In this tutorial, i will show you the steps I took to create this epic Fantasy Style artwork “Lost in Memory” in Photoshop. I combined the meteor effect, some matte-painting tricks plus lighting effect in this tutorial. Have a try!

Here is a preview of the final effect I have for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

Version 1

Version 2 (this is an alternative version with a darker contrast)

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Ok let’s get started!

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

Cloud brush

Rust

Mountain 1

Moutain 2

Palace

Bridge

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1400px * 800px, fill the background with black colour. Load the “Rust” image into Photoshop, select a portion of the rust texture as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection onto our canvas, resize it to fit the height and width of the canvas, then apply the following motion blur settings to it:

Add the following adjustment layers to this texture layer: (make sure to tick the “use previous layer as clipping mask” option)

Black and white

Curves

Levels

Apply the following layer mask to the texture layer:

The reason I added the mask is when I start this artwork, I’ve already made a plan of how each object will be placed, and here is an indication of it:

Obviously by adding the layer mask, we can hide those areas that we don’t want the texture to be shown.

Step 2

Load the “cloud brush” into the Photoshop, create a new layer called “cloud” above all previous layer, and paint some cloud on it: (adjust the flow and opacity of the cloud brush to a low level, and don’t just use one brush, use the lot!)

Load the “Mountain 1″ image into Photoshop and cut out the mountain portion of the image, paste it onto our canvas, resize and position it to the left side of the canvas, and name this layer as “mountain left”:

Add the following layer mask to this “mountain left” layer: (this hide the edges and make a smooth transition, use a combination of a soft round brush and chalk brush to achieve this, make sure you adjust the flow and opacity along the way)

Add the following adjustment layers to this mountain left layer: (make sure to tick the “use previous layer as clipping mask” option)

Black and White

Levels

Curves

Here is the effect so far:

Step 3

As you can we have a river flowing on the bottom of the moutnain – somehow I feel it’s a just too short and I decide to extend it a bit.

To do this, go back to the “mountain 1″ image, select the river portion of the image, copy and paste the selection on our canvas. Name this layer as”river”, resize it to smaller size as shown below:

Erase the edges with a soft brush:

Add the following adjustment layers to this river layer: (make sure to tick the “use previous layer as clipping mask” option)

Black and White

Curves

For more variety, duplicate this river layer one more time and move it to the right side, apply the same black and white, curves adjustment settings as before:

Here is the effect so far:

Step 4

Load the “Mountain 2″ image into Photoshop, cut out the following portion of the mountain and paste it onto our canvas, as shown below:

Name this layer as “mountain right”, add the following layer mask to this layer:

Add the following adjustment layers to this texture layer: (make sure to tick the “use previous layer as clipping mask” option)

Black and white

Now we move on to the palace bit of the image. Load the “palace” image into Photoshop, cut out the palace portion (i found the quick select tool is probably the best tool here) and paste it onto our canvas. Position it on top of the right mountain, resize it to fit the size of the mountain:

Erase the edges of the castle with a soft round brush (you can use chalk brush with a really low opacity and flow to erase some parts of the palace, to create a old and rusty effect)

Add the following adjustment layers to this palace layer: (make sure to tick the “use previous layer as clipping mask” option)

Black and White

Curves

Here is the effect so far:

Step 5

Now we can spice up the fantasy effect a bit by doing some cloud warping. If you are not familiar with this technique, check out this post here on PSD Vault.

The point I would like to mention is once you finish the cloud warp, experiment the layer blending mode with it, don’t just leave it to “normal”. For instance, I used the “screen” blending mode for the following cloud:

Also duplicate the cloud layer, move them around to the positions shown below for more lighting and depth:

Once you’re happy with the cloud, load the “bridge” stock image into Photoshop, cut out and portion of the bridge and paste it onto our canvas. Name this layer as “bridge” and put it under the “mountain left” layer and “cloud” layer we created in the beginner of the tutorial, erase the edges of the bridge with a soft eraser:

Add the following adjustment layers to this bridge layer: (make sure to tick the “use previous layer as clipping mask” option)

Black and white

Curves

We can fine-tuning the contrast of the image a bit. Add the following adjustment layers on top of all previous layer:

Curves

Here is the effect so far:

Step 6

Now let’s create a simple meteor effect for this artwork. To do this, create a new layer called “meteor head” and grab a round white brush with 60% hardness, do a single click on the new layer, then hit Ctrl + Shift + X to bring up the liquify fitler, apply the following settings:

