A wizard and his pupil
In this tutorial we will create a magical scene with wizards, a flying horse, floating castles and more. I will share with you some useful compositing and photomanipulation tips and walk you trough the process of creating this scene.What you'll be creating
Photomanipulation tutorial with simple and advanced techniques. You will need Photoshop CS5 or newer to follow this tutorial.Tutorial Resources
- New York Skyline - Dreamstime
- Title of DeviantART Resource - DeviantART Username
- Sky - Magikfeller
- Moon Brushes - Ischarm
- Floating Island - Mindsquezedesign
- Desert - stockf8
- Tree - Monglowlilly
- Apple - Monglowlilly
- Bush - Monglowlilly
- Wall Lamp - Monglowlilly
- Walking - GMarshal
- Warmblood - Bundy - Stock
- Wings - maureenolder
- Fantasy Lighting Brushes- KeepWaiting
- Grass- Lemondjinn
- Fern - wolverine041269
- Daisy- wolverine041269
- Fern Brush - fantmayo
- Waterfalls Brush - Midnight's touch
- Water Brush - redheadstock
- Clouds - redheadstock
- Rainbow - magikfeller
- Birds Brush - Midnight's touch
- Lens Flares - SaphireDesign
- Castle - skinywitch
- Wizard Duo - ailinstock
- Nebula - freeimages.com
- Nobleman - Grinmir-stock
Step 1
Open file “Sky”. This will be our background on which we
will create our scene.
Step 2
Import the moon brushes. Choose a half moon brush and on a
new layer (to create a new layer press Ctrl + Shift + Alt + N) click once to
create a half moon like shown below.
Step 3
Now let’s create the castles floating in the sky. First open
the file “Floating Island”. Select all by pressing Ctrl + A, copy by pressing
Ctrl + C. Go back to our scene and press Ctrl + V to paste. Now we could resize
the island as it is but it is good practice to convert most of our imported
layers to smart objects in order to preserve their original pixel information
no matter how much we resize them or apply filters on them. Smart objects and
adjustment layers are very important for lossless image editing and
manipulation – we will soon use adjustment layers. For now let’s convert the
imported layer (our floating island) into a smart object. There are multiple
ways to do that but the simplest way is to right click the layer and from the
drop down menu choose Convert To Smart Object. After you do that you can safely
resize the island (Ctrl + T) as shown below.
Step 4
Our island is orange but our sky is blue. The island looks
like it doesn’t belong here. That is because objects tend to have a hue close
to that of the sky. This is generally true for most photo manipulations scenes.
Now how should we go about color correcting the island so that it blends nicely
with the sky? There are multiple ways of doing that: we could use a hue/saturation
adjustment layer, a curves adjustment
layer or a solid color layer. We will use the latter since it is the
easiest way. First select a brush tool and Alt-click somewhere in the sky to
sample a blue color. Create a new layer and press Alt-Backspace to fill the
layer with the sampled color. It looks all blue but we want to limit the blue
only to the island. We will do that in the next step.
Step 5
It’s time you get familiar with another very important
concept regarding photoshop layers: clipped layers. A clipped layer shows only
through the pixels of the layers it clips. It sounds complicated but it’s not.
Let me give you an example. Let’s say you created a new layer and on this new
layer you draw a horse. Now let’s say you want to apply a texture to the horse.
Well, you could copy and paste a texture from somewhere, place it above the
horse and painstakingly delete every pixel that falls outside the horse.
Step 6
Of course there is an easier way to do it and that is by clipping the texture layer to the horse
layer. The easiest way is just to do it and see it in action. Hold the Alt
key and click once between two layers. The upper layer will be visible only
through the pixels of the lower layer – in other words the upper texture layer
will only be visible through the lower horse layer. This is how you clip
layers. You can have more than one clipped layers – for example you can have a
four texture layers clipped to the horse layer and they will all show through
the visible pixels of the clipped layer. So from now on you should at least
know (and hopefully understand) how to clip layers: simply Alt-click between
two layers in order to clip the upper layer to the lower layer in the layer
pallet.
Step 7
Now back to our scene. Clip the color layer to the island
layer and change the blending mode of the color layer to Color. Notice how the
island suddenly looks very well blended into the scene. If you wanted to retain
some of the original color you could simply lower the opacity of the color
layer but in our case this is just what we need.
