In this tutorial, I’ll show you how you can create a dark, misty and ominous scene of a dark mountains by combining different stock images. We’ll create a misty scene of mountains and light from afar. You’ll also practice some essential manipulation, blending and lighting techniques.

What you’ll be creating

You will be creating dark landscape matte painting. I have used Photoshop version CC 2014 to create this work but you can use any version from CS onwards will be fine as well.

final-results

Tutorial Resources

Step 1

Create a new document by selecting File > New. Set the setting as shown in the image below. You can also choose your own document size but make sure it should be wider enough to cover the mountains image.

Step-001

Step 2

Now place the mountains image by selecting File > Place Embedded. I have scaled it little bit because I don’t want the bottom part of the mountains. You can scale it as you want but remember we don’t need the bottom parts.

Step-002

Step 3

Add a layer mask to the mountains by selecting the second button of layer panel at bottom right side. Now activate the Gradient Tool by pressing (G) on the keyboard and choose a linear black/white gradient then holding the shift key apply the gradient vertically on the layer mask of mountains layer. Here are the results.

Step-003

Step 4

Now place the sky image below the mountains layer. Scale the sky using Free Transform tool by pressing (CTRL + T) on keyboard so it can cover the entire mountains. Here are the results.

Step-004

Step 5

To brighten the sky little I have added a Curves adjustment layer to the sky by clicking on the third button of layer panel (See the image below). Set the setting as shown in the image below.

Step-005

Step 6

Now, back to the mountains layer then add a Brightness/Contrast and Gradient Map adjustment layer to the entire scene. Set the values as shown in the image.

Step-006

Change the blend mode of gradient map to soft light and reduce the opacity to 55%. Here are the results

Step-006a

Step 7

Continue colouring by applying Color Balance adjustment layer to the entire scene.

Step-007

Here are the results.

Step-007a

Step 8

Reduce the brightness of scene using a Brigthness/Contrast adjusment layer.

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16 responses to “Create This Dark Matte Landscape Composite in Photoshop”

  1. Colin Avatar
    Colin

    Fantastic tutorial…..

    1. srikanta Avatar
      srikanta

      did you find the mountain image?

  2. hellsing Avatar
    hellsing

    i need video tutorial

  3.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    Awesome

  4. Giusy D'Anna Avatar
    Giusy D’Anna

    beautiful, but a lot of photos to create the tutorial not found

  5. Casey Parker Avatar
    Casey Parker

    Brilliant

  6. Bunty Pundir Avatar
    Bunty Pundir

    Hi everyone apologies for broken stock images links.
    I just checked the mountains image link, stock provider has removed it from DA (I don’t know why). Crow is from freeimages.com and they just upgraded their website with new design and all the id of images has been changed.
    New link for crow is here http://www.freeimages.com/photo/crows-1336759

    You can also download psd file for mountains image.

  7. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    No mountain image in link !

  8. Pete Avatar
    Pete

    I copyed the missing mountain image from the psd file which is at the end of this tutorial

    1. Paul Avatar
      Paul

      Good thinking Pete !

  9. Lars Holck Rosenberg Avatar
    Lars Holck Rosenberg

    Where is the file “Mountains”. Link gives error: “Oups”

  10.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    Don’t try this tutorial.
    Not all the pic’s is availble

  11. Dario Avatar
    Dario

    Great tut, but how to find these images

  12. albert Avatar
    albert

    eXCELENTE ES RICO SIEMPRE APRENDER OTROS TOQUES GRACIAS

  13. Nur Ad Deen Avatar
    Nur Ad Deen

    awesome

  14. Arun Prasad Avatar
    Arun Prasad

    Thanks Bro !

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