Left-click and hold, then drag the liquify brush to the direction as shown below for this effect:

Create a new layer called “meteor tail” and grab a round white brush with 40% hardness, do a single-click on this layer, then distort and warp it as shown below:

Warp

To add some more effect around the tail, use the cloud brushset we downloaded and reduce their brush size to a very small level, then simply paint around the tail (use a soft eraser tool to erase the edges for better result):

Then group those layers, duplicate this group and scatter the meteor around the canvas:

Step 7

OK we’re petty much done. To fine-tune the final effect, I added the following adjustment layers above all previous layers:

Colour Balance

Layer Mask on Colour Balance layer:

Vibrance

Levels

Here is the effect so far:

For final touchups, I reduce the noise of the image a bit, and here is the final effect: (click to enlarge)

Version 1

Version 2 (this is an alternative version with a darker contrast)

That’s it for this tutorial! Hopefully you learnt something new :)

Until next time, have a great day!

Fantasy style digital artworks have always been one of my favourites. There is so much creativity in those works and almost every fantasy work can tell a story. Not to mention in order to create those works, you need excellent skills (not only Photoshop), plus being extremely creative with your work.

In this post, I will showcase you 25 Absolutely Amazing (Fresh) Fantasy Digital Artworks, hand-picked from deviantart.com for your inspiration. Hopefully you will enjoy them as much as I did :)

Here goes the list, enjoy!

If you like those works, then show those awesome designers some support! Click on the image to visit the author’s flickr page and drop them a comment :)

That’s it for this post! Hope you enjoy this showcase and find it inspirational! Till next time, have a nice day!

In this tutorial, I will show you the processes I used to create this really cool, fantasy style floating Mountain Scene in Photoshop. This is an intermediate level tutorial and some steps can be tricky, but why not have a try!

Here is a a preview of the final effect: (click to enlarge)

PSD File for this Tutorial

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OK let’s get started!

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

Grass Hilltop

Sky 1

Sky 2

River

Mountain

Girl

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

create a new document sized 1000px * 1500px, leave the background layer colour as white. Load the Grass Hilltopinto Photoshop, use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to select a portion of the image – when you make the selection, make sure you select a piece where it contain both sky and the grass, as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection onto our docuemnt, name this layer as “Grass land” and resize it to fit the width of our document, with roughly about half of the height:

As you can see we leave a large portion the upper area for the sky, personally I think this will help later on when we add more objects on the sky and make the image look deeper.

Add the following two adjustment layer on top the grass land layer:

Curves

Mask

Black and White (Set blending mode to “Hard Light”)

and you will have the following effect so far:

Step 2

Load the “River” stock image into Photoshop, use the the Lasso tool with a 20px feather, cut out the river portion of the image, and paste it on to our document to the position as shown below:

Hint: use the Free Transform tool (Ctrl + T) to resize and distort the image if necessary. Use the eraser tool with a soft brush tip to erase the edges so it blends into the image with the grass background.

Name this layer as “river”, add the following Curves adjustment layer to it: (make sure to tick “use previous layer as clipping mask” option)

Here is the effect so far:

You can see by adding a simple adjustment layer, we make the river portion blend into the grass texture and as a result, it would be easier for us to edit the image later on when needed.

Step 3

Load the Sky 1 image into Photoshop, select the upper portion the image and copy it onto our document, name this new layer as “sky 1″:

Use the Warp Tool (Ctrl + T, then right-click to choose Warp) to drag the right bottom edge lower so it links with the grass texture:

Add the following mask to this Sky 1 layer:

and you will have the following effect:

As you can see, I dug a hole on the sky so that I can add the mountain texture under it.

Load the Sky 2 texture into Photoshop, copy and paste the entire image onto our document and put this layer above the previous Sky 1 layer. Resize and position it as shown below:

Rename this layer as “Sky 2″ and right-click the layer on the layer palette, choose “create clipping mask”, also erase the bottom edge on this sky 2 layer so it blends with the Sky 1 layer:

add the following 3 adjustment layers on top of the Sky 2 layer (make sure to tick “use previous layer as clipping mask” option):

Curves

Black and White (blend mode set to “Hard Light”, opacity to 40%)

Color Balance

and you will have the following effect:

Step 4

Load the “mountain” texture into Photoshop, select the lower portion of the image, copy and paste onto our document. Name the layer as “mountain” and put this layer under the “Sky 1″ layer: (Resize the layer to a smaller size)

As you can see, because we previously added the mask on the Sky 1 layer, this mountain layer will therefore be visible. You can of course reveal a different portion of the mountain by simply moving the mountain layer left or right, that’s totally up to you.