Step 8
Another very important thing in creating photo manipulations
is light direction and shading. Before apply any light and shade to our object
it is important to establish the light direction. In our case the light is
coming from the middle/lower right portion of the scene. Now it’s time to apply
some shading to our island to make it look less flat. Create a new layer and
set the blending mode to overlay (a good blending mode for altering the
lightness of an object without affecting the colors very much). Clip the layer
to the island layer and with a soft round white brush at 30-40% Opacity paint a
little on the lower right part of the island. Change the color of the brush to
black and paint a little in the upper left part of the island. If you have a
tablet this will be even easier but you
can also do it fairly well with a mouse. You should have something like the
image below.
Step 9
Open file “Castle”. Using the pen tool or the quick
selection tool select the castle. Copy it and paste it into our scene. Convert the castle layer to smart
object and resize it like shown below.
Step 10
Add a layer mask to the Castle layer (Layer > Layer Mask
> Reveal All). In the layer mask use a round soft black brush to mask the
lower portions of the castle so that it integrates nicely with the island.
Layer Mask quick explanation. Layer mask are one of the most
important concepts to understand in order to use Photoshop efficiently. There
are plenty of tutorials on internet regarding layer masks but here’s the quick
version. Let’s say you have a photo and you set it on a table. This is the
layer. Now over the picture you put a transparent paper or foil. This is the
layer mask. If you draw with a black marker over the transparent paper you will
not see the picture under the black paint. If you erase the black paint you
will see the picture. This is painting with black and white in the layer mask.
All this time the photo is unharmed – if you remove the transparent paper the
photo is intact below. This allows for a great flexibility when doing any image
editing in Photoshop.
Step 11
For organizational purposes it is a good habit to group your
layers. Select all the castle related layers (you can select multiple layers by
holding Ctrl and clicking on each layer) and press Ctrl + G to group them. Name
the group Castle.
Step 12
Now it’s time to create our floating road. Open file
“Desert”. Using the rectangular marquee tool select the desert, copy it and
paste it into our scene. Transform it to smart object and position it as shown
below. Also, position the desert layer below the Castle group in the layer
palate.
Step 13
Add a layer mask to the desert layer (Layer > Layer Mask
> Hide All). Now the desert will disappear from the scene because the layer
mask is all black. With the standard chalk brush and a white color at 100%
Opacity draw something resembling a road in the layer mask. Name this layer
“Base Dirt”.
Step 14
Create a new Curve adjustment layer and clip it to the Base Dirt
layer. Drag the curve down to darken.
Step 15
Duplicate the “Base Dirt” layer (Layer > Duplicate Layer)
and rename it Base Volume. Drag it above the Base Dirt layer in the layer
palate. Press Ctrl + T to Free transform and position it as shown in the image
below. With this little trick you have created a very convincing road which we
will improve in the next steps.
Step 16
Create a new layer and fill it with a blue color sampled
from the sky (#77889c). Clip it to the Base Volume layer.
Step 17
Select all the road related layers and group them (Ctrl +
G). Name the group Road.
Step 18
Now I am going to teach you another useful trick. We want to
apply some Adjustments layer to the our road group but we don’t want them to
affect other layers. How do we do that? Well, we could clip all the adjustments
layer we create to the road layer but that will look messy and there is a
better way. We simply change the blending mode of the group road from Pass
Through to Normal. Now any adjustment layers inside the group will only affect
layers inside the group. We could create a curves layer and drag the curve all
the way up to brighten the scene – only the road will be affected. Alright,
let’s change the blending mode to Normal.
Step 19
Create a new Curves Adjustment layer and fill the layer mask
with black. Drag the curve down to darken and in the layer mask paint with a
white round soft brush over the indicated parts.
Step 20
Create a new Curves Adjustment layer and fill the mask with
black. Drag the curve up to lighten and in the layer mask paint with a white
round soft brush over the indicated parts.
Step 21
Create a new Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer and drag the
saturation slider to the left.
Step 22
Create a Curves Adjustment layer and use the settings shown
below in order to change the color of our road in order to match the sky.
Step 23
And that’s it, this will be our floating road. But since we
will need to make multiple copies of it and we will not modify it further it
would be wise to duplicate the group and convert it to smart object. Click on
the group to select it, duplicate the group (Layer > Duplicate Group), right
click the duplicated group and choose Convert To Smart Object. Rename this
“ConvertedRoad”. Turn off the visibility of the original road group.
Step 24
Move the converted road layer below the Castle group in the
layer palette. Press Ctrl + T to resize and position it as shown below.
Step 25
Duplicate the Castle group and press Ctrl + T to resize and
position it as shown below. Move this group below the “ConvertedRoad” layer.
Name this group Castle Copy.
Step 26
Duplicate the “ConvertedRoad” layer and move it below the
Castle Copy group. Resize and position it as shown below. Name this
“ConvertedRoadCopy”.
