Tutorial Issue 1 Dark Scenery by Alegion

8/14/2019 Tutorial Issue 1 Dark Scenery by Alegion

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STOCK RESOURCES

1. Rock:sasicd

2. Bridge:jackies-stock

3. Castle:Maliciarosnoir-stock

4. Sky:night-fate-stock

This is my rst tutorial, and it is far

from perfect as well as my photo-

shop techniques. So I will take any

suggestions for any tutorials. This

project also gave me a good rea-

son to practice my Adobe Indesign

skills.

I made a simple and quick scenery

manipulation. Also called photo-

montage since it involves multiple

photos.

The images to your left are down-

loadable if you click on them your

browser will open to the site for di-

rect download.

You should be able to do everything

in this tutorial if you have Adobe

Photoshop 7 and later. I made it so

you will not need any 3rd party lters

or plugins.

1

2

3

4

INTERMEDIATE

LEVEL

Done in Adobe InDesign CS4

Home Site

Email Me

Manip Tutorial

January 2009

Issue 01

Version 1.1

By Colin Foss

email: [email protected]

web: http://alegion.deviantart.com
http://www.sxc.hu/profile/sasicdhttp://jackies-stock.deviantart.com/http://maliciarosnoir-stock.deviantart.com/http://night-fate-stock.deviantart.com/http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=346369http://jackies-stock.deviantart.com/art/bridge-stock1-96399536http://maliciarosnoir-stock.deviantart.com/art/Dordogne-Castle-83037739http://night-fate-stock.deviantart.com/art/sky-15-53094034http://alegion.deviantart.com/mailto:fosscolin%40hotmail.com?subject=Colin%20Tutorial%20Issue%201mailto:fosscolin%40hotmail.com?subject=Colin%20Tutorial%20Issue%201http://alegion.deviantart.com/http://night-fate-stock.deviantart.com/art/sky-15-53094034http://maliciarosnoir-stock.deviantart.com/art/Dordogne-Castle-83037739http://jackies-stock.deviantart.com/art/bridge-stock1-96399536http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=346369http://night-fate-stock.deviantart.com/http://maliciarosnoir-stock.deviantart.com/http://jackies-stock.deviantart.com/http://www.sxc.hu/profile/sasicd


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1. File > New

2. Set image at 20x30 inches and resolution at 300 ppi

3. Background should be transparent. Press OK.

1. File > Place

2. Select the rock/cliff le and press OK.

3. Select Move Tool.

4. Check Show Transform Controls.

5. Click on the corner box of the active image, and drag the

corner box by holding left mouse button and then releasing

when reaching desired size.

6. Click on the Maintain Aspect Ratio icon. 1

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4

3

STEP 3

1. Press F7 Key to bring up the Layers Window.

2. Click on the Mask icon as shown in the image to the

right.

3. Select yourLasso Tool of choice and begin selecting

areas around the rock.optional step

4. Set your active color to black.

5. Click on Brush Tool with opacity at 100%

6. Begin painting the selected area with the Brush Tool. It

should begin to erase. If you have made a mistake you can

unerase with the color white.

Note: You will notice this image is particularly blotchy due to high

jpeg compression. I fxed this problem with median noise reduction

under more tools with a freeware program calledJpeg Enhancer. It seems to do a bit better job at removing noise than photoshop

without making the image unusable. Jpeg Enhancer is an ad-

vanced application that lets you remove the artifacts and a blotchy

look from your images, making them look as if they have been

saved at a 100% (super-fne) quality. It may be downloaded at

www.download.com.
http://www.download.com/Jpeg-Enhancer/3000-2192_4-45581.html?tag=mncolhttp://www.download.com/Jpeg-Enhancer/3000-2192_4-45581.html?tag=mncolhttp://www.download.com/http://www.download.com/http://www.download.com/Jpeg-Enhancer/3000-2192_4-45581.html?tag=mncolhttp://www.download.com/Jpeg-Enhancer/3000-2192_4-45581.html?tag=mncol


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1. File > Place

2. Select the castle image and press OK.

3. Repeat STEP 2 for this image. Use the rock image as a

guide to get the desired size.

4. Repeat STEP 3 to remove the sky. Instead of using the

Lasso Tool use the Magic Wand Tool to erase the sky.

1. Change the Brush opacity to 26%.

2. Select a soft brush with any size you feel comfortable.

3. Begin erasing with the Brush Tool at the bottom section

of the image of the castle indicated in the image shown

on the bottom right of this step. You might have to erasecertain sections multiple times to get the desired blend.

1. Press CTRL L(COMMAND L) forHue/ Saturation

window.

2. Bring saturation down to -31 or close enough that it

matches the saturation of the mountain.

