Discover how to create stunning photo manipulations in Photoshop. In this course, you'll learn everything from photographing models to creating dark conceptual artworks. If you enjoy our photo manipulation tutorials, you will absolutely love this course.
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.
11 comments on “A Wizard and His Pupil - Create a Fairy Tale Manipulation in 75 Steps”
Interesting
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nice photo editing tutorial
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I tried your tutorial and the result is fascinating. Thank you so much for sharing your work with us!!!
in step 19, when adding a new curve layer, this affect the entire image, not just the road, what am i doing wrong?
Step 7 doesn't work = (. It just turns the floating island into the exact color that you copy rather than actually blending the color with the island.
Did you change the blending ode to color?
Awesome resources.Huge collection.Great job.Very useful post.
Tutorial looks great but i am unable to fetch its resources.
that is not their problem