In this tutorial, I will show the process I took to create this dark, snowy Ancient Japanese castle scene in Photoshop. The main skill we will practice in this tutorial would be the use of Image Adjustment Layers.
The difficulty of this tutorial is intermediate.
Final Result Preview
Here is a preview of the final effect I have for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)
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Stock Images Required
OK let’s Get Started!
Step 1
Create a new document sized 1440px * 800px with black background. Load the “Rock Ground” stock image into Photoshop, select a portion of it and paste it onto our document.
Place it at the bottom of the canvas and use the Perspective option in the free transform tool, add some perspective to it:
Use a soft eraser, fade the top portion of the rock ground as shown below:
Apply the following adjustment layers on top of the rock ground layer as clipping mask:
Black and White
Levels
Use a cloud brush, paint some cloud effect around the canvas, and you will have the following effect:
Step 2
We can add some rock formation on the bottom right of the canvas. Load the rock formation stock image into Photoshop, select the following portion:
Paste the selection onto our canvas and place it on the bottom right corner, use the Free Transform tool to reduce its size. Also use a soft eraser to fade its left and top edge and it blends into the surroundings:
Black and White
Levels
and here is the effect so far:
Step 3
Load the Japanese castle stock image into Photoshop. Select the large castle and paste it onto our document. Flip this new layer horizontally:
I decide to add some cracks and dirt effect to the castle so it looks aged. To do this, we simply add a layer mask on this castle layer, use a custom crack brush or dirt brush, paint over the layer mask to create this effect:
Add the following image adjustment layer as clipping masks to this castle layer:
Black and White
Curves
and here is the effect so far:
Step 4
Load the street stock image into Photoshop, select the following portion:
Place the selection at the bottom corner:
Apply the following image adjustment layers as clipping masks to this street layer:
Black and White
Levels
and here is the effect so far:
Step 5
We can add the Moon stock into our canvas, place it to the position shown below:
Made sure you set the blend mode to “screen” for this moon layer:
Use a snow brush, paint some snow effect around the canvas:
I then used a couple of image adjustment layers to turn the image blue, just to add extra cool/cold feeling to it. The image adjustment layers used are:
- Color Balance
- Select Colour
and this is my final result: (click to enlarge)
That’s it for this tutorial! Hope you learn a thing or two from it and if you have any questions, just drop me a comment below.