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 $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

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!

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps involved in designing this dark and misty mountain scene with a gloomy looking far-away city scene in Photoshop.

Along the way, we will use techniques such as layer blending and masking, adjustments layer, filters effects and a variety of image adjustment options. You will learn methods to seamless blend two (or more) images together and generate cinematic effect. This is a simple tutorial with just 5 steps,  have a go!

Here is a preview of before and after effect:

Before

After

Alternative colour scheme:

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Download the following two stock photos from stockvault.net:

Mountain Image

New York City Stock Photo

Load the “Moutain Image” into Photoshop, duplicate the background layer once. The reason we duplicate the background layer is in case we mess up this duplicated layer, we can always delete it and go back to the original background layer.

We can firstly give this photo a nice and cool gradient effect. So after duplicating, go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Fill, apply the following gradient settings:

Then set the layer blending mode of this adjustment layer to “soft light” and you will have the following effect:

Step 2

Duplicate the background layer once more and drag it to the top. Set the blending mode of this to “Screen” and go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer >Color Balance and apply the following settings:

Keep the blending mode of the adjustment layer as “normal” and you will see the following effect:

Step 3

Now we will add some more colour depth and make the image a bit darker. Firstly, we go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer >Channel Mixer and apply the following settings:

Then go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves and apply the following settings:

Lastly we go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels and apply the following settings:

And you will have the following effect so far:

Step 4

Load the “New York City Stock Photo” into Photoshop, use the Rectangular Marquee (M) tool to select a portion of the image as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection onto our document and name the layer as “city”. Resize the image until it fits the width of our canvas and position it as shown below:

Set the blending mode of  “city” layer to “multiply” and erase (using a big soft brush, I used 1,000px with 0% hardness) the the bottom portion of the layer (use a layer mask if you would like to be safe)

Duplicate the “city” layer once and apply the following Gaussian Blur settings:

Set the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “screen” and you will add a glowing effect for the city far-away:

Step 5

Now we can render some mist/cloud for the forest and also add some uneven lighting effect. To do this, create a new layer called “lighting effect”, use the Lasso Tool with 80px feather to make a selection for the mountain forest, and render some cloud inside it (Filter > Render > Cloud):

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

Duplicate the “lighting effect” layer and hit Ctrl + L, apply the following Curves Adjustments to the duplicated layer:

Change the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “color dodge” and you will see the following effect: (lighting effect towards certain area has been enhanced)

Duplicate this layer a few more times, drag each of the duplicated layers around the image to produce more dynamic lighting effect and misty environment: (keep the blending mode to “color dodge” for each layer).

Here is the effect after duplication:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! As for my final image, I slightly adjusted the hue/saturation:

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!