How to Add a Mermaid to a Dark Bleak Landscape

Step 10 – Painting Hair

In this step you’ll fix hair of the woman. Hair is one of the most challenging things to blend. For me it works best to simply paint some hair after I’ve done some basic blending. In this step you’ll do the same.  It is easier if you can work with graphic tablet but with bit practice and patience you can get great results with your mouse too! Let’s take a look at how hair look before painting.

Add new empty layer on the top of all layers and name it HAIR. Grab the Brush Tool (B) and set it same as shown on the following picture.

Press Alt on your keyboard to activate the Eyedropper Tool (I) and select some dark color from woman hair. Paint hair around the bad blending to cover it. After few strokes change the color to get the most realistic result.  On the following image you can see how woman’s hair should look like after this step.

Step 11 – Changing Light

In this step you’ll focus more on creating interesting, dramatic light.  Add new empty layer on the top of all layers. Name it INTERESTING LIGHT. Grab the Paint Bucket Tool (G), pick mid grey (#808080) and fill the layer with it. To blend it properly with the rest of the image change its Blending Mode from Normal to Overlay.

Grab the Brush Tool (B), select some soft round brush. Set its Size on about 100px and Opacity on 20%.

Pick black color and paint over the areas you’d like to make darker. This time pay more attention to details – especially on woman’s face and body. You can see where to paint on the image below.

After you’re done pick white color and paint over the areas you want to make lighter.

Let’s compare how your photo manipulation looks like before and after this step.

Step 12 – Adjusting Contrast

In this step you’ll adjust contrast of the photo manipulation.  Add new adjustment layer Curves on the top of all layers and set it as shown below. You want to adjust the whole image so don’t create clipping mask from this adjustment.

There are still some parts of the image that are too dark and distracting. I’ve highlighted them on the following image.

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