Step 2

To further adjust the colour balance and contrast of the desert, I add the following three adjustment layers on top of the previous two layers: (from bottom to top)

Color Balance

Curves

Levels

and you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Now I feel that only the desert is a bit boring, so I decided to add some object into it so to create some depth for the image. So let’s load the “misty rock” image into Photoshop, copy and paste the entire image onto our document and name the new layer as “rock”, apply the following mask on the rock layer:

Change the layer blending mode of this layer to “Hard light”, you will have the following effect:

Add a Black and White adjustment layer on top of this rock layer, make sure to tick “use previous layer as clipping mask” option:

Then duplicate the “rock” layer once and drag it to the top, change the blending option of the duplicate layer to “overlay”, you will have the following effect so far:

Step 4

Load the “Sunset Sky” image into Photoshop, copy and paste it onto our document and name this new layer as “sky”, resize and position it as shown below:

Add a layer mask to this sky layer, on the mask, use a soft round brush to gently erase the bottom part of the sky layer, as shown below:

and you will have the following effect:

Add the following two adjustment layers to the sky layer, make sure to tick “use previous layer as clipping mask” option:

Color Balance

Curves

Then duplicate the original Sky layer once and drag it to the top. On the first duplicated sky layer, apply the following motion blur setting to it:

After applying the motion blur filter, duplicate this layer once and change the duplicate layer’s blending mode to “Hard light”, you will have the following effect:

You can see now we have a very nice sky on top of the desert, which makes the image more vibrant.

Step 5

Load the Distant City stock into Photoshop, cut out the city bit with any selection tool you like to use, copy and paste the selection on our document, name the new layer as “city” and use a big, soft brush to erase the surrounding, and leave only the centre of the city selection as shown below:

Duplicate this city layer twice, change the first duplicated layer’s blending mode to “Soft light”, and leave the second layer’s blending mode as “Normal”, but drop the opacity to 45%.

You will have the following effect:

Step 6

Now we’re onto creating the energy blast. Firsty we can make some background highlight for the blast. To do this, create a new layer called “highlight” and grab a soft round brush with white colour, gently paint over the centre area above the city.

Make sure to set the blending mode of this layer to “Hard Light” with an opacity of around 35%:

Now on top of this layer, create a new layer called “laser”, grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool with a 10px feather, make a selection and fill it with white colour as shown below:

Apply the following layer blending option to this layer:

Outer glow

Inner glow

and you will now have this effect:

Step 7

Create a new layer called “Sparkle” on top of all previous layers, set its blending mode to “overlay”. Load the “Star Brushset” we download in and use it to paint around the laser line to create some sparkling effect:

Duplicate the “Sparkle” layer once, and apply the following Radial Blur setting to the duplicated layer:

Name this layer “Radial” and maintain its blending mode to “overlay” and duplicate it twice more, you will have the following effect:

Then duplicate those three layers together once, use the Free Transform Tool to transfrom them to the left side, as shown below:

Step 8

Now we want to work on to the top part (sky) of the laser energy ray. Create a new layer named “sky highlight” and again use a soft brush with white colour to paint over the top centre of the sky, and set the layer blending mode to “overlay”, with opacity around 40%:

Then create a new layer on top of all previous layer and name it as “light top”, fill the layer with black colour and go to Filter > Render > Lens Flare and apply the following settings:

Change this blending mode of this layer to “Screen”, use a soft brush to erase all areas expect the centre portion, as shown below:

Duplicate this layer once, and move it the bottom of the city and change the blending mode to “overlay”, you will have the following effect:

Step 9

Now we can add some lightning effec to the top for further effect. Load the “Lightning” stock image into Photoshop, copy and paste the entire image onto our document and use a soft brush to erase the outer portion of the image.

Change the blending mode of the new layer to “screen” and you will have the following effect:

Duplicate this layer once and free transform (Ctrl + T) the duplicated layer as shown below:

To futher touchup the image, we can add the following adjustment layers:

Curves

Color Balance

and here is the final effect for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

That’s it for this tutorial! Of course you can further enhance the image effect by mixing lighting effect, change hue/saturation settings, etc.

Here is an alternative version I have after I change a few things: (click to enlarge)

Hope you enjoy it! Drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

Seamlessly Combine Multiple Objects and Create Awesome Lighting Effect in Photoshop

James Qu — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 13:38:50 +0000

In this tutorial, I will show you the methods I use to seamlessly combine multiple objects and create some truly awesome lighting effect for your image through the making of this “spiritually connected” abstract style design in Photoshop.

