Create an Incredible Twilight Surreal Scene with Floating Islands

Feb 18, 2020

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Monika Nowakowska

Photo Manipulation Photoshop Tutorials

Step 41

Add Adjustment layer with Color balance. Of course create also clipping mask:

Step 42

You should create lights on belltower. Add new adjustment layer with brightness/contrast and create clipping mask.

Step 43

Add mask to this layer. Light source will guide you.

Step 44

Place at new layer Unsual tree, as is shown:

Step 45

Mask it as shown:

Step 46

On this Unsual tree create Adjustment Layer. Choose Hue/saturation. After you set it, create clipping mask.

Step 47

Add new layer and create clipping mask. Choose 100 px soft round brush #1e373b color. Draw gently shadows on the tree.

Step 48

Change blending mode to Multiply and opacity to 80%.

Step 49

Add new Adjustment layer – Color balance. Create clipping mask, and set it:

Step 50

As you can see, tree is to bright in some places. You should fix it by masking :).

Step 51

Then you should make lights on the tree. Add adjustment layer with color/balance and create clipping mask.

Step 52

Mask it baby! :) Use soft, big brush.

Step 53

Set blending mode to Screen, opacity to 67%.

Step 54

Cool! Now add adjustment layer with brightness/contrast. Set it as shown below:

Step 55

Create new layer. (Hey! Without making clipping mask :]) Choose spatter 59 px brush #baf3f0 color. Draw on the edges of trees.

Step 56

Add new layer, choose 1 px soft brush, the same color. Draw contour of rocks, belltower and trees.

Step 57 – Second island – abstract

I used the same techniques on second island. You can just read again from 25 step, leave only one island, or do as many as you wish! :) But I’ll remind you about this! Start from black base. Brown color is for depth of field.

Step 58

On clipping mask, you should paste rocks, try to place another part of stock image! :)

Step 59

Change saturation by adjustment layer with Hue/Saturation.

Step 60

With soft brushes draw shadows (change blending mode to Multiply) and lights (leave blending mode – Normal).

Step 61

Again draw shadows and lights with smaller brush.

Step 62

Set brightness/contrast of second island (clipping mask)

Step 63

Change color balance. (clipping mask)

Step 64

With soft, big (300px) black brush on new layer (clipping mask) draw stroke on the top. It will be shadow of tree.

Step 65

Paste Unsual tree.

Step 66

Mask tree.

Step 67

Set color/balance of the tree. Create clipping mask.

30 responses to “Create an Incredible Twilight Surreal Scene with Floating Islands”

red luna

May 8, 2018

Great tutorial! It looks fantastic.

Reply
Tony T.

May 8, 2018

Thank you very much is a great job and I was surprised by the castle, since it belongs to my city Almadén (Ciudad Real) has been an incredible detail.
regards

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Optical Overlays

June 15, 2017

Super cool ❤

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Suki Ogle

December 12, 2016

Thanks, love this tutorial, and thanks for posting. Explains a lot of techniques. One thing I would add is to delete (or mask or cover) the stars that are showing thru from behind the moon. Unless they are meteors, they would not be visible behind the opaque moon.

My 2 bits

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Alan

September 2, 2015

what’s a spatter brush?
(:: – Step 55
Create new layer. (Hey! Without making clipping mask :]) Choose spatter 59 px brush #baf3f0 color. Draw on the edges of trees.)

Reply
parul soni

June 23, 2015

can u sent me this tutorial

Reply
Anonymous

May 5, 2015

amazing show

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Gina H.

December 23, 2014

This is completely insane! I am glad you offer the resources to get started as well.

Reply
xx

December 22, 2014

A lot of material can’t download, site won’t open

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Maidul Islam

October 17, 2014

amazing!! great to see the amazing work of great experienced art directors!!

Reply
yuuki

June 30, 2014

my final is not really the same (lol)…

thanks for the tutorial, i had fun trying it :)

Reply
Sean C

May 5, 2014

In Step 4, you say “At adjustment layer make mask”. What does this mean? I’m pretty new to this, so any help would be great!

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Steve

April 26, 2014

Hi, can someone please explain to me in details how step 4 and 5 was done? After I made a new mask layer and colored in red the sky area, I then proceed to paste the sky stock. That sky stock image appeared as a new layer and not on the mask layer called “Sky – mmtEvr6.” How do you merge the sky layer with the landscape to appear as one image?

Thank you.

Reply
1. Joseph
  
  May 9, 2014
  
  For merging two layers, select both layers and press Ctrl + E.. Hope this helps..
Joseph

April 16, 2014

Hi Monika,
Fantastic Tutorial..! Thanks for posting..! I too have a blog with Photoshop Tutorials aimed for beginners..

Keep on posting nice tutorials like this.. Happy to revisit..!

Reply
Tinaras

April 8, 2014

Its great, Thankyou.

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Daniel Thomassin

March 31, 2014

Bonjour;Je vous remercie beaucoup pour votre tutoriel et l’utilisation des calques et des masques.
Je vous souhaite à tous une bonne journée à tous

Reply
mizan.ngbd2013

March 28, 2014

This is really nice. I loved the your photoshop. it ok

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@yura

March 27, 2014

its so cool.., absolutely great tutorial, thank you so much for make this tutorial.. ^ ^

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Minh Hai

March 20, 2014

great tutorial thank you so much i like it

Reply
Eve Livesey

March 20, 2014

Would be really nice if you would inform me when you use my stock in a tutorial – we could do some social sharing and promotion

Kind Regards

Eve

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Lucy matagaro

March 13, 2014

The photos are really amazing

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Eliana Palomino

March 12, 2014

This is really nice. I loved it!!!

Reply
Photoshop

March 11, 2014

thank’s so match I like that

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Jordan

March 9, 2014

I think this could have all been a lot shorter now that i’ve read through the whole thing.

For one, hyper links, use them and just say repeat this process such as the saturation, hue, contrast and brightness factors, as well, it’s really hard to learn this tutorial if you were a beginner, saying to just “mask” something is far easier said than done if you have no idea more effective ways of doing the like with the quick mask or the layer mask.

I hate the ship, it’s like heres rocks and trees and everything natural not a single bit of water showing, oh and here’s a ship. I took it out of mine on personal choice but it’s up to you.

Last thing I’d say is the rocks you created, they look far more detailed then just using a brush to create them I’d say you took multiple layers using different sections of the rock each time and layered them on top of each other to give more depth to the photo, if you want nice crisp clean jagged rocks try using the lasso tool and deleting the brush layer piece by piece.

Reply
1. Anonymous
  
  March 1, 2020
  
  hater
Hera

March 6, 2014

Wow, love this tutorial! Amazing job, I should try it out myself. ;)

Reply
YASIR IQBAL

March 6, 2014

i like your work style

Reply
Ifat Sharmin

March 4, 2014

Fantastic graphics work..Have to ask all of our designers to follow your articles..Thank you so much..

Reply
Julie

March 4, 2014

What a great tuto! Trying to be better in photo manipulation this was really helpfull.
Just having a weird result on step 30 when trying to add lights to the stone, it needed to be set at 5% opacity not to have those white mass…
And also step 56 I’m not able to have something like yours, I just have this white edge as if it wasn’t well cut out, took me time to fix it but nevermind, I learnt a lot thank you! (and sorry for my bad english ahah)

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