Add the following two adjustment layer to this mountain layer:

Curves

Colour Balance

and you will have the following effect:

Step 5

I feel the bottom part of the image looks a bit dark and boring, so I decided to add a thin layer of fog/air flow to it.

To do this, we simply use the “Sky 1″ image, select a portion of the image as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection onto our document, name this new layer as “fog” and put it above all previous layers, desaturate it and apply the following motion blur to it:

Position this layer on top of the grass and river section of the image:

erase the top edge with a soft brush, change the blending mode to “Vivid Light”. Duplicate this layer once and change the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “Screen”, opcacity to 30%, you will have the following effect:

Step 6

Load the “Lady” image into Photoshop, cut out the girl image from the background with whatever method you prefer (I used the Quick Selection Tool here, with a 3px brush tip), paste it onto our document.

Name this layer as “Girl” and put it above all previous layer, resize and position it as shown below:

Create a new layer under the girl layer, use a very small soft brush (3px), paint some shadow under the girl and slighly to the left:

Add the following two adjustment layer on top of the girl layer:

Color Balance

Curves

By doing so we adjust the lighting of the girl to be similar to her surrounding:

Also we can create a new layer on top of all other layers, grab an abstract/fractal brushset from qbrushes.net or brusheezy.com, paint around the mountain to create some misty effect: (adjust the layer opacity to around 30%)

and you will have this overall effect so far:

Step 7

OK we’re almost there! There is one more trick I would like to show you here. You might remeber on the preview I have a abstract line bursting from the top of the mountain. Here I will show you how I did this effect.

We flatten the image, duplicate the background layer once, find the Twirl Filter under the Filter menu and apply the following settings:

Hit Ctrl + F 2 or 3 more times, you will have the following effect:

Use a big soft brush to erase the bottom portion of the duplicated twirl layer and leave only the top bits, as shown below: (Drop the layer opacity to 70%)

That’s pretty much it for this tutorial! I further adjusted the color balance a bit and sharpen the image, and here is my final effect:

Hope you enjoy this tutorial and find it useful! Thanks and have a great day!

In this tutorial, I will show you the processes I took to create this Fantasy Style Mountain River Scene in Photoshop. This is an intermediate level tutorial so some step can be tricky, but why not have a try!

Here is a preview of the final effect I have 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 $4.95/Month (or less)! You will not only get this PSD File, but also 40+ other PSD Files + Extra Goodies + Exclusive Photoshop tutorial there. Signup now and get exclusive :) Find out more about the VIP Members Areas

OK let’s get started!

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

Beach

Mountain

Girl

Planet

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1400px * 800px, leave the background layer as white, load the “Beach” image into Photoshop. Copy and paste the entire image onto our document, resize it as shown below:

The reason we do is that we only want the sand portion of the image to show at this stage, and we will manipluate the cloud portion later on in the tutorial.

Name this layer as “beach”, add the following mask to hide the sky/cloud portion on this layer:

and here is the effect after applying this layer mask:

Add the following three adjustment layers on top of this “beach” layer:

Black and white

Set blending mode to “Soft Light” for this black and white adjustment layer.

Curves

Colour Balance

Here is the effect so far:

Step 2

Now we can tackle the sky/cloud portion of the image. We use the same texture as in the previous step, but this time we select a portion of the sky and paste it onto our canvas.

To add variartion to the image, I copy and paste two different portion of the sky onto our canvas: (One to the left, the other one to the right)

Use a soft brush to erase the edge of the sky to blending them together:

Add the following adjustmnet layer to the sky to the left:

I know when I add the mountain texture later on, the right side of the skpe will probably be covered be the mountain, the left side will therefore become a light source, so the adjustment layer is to emphasise this portion.

and here is the effect so far:

Step 3

Load the “Girl” texture into Photoshop, cut out the girl using whatever selection method you prefer (don’t worry about the edge) and paste it onto the canvas as shown below:

Create a new layer on top of the girl layer called “shadow”, set the blending mode to “Soft Light” and opacity to around 60%, use a soft brush with black colour  to paint some shadow under the girl and to the right, as shown below:

Add another layer on top of the shadow layer called “light”,set the blending mode to “soft light” and opacity to 60%, this time use a soft round brush with White Colour and do a single click in the position as shown below:

and here is the overall effect so far:

Step 4

Load the “Mountain” texture into Photoshop, select the mountain portion of the image as shown below: (I used the Quick Selction Tool)

Copy the selection and paste it onto our canvas, name this new layer as “mountain right”, erase the edges with a soft eraser, as shown below:

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

Curves

Colour Balance

add the following layer mask to the colour balance adjustment layer: (this will hide the rest the layer, and leave only the river portion)

Duplicate the “mountain right” layer once and drag it to the top, flip it horizontally and drag it to the left hand side of the canvas, erase the right and top edges as shown below:

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

Curves

here is the effect so far:

Step 5

Now we can do some tweaks so each of the objects blend together with each other. Add the following adjustment layers (and their relevant layers masks) on top of all layers:

Vibrance

Colour Balance

Mask:

Curves

Mask

Of course with the colour balance layer, you can try out your own colour combination and see what result that brings you.

Optionally, you can add one more colour balance layer on top and add some warm colours on the bottom. Here are my settings for the second colour adjustment layer:

Mask:

and here is the overall effect so far:

Step 6

Load the planet stock image into Photoshop, cut out the plaent and paste it onto our canvas in the position as shown below:

Apply the following mask to this planet layer:

Change the blending mode to “Soft Light” and reduce the opacity to 50%, you will have the following effect:

Step 7

We can add some misty/fog effect on the image – instead of using textures, we use this fractal brushset to paint some texture around the image, as shown below: (paint on a new layer, with soft light blending mode and a 30-50% opacity)

Hint: try to mix the Warp Tool (Ctrl + T and right-click to choose warp) and the fractal brushset for better effect:

Of course you’re free to experiement and paint those fogs in a different position :)

Step 8

Now we’re pretty much done! However we can add some final adjustments to the image.

We simply flatten the image, duplicate the background layer, and apply the following High Pass filter to the duplicated layer:

Change the blending mode to “Hard light”, you will find your effect become sharpened and clearer:

That’s it! I also tried to add some colour to the image by having one more Colour Balance adjustment layer, with the following settings:

Mask

You can also try out adding more adjustment layers such as Curves or Levels to add more lighting contrast.

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

That’s it for this tutorial! Hopefully you learn something out of it and find it inspirational!

Cheers and have a great day!

Fantasy, surreal sytle drawings has always been a favourite topic for me.  If you have been following PSD Vault for a while, you will notice a lot of my tutorials here are based on Fantasy Styles :)

Thanks to the wonderful invention of scanner, we will be able to see those works on computer, instead of paper or canvas.

In this post, I will showcase 25 Beautiful, Absolutely Magical Traditional Art Fantasy Drawings as a source of your inspiration. Some of them are done in watercolor and some of them are pencil drawing. Nonetheless they look amazing! Hope you enjoy them!

If you like those works, please visit the source page and give those artists some applause! Simply click on images to access their source.

Here goes the list, enjoy!

That’s it for this post! Hope you enjoy those works as much as I did!

Till next time, have a great day!

Recently I was invited by Andrew from My Ink Blog to write a guest post and here is what I came up with – A surreal, ancient Fantasy Scene made in Photoshop. (I personally always love fantasy style!) My Ink Blog is a site that always enjoy hopping onto and I’m really happy that I was given an opportunity to be a small part of it :)

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to create this work. We will take several real world objects and seamlessly blend them together to form this artwork. We will also use a number of Photoshop brushes to spice up the effect. The techniquses involved in this tutorial include layer blending, image adjustments, filter effects, custom brush tools, adding layer mask, etc.

This is a 10 steps tutorial, very simple, yet the effect is good. Have a try!

Here is a preview of the final effect: (click to enlarge)

Please click here to view this tutorial on My Ink Blog.

If you have any problem, drop me a comment and I will try my best to help you out. Cheers and have a great day!

In this tutorial, I will show you the processes involved in creating this beautiful, fantasy-styled surreal ancient ruin and coastal island scenary in Photoshop. Hope you enjoy it!