I have been asked many times in this past about making one of this type of tutorial that contains both of the above techniques so here it is :)

Along the way, we will be practicing a lot of Photoshop skills relevant to them, including selection, masking, and layer blending options. We will also be using a lot of layer adjustments and Photoshop Filters. Have a try!

Also I would love to know what other method you use to achieve the same effect, drop me a line below!

Here is a preview of my final image result for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

Black and white version:

PSD File Download

Ok let’s get started!

To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stock images: (I’m non-religious, but I do love temples ^^)

Step 1

Let’s prepare some background to work on first. Load the “Grungy Texture” image into Photoshop, make a duplicate of the background layer. (Personally I think this is a good habit because in case you mess up something, you always revert back to the original image quickly.)

Set the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “Darken” and you will have the following image:

Duplicate the background layer once more and drag the duplicated layer to the top, apply the following the following vector mask to the layer:

Set the blending mode of this layer to “Overlay” and you will have the following effect:

Add a new Curves Adjustment Layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves) and apply the following settings:

And you will have the following effect:

Step 2

Now we have a very grungy-looking background to work on. We can now add our objects onto it.

Load the “Temple Stock 1″ into Photoshop. Use any selection tool you prefer to make a selection around the temple (I would recommand you have a practice with Pen Tool, it’s a good tool and in the future you may use it a lot for a variety of purpose ^^)

If you did use Pen Tool to draw the Path, make sure after you close the path, right-click and choose the option called “Make selection…” and set the feather radius to 0px.

Then hit ctrl+alt+R and apply the following Refine Edge settings:

You selection will look similar as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection onto our document, resize (Ctrl + T) and position it as shown below:

Rename this layer as “Temple 1″. On top of this layer, create two adjustment layers as shown below and make both of them Clipping Mask to the “Temple 1″ layer:

Curves

Black and white

Then set the “Temple 1″ layer blending mode to “Multiply” and you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Load “Temple Texture 2″ into Photoshop. Again we use any selection tool to make a selection around the temple building as shown below:

Hint: use the Refine Edge tool to further adjust the edges of the selection, the goal is to make the selection as smooth and seamless as possible, so it will be easier to blend it into our work later on.

Copy and paste the selection onto our document, resize, rotate it and place it onto the position as shown below:

Name this layer as “Temple 2″ and add a vector mask on it as shown below:

You will now see the bottom part of the “Temple 2″ layer is not under the mask:

On top of the “Temple 2″ layer, add two adjustment layers – curves and black and white and make both of them Clipping Mask to the “Temple 2″ layer:

Curves

Black and White

Set the blending mode of this “Temple 2″ layer to “Multiply” and you will have the following effect:

Step 4

Load “Temple Stock 3″ image into Photoshop. Again we extract the temple building out of the image by making the selection as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection onto our document, resize, rotate it and place it onto the position as shown below:

Name this layer as “Temple 3″ and add a vector mask on it as shown below:

And you will see the bottom part of the building is now hidden:

On top of the “Temple 3″ layer, add two adjustment layers – curves and black and white and make both of them Clipping Mask to the “Temple 3″ layer:

Curves

Black and White

And you will have the following effect:

Step 5

We can see the the centre of the canvas look a bi empty – why not add some cloud in there. (I personally love cloudy effect and I think it can be used in all sorts of occasions)

So load the “Cloud” texture into Photoshop. Copy and paste the entire image onto our document and place the newly-created layer below the “Temple 1″ layer, resize and position it as shown below:

Rename this layer as “cloud” and add the following vector mask onto it:

And you will have the following effect:

Again on the “Cloud” layer, we add two more adjustment layers and make them both the clipping mask for “Cloud” layer:

Curves

Black and White

Set the blending mode of the “cloud” layer to “Multiply” and you will have the following effect:

Step 6

Create a new layer called “Radial Blur”, fill the layer with Black and go to Filter > Render > Cloud and render some cloud (set foreground colour to white, background colour to black)

Go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur and apply the following settings:

Set the blending mode to “overlay” and you will have the following effect:

Duplicate the “cloud” once and set the duplicated layer blending mode to “soft light”, you will have the following effect:

Duplicate the “Cloud” layer once more, on the duplicate layer add a vector mask as shown below:

Change the blending mode of this duplicated layer to “colour dodge”, you will see we now have a centre area of the canvas highlighted and more lighting depth is created:

Step 7

Create a new layer called “fiber” on top of all previous layers, fill it with black and go to Filter > Render > Fiber and apply the following settings:

Set the blending mode of this layer to “soft light” and drop the opacity of around 80%:

Step 8

If you’re happy about the colour/contrast of the image so far, this step will become optional for you.

