Step 17

Create a couple of new layers (once you’re satisfied with a result you can continue on another layer just in case you make a mistake) and paint some lighting on the diver until you achieve a result as shown below. You should clip these layers to the diver layer and consider the light direction – which is from above. Thus you should darken the bottom parts of the diver and lighten the upper parts. In order to achieve this you can either use Levels Adjustment layers that darken and use layer masks to restrict the darkening effect or you can simply paint with black and white (at low opacities).

Step 18

Next we should blend the diver with the scene like we did with the dragon. Create a new layer and with the same blue color as that at step 15 paint (at a low opacity) with a soft brush over the diver.

Step 19

Let’s add some marine life. Open the file “Fish” and place two fish in our scene as shown below.

Step 20

Now create two Adjustment Layers (a Hue/Saturation and a Levels Adjustment Layer) and clip them to one fish. Use the settings shown below to correct the color of the fish (make them more blue) and correct the lighting (make them darker). Repeat these steps for the other fish.

Step 21

Now let’s add some aquatic plants. Open the file “Aquatic Plants” and copy/paste them in our scene. Duplicate the aquatic plants layer once (Ctrl + J) and place each plant as shown below. Lower the opacity of each layer to 14%.

As you see lowering the opacity blends the plants nicely with the background – you could also use the technique at step 15 but it’s not worth the trouble – the plants are small decorative elements and lowering the opacity looks good enough.

Step 22

Now group the two aquatic plants (Ctrl + Click on each and press Ctrl + G) and add a layer mask to the group. Paint with a round soft brush in the layer mask to hide the bottom hard edges.

Step 23

Open the file “Coffer”. Copy and paste the coffer in our scene. Put it as shown below and on a new layer (below the coffer layer in the layer palette) paint some shadows with a soft round brush at 50% Opacity.