3. The Castle is a bit more sharp than the rock its on. Since

they are the same distance lets try to match them up a little

by blurring the castle. Filter > Blur > Gaussian BlurRa-

dius 2.7 pixels. Matching trees from both images will give

you a good key where to set your blur radius.

4. Check and see if you need to make any color adjust-

ments, but in this case the castle and rock seem to match

ne.


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1. File > Place

2. Select the bridge image and press OK.

3. Repeat STEP 3 for this image. Place this layer so it is

behind the rock and to the lower right. You will not need to

resize this image if you are going by the size setup for this

tutorial.4. Repeat STEP 6 for this image if youd like to adjust the

bridge. I personally didnt make any adjustments.

1. File > Place

2. Select the sky image and press OK.

3. Place this layer behind all layers since it will be our

background. Be sure you place the highlighted section of

the clouds behind the upper corner of the castle (you will

see why later (see image to the right)).

4. Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal.

5. Resize the image using the Move Tool (see step 2). You

will not need to keep the Aspect Ratio.

6. Duplicate this layerCTRL J(COMMAND J).

7. Bring this new layer back behind your original sky layer.8. Position it so it covers most of the emptyness that the

original did not cover.

9. Repeat STEP 4 and 5 to blend the 2 sky layers together.

10. I duplicate and ip another layer to cover the rest of the

background not covered, and repeated the blending pro-

cess. Feel free to use Clone Tool if you want your clouds

more random.

1. From your layers window click the rock image. You will

know when a double border appears around the thumbnail.

2. Select the Burn Tool.

3. Range selected to Highlights.

4. Exposure set to 100%

5. Run the Burn Tool along the edge of rock to remove

any highlighted areas that stand out. This will give a more

natural look.


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6. Follow this same process with the bridge layer.

7. Continue to use the Burn Tool to darken all the highlights

on the rock, bridge, and castle layer using Range set to

Midtones.

8. I also went ahead and darkened the trees and parts of

bridge using Range set on Shadow. Keep in mind that thelight source is behind the castle, so there is a lack of light

source in front.

The image should look close to what I have to the right.

Do not worry too much about the upper castle edges, you

will see why later.

If edges appear too sharp try using the Blur Tool at 100%

to smooth them. optional step


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1. Create a New Layer by pressing SHIFT CTRL N(SHIFT

COMMAND N).

2. This layer should be above the sky layers.

3. Use yourBrush Tool with the settings I have to the

right.

4. Paint behind the castle and upper portion of the rock onyour new layer. Expose just a bit to reveal some white.

5. Create another new layer , and position it above the

castle.

6. With the Brush Tool paint between the castle tower and

the main structure as you see in the image on the right.

5. With both layers we just created go to File > Blur >

Gaussian Blur.

6. Set pixels at 250 and press OK.

1. Create a New Layer by pressing SHIFT CTRL N(SHIFT

COMMAND N).

2. This layer should be above the sky layers.

3. Select Polygonal Lasso Tool.

4. Create a triangle shape as shown in image 1.

5. Set your Foreground color to white.

6. Fill by pressing SHIFT F5.

7. Duplicate this layer.

8. Select Move Tool.

9. Twist and resize. Keep in mind to keep this shape

pointed at a south east direction.

10. Repeat 7 - 9 until you have something like image 2. It

doesnt have to be exactly the same though.

11. Merge all the triangles as one layer. This is our RayLayer 1.

12. Duplicate the new merged layer. This will be Ray Layer

2.

13. Blur both layers File > Blur > Gaussian Blur.

14. Set pixels at 47.7 and press OK.

15 Move Ray Layer 1 so its on top of the castle. Move

between the tower and main structure. Ray Layer 2 should

remain behind the castle.

16. Change the Opacity of Ray Layer 1 to 74%.

17. Change angle if needed using the Move Tool.

18. Duplicate more rays if you wish using the same pro-

cess we just executed for STEP 12. optional step

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Your image should look something similair to the one on

the right.

1. Go to Layer > Flatten Image. You should have a single

image.

2. Press CTRL A(COMMAND A).This command will selectthe entire image.

3. Press CTRL C(COMMAND C). This will copy the layer.

4. Go to the History Window.

5. Click on the history before you attened the Image(see

image 2). This will unatten everything.

6. Press CTRLV(COMMAND V). This will paste your at-

tened layer.

7. Move this layer on top of all layers.

8. Press SHIFT CTRL U(SHIFT COMMAND U). This will

desaturate the layer.

9. Blur the attened layerFile > Blur > Gaussian Blur.

10. Set pixels at 7.2 and press OK.

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1. From your layers window change layer to Soft Light.

2. Feel free to do touch-ups or changes to your image.

3. Save.

END

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Tutorial Issue 1 Dark Scenery by Alegion