Step 27
Finally, duplicate the Castle group again and move it below
the “ConvertedRoadCopy” layer. Resize and position it as shown below.
Step 28
Select all the castle groups and the roads and group them
together. Name this group “Castles”. Remember the trick I taught you at step
18? We are going to use it here too. Change the blending mode of the “Castles”
group from Pass Through to Normal.
Step 29
In the Castles group create a Curves Adjustment layer and
drag the curve down to darken. In the layer mask paint with a round soft black
brush over the top of the castles to prevent the darkening effect from
happening there.
Step 30
Create a new layer and with a round soft white brush paint
at 2-5px paint the top left parts of the castles. This will create the illusion
of specular highlight.
Step 31
Create a new layer and with a round soft white brush paint
at 2-5px paint the top left parts of the castles. This will create the illusion
of specular highlight.
Step 32
Open file Tree. Copy and paste the tree into our image.
Convert it into a smart object and resize and position the tree as shown below.
Step 33
Duplicate the tree layer a couple of times and move and
resize the duplicated layers to create the illusion of some vegetation on the
castle rocks. Group all the tree layers together. Name the group “Trees”.
Step 34
Open the file “Rider”. Using the pen tool or the quick
selection tool select the rider. Copy and paste it into our scene. Name the
layer “Rider” and convert it to a smart object. Resize and position the layer
as shown below.
Step 35
Create a new layer and move below the “Rider” layer in the
layer palate. With a round black soft brush paint some shadow below the rider.
Change the blending mode to Multiply and name it “Shadow”. If the effect is too
strong lower the opacity of the “Shadow” layer.
Step 36
Open file “Wall Lamp” and select the lamp. Copy and paste
the lamp into our scene. Convert it to a smart object. Resize and position the
lamp as shown below.
Step 37
Create a new layer. Sample a green color (#103d2d)from the
lamppost and with the chalk brush paint something resembling a pole coming down
from the lamp.
Step 38
Create yet another new layer and with a round soft black
brush paint a shadow coming down from the lamp post. Change the blending mode
of the shadow to Multiply. Finally, group all the lamp layers together and name
the group “Base Lamp Post”.
Step 39
Duplicate the “Base Lamp Post” group and convert it to a
smart object (right click the layer and choose Convert to Smart Object from the
drop down menu). Name the new layer “Converted Lamp”. Resize and position it as shown below.
We do this because this graphic element is very small and
not prone to change. Also having too much smart objects will increase the size
of our document and by converting a group to a smart object we reduce the layer
clutter.
Step 40
Make some more duplicates of the “Converted Lamp” layer.
Resize them and place them along the road as shown below. The further a lamp it
is from us the smaller it should be to create the illusion of perspective.
Step 41
Create a new layer and change the blending mode to Soft
Light. Choose a yellow color (#ffee32) and with a round soft brush at 20%
Opacity paint some light around the lamps. If the effect is too strong lower
the Opacity. Name this layer “Lamp Light”. Group all the lamp related layers
(including the light) and name the group “Lamp Posts”.
Step 42
Open the file “Walking” and make a selection of the walking
man. Copy and paste it into our image. Convert it to smart object. Resize and
position the layer as shown below.
Step 43
Phew. That was some work but we also have some pleasing
results. Group all the layers except the Background and the Moon layer and name
the group Castles. Press Ctrl + 0 to bring all the scene into view and enjoy
your work.
Step 44
Now let’s make a horse fly. Open the file “Horse” and make
a selection of the horse. Copy and paste it into our scene. Convert it to a
smart object. Resize and position the horse as shown below.
Step 45
Right-click the horse layer and choose Blending Options from
the drop down menu. Apply some Inner and Outer glow in order to create a magic
looking effect.
Step 46
Create a new Curves Adjustment layer. Drag the curve up to
lighten and clip the curves layer to the horse layer.
Step 47
Import the Fantasy Lighting brushes. Choose a glitter brush
(if the Brush Presets window is not opened choose Window > Brush Presets)
and with white as foreground color draw some glitter behind the horse to make
it look like a trail of stars behind him.
Step 48
Open the file “Wings”. Copy and paste the wings into our
document. Convert the imported layer to a smart object. Resize and position as
shown below. Apply Inner and Outer glow to the wings like we did at step 45.
Group all the horse related layers and name the group “Flying Horse”.
Step 49
Open the file “Wizard Duo”. Make a selection of the wizard
and his pupil. Copy and paste it into our scene. Convert it to a smart object.
Resize and position as shown below.