Along the way, we will go through a variety of technqiues such as layer blending, image adjustments, a bit of matte painting skills and filter effects. This is an intermediate level tutorial so some steps can be a bit tricky. Practices always make thing easier for the future, so go ahead and have a try :)

Here is a preview of the final effect I have 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 $4.95/Month (or less)! You will not only get this PSD File, but also 40+ other PSD Files + Extra Goodies + Exclusive Photoshop tutorial there. Signup now and get exclusive :) Find out more about the VIP Members Areas

OK let’s get started!

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

Coastal Cliff Scene

Island Sky

Rock Island

Waterfall 1

Waterfall 2

Ancient Ruin

Beautiful Sitting Lady

Step 1

Load the “Coastal Cliff Scene” stock image into Photoshop, we will use this as our starting point. Firstly I’d like to make the overall soften a bit, so I duplicate the background layer, and apply the following Gaussian Blur settings to the duplicated layer:

After apply the Gaussian Blur settings, duplicate this blurred layer once and change the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “Color Burn”, you will have the following effect:

On this colour burn layer, add a layer mask and on the layer mask, erase the area indicated above (within the selection), so that only the colour of the ocean darkened: (Hint: erase using a big, soft brush)

Now add the following adjustments layer on top of all previous layers:

Curves:

Colour Balance:

On top of the adjustment layers, add a gradient fill layer as shown below:

And you will have the following effect so far:

Step 2

Now we have a pretty nice grass on the lower part of our image, but the sky portion is simply a disaster right now. To fix this, simply load the Island Sky image into Photoshop, and drag the entire image onto our document, name this layer as “sky” and position, resize it as shown below:

Use a big soft brush to erase the bottom part of the “sky” layer, so we have the sky portion of the image left:

Add the following “Curves” adjustment layer to the “Sky” layer, make sure to tick “use previous layer as clipping mask” option:

Duplicate the “sky” layer and drag the duplicated layer to the top, apply the following Motion Blur settings to it:

Change the motion blur sky layer’s blending mode to “Screen” and opacity to 70%, you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Now we can work on adding some dynamic lighting effect to the edges of the cliff. Let’s grab the Lasso Tool (L) and set its feather to 30px, draw a selection around the bottom edge of the cliff, and render some cloud (choose a dark grey as background colour, and white as foreground colour) within it:

Name this layer as “light bottom” and drop its opacity to 70%.

Duplicate the “light bottom” layer once and change the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “overlay”.

And on the cliff edge to the right, we use the same method to render some cloud around it. (For quicker result, simply duplicate the original “light bottom” layer and position it as shown below:

and change the layer name to “lighting right”, duplicate it once and change the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “overlay”, you will have the following effect:

For more lighting variations, we can add a Brightness and Contrast adjustment layer with the following settings and mask:

and you will have the following effect:

Step 4

We can now add a far distance island to the ocean. Load the Rock Island image into Photoshop and drag it onto our document. Erase the surrounding and leave only the rock island and name this layer as “island”:

Add a colour balance adjustment layer to this “island” layer, make sure to tick “use previous layer as clipping mask” option:

Now duplicate the “island” layer three times and drag them all to the top, change their blending mode as shown below:

And your effect should be similar to the following:

Step 5

Now we can add some waterfall to the island (well, it supposes to be a surreal image!). I decide to add one to each side. So load the Waterfall 1 image into Photoshop and drag it onto our document. Erase all the unnecessary parts only leave the main waterfall scene, resize and position it as shown below:

Name this layer as “waterfall 1″ and duplicate it once to make it bolder. Add the following Colour Balance adjustment layer to the duplicated layer, make sure to tick “use previous layer as clipping mask” option:

and you will have the following effect:

Load the Waterfall 2 image into Photoshop and again drag it to our document. Name this layer as “waterfall 2″ and put it on top of all other layers.

Again we erase all unnecessary parts of the waterfall image, and position it as shown below:

Add the following image adjustment layer to the “waterfall 2″ layer, make sure to tick “use previous layer as clipping mask” option:

Curves

Colour Balance

To highlight the island a bit, we can add a new colour balance adjustment layer without ticking the clipping mask option on top of all other layers, with the following settings and mask:

Mask

and you will have the following effect so far:

Step 6

Now we’re onto add the Ancinet Ruin part. Simply load the Ancient Ruin image into Photoshop and drag it onto our document, resize and position it as shonw below:

Name this layer as  “ruin” Erase the bottom part (use a small soft brush) and the sky portion off the image: (hint: use the magic wand tool to select the sky part, and go to Edit > Clear to get rid of it)

Optional: you can add a colour balance adjustment layer to this ruin layer, however I decide to leave it as it is for now, with the original lighting effect.

