mountain range

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Photoshop Tutorial – ‘Mountain Range’

We start with 3 photos:           cliffface.jpg

                                                sunrise.jpg

                                                model.jpg

Start

Open a new document. Open the photo ‘cliff face.jpg’. Select the ‘quick selection tool’ from the left side toolbar and select the top half of the cliff.

Press and hold the ‘Alt’ key (a minus sign will show by the curser) and de-select the trees from the top of the cliff.

Select>Modify>Contract by 2 pixels

Select>Modify>Feather by 1 pixel

Press ‘Ctrl+j’ to place the selection on it’s own layer and import that layer into the main document.

Resize and position in the lower part of the document.

Mountain Range

Open the photo ‘cliff face.jpg’.

Import it into the main document.

The mountains need to be behind the cliff face so move the ‘mountain range’ layer to be below the ‘cliff face’ layer.

Position in the lower part of the document (so the rolling hills are just over the ‘cliff face’).

Copy this layer and position it higher up than the original.

Click ‘add layer mask’ at the bottom of the right hand window.

With a soft black brush paint away the bottom of the photo until it blends with the other rolling hills.

You may have to re-position the two layers or even stretch one layer, to eliminate any image repetition.

Once you are happy with the blend, highlight the top ‘mountain range’ layer.

Layers>Merge Down (now you should only have one mountain range’ layer.

Model

Open the photo ‘model’.

Select the ‘quick selection tool’ and select the model, you may have to ‘nudge’ the selection to get it right or as I did, use the ‘polygonal tool’ to add and remove selections (‘shift’ adds to the selection while ‘Alt’ removes).

Select>Modify>Contract by 2 pixels

Select>Modify>Feather by 1 pixel

Press ‘Ctrl+j’ to place the selection on it’s own layer and import that layer into the main document.

Move this layer to the top of the ‘layers stack’.

Resize and position him on the highest spot of the ‘cliff face’

Adjusting colour and lighting

Select the ‘mountain range’ layer.

Click the Add new fill or adjustment layer’ icon at the bottom of the Layers Window and select ‘colour balance’ attach this to the layer by ‘Alt’ clicking between the two layers.

Adjust the ‘red’ to about +40 and the ‘yellow’ to about -40.

Click the Add new fill or adjustment layer’ icon at the bottom of the Layers Window and select ‘hue/saturation’ attach this to the layer by ‘Alt’ clicking between the two layers.

Adjust the ‘saturation to be about +40

Select the ‘cliff face’ layer.

Click the ‘Add new fill or adjustment layer’ icon at the bottom of the Layers Window and select ‘hue/saturation’ attach this to the layer by ‘Alt’ clicking between the two layers.

Adjust the ‘lightness’ to about -80.

Select the ‘model’ layer.

Click the Add new fill or adjustment layer’ icon at the bottom of the Layers Window and select ‘hue/saturation’ attach this to the layer by ‘Alt’ clicking between the two layers.

Adjust the ‘lightness’ to about -30.

Finishing

Click the ‘create new layer’ icon at the bottom of the ‘layers window’ and move it to the top of the ‘layers stack’.

Click the ‘Create new fill or adjustment layer’ icon at the bottom of the Layers Window and select ‘Gradient Map’ – select a black to white gradient – change the ‘blending mode’ to ‘soft light’ – reduce ‘opacity’ to suit (round about 40%).

Click the ‘create new layer’ icon at the bottom of the ‘layers window’ and move it to the top of the ‘layers stack’.

With a large soft black brush at 20% opacity – paint in a vignette, repeat until you get the desired effect.

mountain range

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