Step 50
Create a new layer and change the blending mode to Color
Dodge. Clip this layer to the wizard layer. Paint some outlines around the
wizard and his pupil with a round soft white brush.
I am going to share with you a little secret. In order to
have beautiful compositions perform this step for all your imported objects in
most of your scenes. There are some objects for which this effect doesn’t work
but for most of them outlining with white (or a light color) will make them
stand out and give them a special glow.
Step 51
Create a new layer and change the blending mode to Overlay.
Clip this layer to the wizard layer and paint with white and black some shadows
and highlights on the wizard and his pupil.
Step 52
Open the file “Grass”
and make a lower selection of the grass. Copy, paste into our scene, convert to
smart object and add a layer mask. Import the Fern Brush and in the layer mask
paint with black in order to randomly hide portions of the grass and making it
look natural.
Step 53
Open the file “Daisy”. Copy and paste the flower into our
scene. Convert it to a smart object. Resize and position it as shown below.
Step 54
Let’s make our daisy a little bit warmer. Create a new
Curves Adjustment layer and clip it to the daisy layer. Use the settings shown
below for the curves layer.
Step 55
Open the file “Fern”. Copy and paste the fern into our
scene. Convert it to a smart object. Position and resize it as shown below.
Step 56
Let’s color correct the fern. Create a new Curves Adjustment
layer and clip it to the fern layer. Use the settings shown below for the
curves layer.
Step 57
Open file “Bush”. Copy and paste the bush into our scene.
Convert it to a smart object. Place the brush all the way to the left so only a
little of the bush will be visible.
Step 58
Open file “Apple”. Copy and paste the apple into our scene.
Convert it to a smart object. Resize and position the apple as shown below.
Duplicate the apple layer again and move it behind the tree.
Step 59
Group all the grass related layers together (including the
fern, daisy, tree and apples). Name the new group “Vegetation” and change the
blending mode to Normal. Inside the “Vegetation” group create a Color Balance
Adjustment layer and use the settings
shown below.
Step 60
Create a Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer inside the
“Vegetation” group and drag the saturation slider to the left in order to
desaturate the vegetation a bit.
Step 61
A fantasy scene wouldn’t be complete without some
waterfalls. Import the waterfall brushes and create a new layer. Choose a
waterfall you like and with white as a foreground color create a waterfall.
Lower the opacity of the layer to 60-70%. Repeat the step again to create a
secondary waterfall.
Step 62
Create a new layer and choose a foam brush from the imported
waterfall brushes. Create some foam around the waterfalls.
Step 63
Let’s create a magic mood. Open the file “Nebula”. Select
all (Ctrl + A), copy and paste into our scene. Apply some Gaussian Blur
(10-15px) and change the blending mode to Color Dodge. Lower the Fill to 75%.
Step 64
Go to the “Nebula” file again, select all, copy and paste
into our scene. Change the blending mode to Color Dodge and add a layer mask to
the nebula layer. In the layer mask paint with black the indicated areas.
Step 65
Import the Cloud brushes. On a new layer (or more new
layers) paint white clouds over each castle. Group the cloud layers together
and name the group “Clouds”.
Step 66
Create a Color Balance Adjustment layer and use the settings
shown below. By doing this we will subtly unify our scene and change the hue towards
blue.
Step 67
For further unification create a Photo Filter Adjustment
layer and use a cooling filter.
Step 68
Open the file “Rainbow”. Copy and paste the rainbow into our
scene. Change the blending mode to Linear Dodge and lower the Opacity to 27%.
Resize and position the rainbow over the first castle. Add a layer mask and
with a black brush mask the ends of the rainbow.
Step 69
Import the birds brush. Create a couple of new layers and on
each paint some white birds.
Step 70
Create a new layer and fill it with black. Go to Filter >
Render > Lens Flare. Lower the Opacity of the layer to 69%.
Step 71
Change the lens flayer layer blending mode to Screen. Add a
layer mask and paint with a black brush in the indicated areas.
Step 72
Open the “Lens Flare” file. Make a selection of the top left
sun with the rectangular marquee tool. Copy and paste into our image. Convert
it into a smart object. Resize and position as shown below. Name the layer
“Sun”.
Step 73
Change the blending mode of the “Sun” layer to Screen.
Step 74
Duplicate the “Sun” layer and move it in the tower of the
bigger castle.
Step 75
Create a new layer and change the blending mode to
Overlay. With a white brush paint some highlights as
indicated below.
Thanks for following this tutorial. I hope that despite the hard work involved in finishing this tutorial you had some fun and learned some Photoshop tricks. You are welcome to visit my deviantart account.
- Johan Sandu