Duplicate this “ruin” layer once, flip it horizontally and rezise a bit, fit it on top of our island as shown below:

Step 7

We can now spice up the image a bit by adding the beautiful lady image outlooking the distant sea to our scene. So load the “beautiful sitting lady” image into Photoshop. Cut the lady from the rest of the image and paste it onto our document, name this layer as “lady”:

Resize and position it as shown below:

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

Curves

Colour Balance

Brightness and Contrast

Duplicate the original “lady” layer once, and put it on top of all other layers, change the blending mode to “multiply”, you will have the following effect:

And now we can painting a bit of shadow for the lady. So create a new layer just below the orginal lady layer, use a soft round brush with black colour, set the brush flow and opacity to 50%, and paint in the area as shown below:

Step 8

For some final touchups, we can add two more adjustment layers with the following settings and mask:

Colour Balance

Brightness and Contrast

And you will have the following final effect:

Step 9

To further enhance the image effect, I flatten the image and apply the following smart sharpen settings to the flattened image:

And to add some sunlight, I simply duplicated the background layer, and apply the following radial blur settings:

Change the blending mode to “Screen” for this duplicated layer and drop its opacity to around 40%.

I further alter the colour balance and saturation of the image, and here is my final image result for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

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!

I have always been a huge fan for those surreal, fantasy-styled digital artworks. Every time I look at them, I’m captured by the powerful theme they represent, and the spiritual meaning behind those artworks. Not to mention the technique used in those artwork are simply world-class.

In this post, I hand-picked 22 Absolutely Amazing Surreal Fantasy-Styled Digital Artworks from deviantART. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do and maxmise your creativity :)

OK that’s it folks! Hope you enjoy those artworks and find them inspirational!

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to design this awesome Fantasy style Castle Scene with icy background texture, space and debris brushsets.

Together we will be using a variety of Photoshop techqinues such as layer blending mode, selection methods, filter effects, masking technqiues and image adjustments. Again this is an intermediate tutorial so some of the steps can be a bit tricky, but it doesn’t hurt to have a try!

Here is a preview of 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 $4.95/Month (or less)! You will not only get this PSD File, but also 40+ 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 to the following textures:

Castle

Icy Background

And these two brushsets:

Space Brushset

Debris Brushset

Step 1

Firstly let’s prepare our background texture. Load the “Icy Background” texture into Photoshop, duplicate the background layer once and set the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “soft light”.

Go to Layer > New adjustment layer > Curves and apply the following settings:

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

Now go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Colour Balance and apply the following settings:

Change the blending mode of the newly created colour balance adjustment layer to “soft light” and you will have the following effect:

You can see now the image has more colour depth and much more eye-catching than the original one.

Step 2

Now let’a add an ancient castle in. Load the “Castle” image into Photoshop, use the Magic Wand tool to select the sky portion of the image: (Hint: hold down “Shift” Key to add onto the existing selection)

Then press Shift + Ctrl + I to do an inverse selection, then grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool and hold down the Alt key and make a selection of the bottom part of the image.

This will substract the bottom part of the selection off , as shown below:

After the substraction, press Ctrl + Alt + R to bring up the Refine Edge Tool, apply the following settings:

After the edge-refinemetn, copy and paste the selection on to our document, resize and position it as shown below:

Name this layer as “Castle” and change its blending mode to “Hard Light”.

Add a vector mask onto this layer, grab the Gradient Tool (G) and set the foreground colour to “Black” and background colour Transparent, apply the following gradient effect on the mask:

And you will see the untidy bit on the left side of the castle disappeared:

Step 3

Duplicate the “Castle” layer once, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply the following settings:

Keep the Blending mode of the duplicated layer as “Hard Light”, however drop the opacity to 70%, and you will have the following effect:

Now go back to the orginal castle layer and make a duplicate of it once more, drag the duplicated layer above all other layers, go Edit > Tranform > Flip Horizontal and flip this layer horizontally once, set the blending mode of this layer to “overlay” and opacity 65%.

