Step 19 Add the ladder shadow
Adding the shadow to the horse made me realize we forgot (well, I forgot) to add the shadow to the ladder, so open the Ladder group again.
Add a new layer, call it Shadow and place it behind the ladder layer. After that paint the shadow following the image below.
Then add a Gaussian Blur () with a radius of 3px to our shadow layer.
Now your image should be similar the one below and we’re ready to move on with our manipulation.
Step 20 Add the buildings behind the elephant
Open the skyline stock and select the buildings with the Quick Selection Tool (W). Don’t worry too much about the lower part because it won’t be seen in our scene.
Copy and paste the skyline in our scene, resize it with the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl/Command+T) and place it on the top of the elephant.
Create a new group for this layer, name it Skyline and place it behind the elephant group.
Your scene should look like this now:
Step 21 Add the mountain above the elephant
Open the mountain stock and select the mountain using the Quick Selection Tool (W). Don’t worry too much about the lower edges, we will erase them later.
Copy and paste the mountain into our project and resize it using the Free Transform Tool. After that, place the mountain on the top of the elephant like this:
Now let’s work the edges of the mountain. Create a new layer mask to this layer and start painting using the image below as reference:
Your mountain should look something like this now:
And your scene should look like this:
The mountains are too blue, so we’re going to change that by adding (non-destructively) a Color Balance Adjustment Layer. Check the image below for the input values and remember to clip it to the mountain layer.
Now create a new group for the mountain and the adjustment layer. Name the new group Mountain.
Step 22 Add the helicopter patrolling the elephant
Open the helicopter stock. We’re going to use a different technique to select it, so, first of all, make a random selection of the sky using the Quick Selection Tool, like this:
Now go to and Photoshop will select everything he thinks its similar to the selection you’ve made.