To further adjust the overall colour balance and contrast of the image, we can add the following two adjustment layers on top of all other layers:

Hue/Saturation

Colour Balance

And you will have the following result image:

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 slightly adjusted the colour balance and add some gaussian blur overlay to make the image shining) – Click to enlarge:

Black and white version:

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!

Design a Cool “Mystic Dancer” Scene In Photoshop

James Qu — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 16:17:11 +0000

In this tutorial, I will show you the processes I used to create this really cool “Mystic Dancer” scene by using natural grass texture in Photoshop. I came across the original image while browsing for free stock image and I thought: what if I combine it with some natural pattern and texture?

Together we can explore various image adjustment tools, filter effects, layer blending mode, dynamic brush settings and more. Some parts of this tutorial can be a bit tricky, but why not have a try :)

Here a before and after preview:

Before

After

Alternative version:

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Download a copy of this image from stockvault.net and load it into Photoshop.

If you can take some time to observe the image, you can the image itself primarily consist of some dark and cold concrete wall, with a only a line of the light source in the middle.

The first step is to add a few extra light to the overall image. To do this, duplicate the background layer once and hit Ctrl + M and bring up the Curve Tool, apply the following settings:

Then hit Ctrl + Alt + Shift + B to bring up the Black and White Image Adjustment Tool, apply the following settings:

And here is the effect so far:

Step 2

Still on this layer, use the Eraser Tool (E) to erase the distracting white bits of the woman’s upper body:

Duplicate the “Background Copy” layer once, set its blending mode to “overlay” and you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Now we want to add some texture on the concrete wall so it looks not so boring. Download a copy of this Grass image and load it into Photoshop. (This image is of my own stock and you can use it wherever and for whatever purpose).

Then go back to our document, hit Ctrl + A and select the whole canvas and drag that selection over to the grass image, copy and paste back to our document and name the newly-formed layer as “grass texture”.

Change the blending option of “grass texture” layer to “overlay” and you will have the following effect:

Then go to Image > Adjustment > Channel Mixer and apply the following settings:

Change the layer blending mode to “overlay”, and you will see the following effect:

Optional: you can erase the texture overlay on the dancer or keep it, that’s totally up to you.

I chose to erase the grass texture off because I felt I would have more room later on for adding something else:

Step 4

Now we can add a bit of motion into the image: Duplicate the “Grass Texture” layer once more, then go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur and apply the following settings:

Then hit Ctrl + L to bring up the Levels tool, apply the following settings:

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

Step 5

Now we can add something around the dancer to create a better connection between her and the rest of the image. Pen Tool + Dynamic Brush is usually a good choice for this :)

Create a new layer called “Stuff around the dancer”, grab the Brush tool and apply the following brush dynamics:

Shape Dynamics

Scattering

Texture:

Dual Brush

Color Dynamics

And tick “Airbrush” and “Smoothing” options.

Then we use the Pen Tool to briefly outline the dancer as shown below:

Then right-click and choose “stroke path” with brush, and you will see the following effect:

Step 6

We can add some additional lighting effect for the dancer so the image looks more realistic. Create a new layer called “extra light”, grab a soft round brush and paint as shown below:

Change the layer blending mode to “overlay” and you will see the following effect:

Step 7

Lastly we can add some cloud in the middle of the image to give the photo some extra flavor. To do this, create a new layer called “cloud”, grab the lasso tool and set its feather to 100px, make a selection as shown below:

Then go to Filter > Render > Cloud (Make sure you set White as foreground colour, Black as background colour) and render some cloud inside:

Then duplicate the “cloud” layer three times, change the blending mode of each duplicated layer as below:

Cloud Copy – Multiply

Cloud Copy 2 – Overlay

Cloud Copy 3 – Soft Light

and you will have the following effect:

Step 8

Lastly, we can add a light source to the image. To do this, create a new layer called “source light”, fill it with black colour and go to Filter > Render > Lens flare and apply the following settings:

Change the layer blending option to “screen” and erase some unnecessary bits down the bottom, you will have the following effect:

I also added some flying bird on the top of the image, you can download this brush from qbrushes.com and load it into Photoshop. For those who don’t know how to load brushes, here is a handy link for you.

Here is the effect so far:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! You can of course further enhance it and add whatever effect you feel like to it!

Here is my final image for this tutorial: (Add some colour and rainy effect)

Alternative 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!