You will have the followinge effect: (This add a bit more depth to the image)

Step 4

Now let’s add some mist/fog around the castle and add a bit of distant feeling to it. Create a new layer named “Mist”, grab the Lasso Tool with 50px feather, draw a selection as shown below:

Go to Filter > Render > Cloud and render some cloud  inside it (White as Foreground Colour, Black and background colour),  set the blending mode of this layer to “Screen” with 70% opacity:

Then duplicate the “Mist” layer once, put the duplicated layer below the orginal Mist layer and change its blending mode to “Color Dodge” , you will see now we also have some shining effect for the castle and this make the image more vibrant:

Step 5

Now load the “Debris Brushset” into Photoshop. Create a new layer and grab a brush of your choice from the set, paint over the newly created layer as shown below:

Change the blending mode of this layer to “Soft Light” and drop the opacity to 40%, you will have the following effect:

Then load the “Space Brushset” into Photoshop, create a new layer with “overlay” blending mode on top of every other layer, simply paint over the layer with any brush you like from the set:

Step 6

Now you may feel the left side of the image looks a bit empty. To fill this, I simply duplicate the background layer once more, flip the duplicated layer horizontally once and change its blending mode to “Darker Color”:

Add the followinge vector mask to the duplicated layer to add some lighting dynamics to the image:

You will have the final effect:

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 a few Pen Tool lins in the background) – Click to enlarge:

Also if you like to have some extra practices of making those Pen Tool lines, you can take a look at my other post here.

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!

In this tutorial, I will show you the processses involved in transforming an average photo into a mysterious dark portal to the underworld scene, inspired by the famous Playstation hack-and-slash game Devil May Cry.

The techniques used in this tutorial include layer blending styles, various image adjustment tools, filters and some basic selection techniques. The steps are very simple and straight-forward. Give it a go!

Here is a before-and-after comparison:

Before

After

PSD File for this Tutorial

You can have this PSD File for only $2.00 via Paypal! Click the link below and you will be taken to the Paypal checkout page, after payment you will be redirect to the download page automatically.

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Download the above “Before” image and load it into Photoshop. On the background layer, use curve tool to adjust the lighting contrast a bit. See below for detailed settings:

Step 2

Duplicate the background layer once, then hit Ctrl+Alt+Shift+B to bring up the the Black and White image adjustment tool, apply the following settings on the duplicated layer:

After applying Black and White, right-click on the layer and choose “Blending Option”, change the layer blending option of the duplicated layer to “Saturation”.

So far the effect looks like:

Step 3

Now we add some glowing light on the stone pillars. Duplicate the Background layer once more, and the duplicated layer above the previous duplicated layer in Step 2. Apply the Black and White image adjustment on this layer, using the following setting:

After Black and White, go to filter > blur > Gaussian Blur and apply the following settings:

After applying gaussian blur, change the layer blending option to “Screen” and set the layer opacity to about 70%.

Optional: You may apply the Curve Tool (Ctrl + M) on this layer if you wouldl like to adjust the colour constrast.

The effect so far looks like this:

Step 4

Now we want to create some cloud/mist inside the archway so it looks like a portal to the underworld and add some extra CG effect.

Create a new layer named “cloud” on top of every other layer, use the Lasso Tool with a 15-20px feather, select the six archways respectively. (To do this, you need hold down the Shift key while selecting)

Fill the selection with Black and go to Filter > Render > Cloud and render some cloud:

You can repeatly hit Ctrl + F to re-render the cloud untill you’re happy with it.

After rendering cloud, hit Ctrl + L to bring up the Level Tool, apply the following settings:

Then hit Ctrl + M to bring up the Curve Tool, apply the following settings:

Optional: You may use the Clone Stamp Tool to clone some clouds and fill the empty gap.

Step 5

Now we can add some colour to the image. Create a new layer and set the layer blending option to overlay. Grab a big brush and change its setting as the following:

To make the Devil May Cry Theme, I Chose a Dark red colour and brush over the cloudy part of the image:

The effect so far looks like this:

Ok! That’s it for this tutorial. You may still want to adjust its Hue and Saturaton a bit more, or simply add some more lighting effects to it.

Here is my final image for this tutorial:

Hope you enjoy this tutorial and if you have any question, just drop me a comment below.

PS: I used a lot of Keyboard shortcuts in this tutorial. The reason is that I think it’s a good idea for a beginner to practice some shortcuts and later on you will form this habit and increase your work efficiency.