How to Create an Out of This World, Medieval-Fantasy Themed Photo Manipulation

In this tutorial, we are going to learn how to create an out of this world, medieval-fantasy themed photo-manipulation. Using a few images, and brushes, we're going to make a seamless image of a stormy night filled with dragons bathing a medieval ship in flames. We're going to learn how to create a storm, how to create realistic looking fire, how to create realistic waves from a ship and how to give it a fantastic color using Photoshop adjustment layers.

Preview of Final Results

Out of This World, Medieval-Fantasy Themed Photo Manipulation Photoshop Tutorial

Resources

Stormy Sea - darkrose42 stock
sky III - nestrstock
Digea Rain Brushes - Jelena Jovovic Photoshop brushes
Tall Ship PNG stock - Alegion-Stock
Dragon T1P1 stock - Shoofly-Stock
Flames Fire Photoshop Brushes - redheadstock
Grungy Paper Texture v.5 - bashcorpo
Canvas Texture White Paper - Enchantedgal-Stock
Waves-Brushes-Sampler - FrozenStarRO

Step 1: Create a New Image File

To start, let's create a new image file, go to the Menu bar and click File > New, and then input the following values on their respective fields:

Width: 1920px
Height: 1080px
Resolution: 300pixels/inch
Color Mode: RGB Color; 8 bit
Background Contents: Transparent

Step 2: Create the background

In this step, we will be creating the major element of our picture which is the stormy sea and the sky. To start, let's open the image "stormy sea" by darkrose42 stock. Once the image is open, activate the Rectangular Marquee tool by pressing M on your keyboard. See image below:

When you've activated it, click on an area on the edge of the image and drag a selection area (Rectangular Marquee) on the area shown below:

Once you've made the selection area, move the image to our canvas. To do that, activate the Move tool by pressing V on your keyboard. Once you're done, the mouse pointer will change and a small cross will be added to the bottom-right part of the cursor. When you see that change, left-click on the image using the Move tool and then drag the image within the selection area to our canvas.

Before we proceed with the next part, we will need to rename this layer to "Sea". To rename a layer, simply double-click on the words: "layer 1" to prompt a text box to appear. Once that appears, you may now rename the layer.

Next, we're going to rotate this image for composition purposes. To do that, make sure that the "sea" layer is activated and then activate the Transform tool (Ctrl + T). Once you've done that, you would see a box around the image with 9 squares on its edges. To rotate the image, follow the instructions as shown on the images below:

The result should be similar to the image below:

After that, click on the "Sea" layer and go to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast and input the following:

Brightness: -25
Contrast: 0

The result will be similar to this image:

Now that that's done, let's now open "Sky III" by nestrstock. Activate the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) and select the sky. See image below:

When you're done, activate the Move tool (V) and drag the selected part of "Sky III" to our canvas. On the layer window, position this layer under the "sea" layer so that the "sea" layer would appear in front. Once done, rename the layer to "sky". See the image below:

Position the "sky" as shown on the image below:

The result is as follows:

After this, we will need to flip our "Sky" image horizontally for composition purposes. To flip an image horizontally, simply activate the Transform tool (Ctrl + T) and right click on the canvas to bring up the contextual menu; pick Flip Horizontal.

9 comments on “How to Create an Out of This World, Medieval-Fantasy Themed Photo Manipulation”

Anonymous says:

February 26, 2015 at 6:30 am

omg thnaks ur a genius!

Blah says:

December 17, 2013 at 3:12 pm

The url for the dragon stuff no longer exists...

Mahdy says:

June 20, 2013 at 4:14 am

Hey,
None of the resource links work for me...
Please upload the rest files somewhere else that we can also use it.

tyrell says:

February 22, 2013 at 8:38 am

very appealing and outstanding

Kelison says:

February 20, 2013 at 12:26 pm

Maybe this http://browse.deviantart.com/art/E-S-Dragon-III-Sky-145874452

or this

http://th04.deviantart.net/fs11/PRE/i/2006/170/d/3/Dragon_Stock_T1P1_by_Shoofly_Stock.jpg

Stevo says:

February 12, 2013 at 11:06 am

Outstanding piece of work :) Thank you for this tutorial :)

fajkus says:

January 15, 2013 at 9:34 am

hi
the dragon stock is missing.. can sombody give me the other working ling for this stock?

fidzzy says:

September 23, 2012 at 8:37 am

here is my picture, thankyou for this great tutorial. greetings from indonesia

fidzzy says:

September 16, 2012 at 3:06 am

thankyou, very useful tutorial. kewl.