In this tutorial I will show you how to combine to different pictures into one, so they fit together. As the fine part of this tutorial, you will also learn some different techniques to create instance dramatic effects.

Final Image

As always, this is the final image that we’ll be creating:

Step 1

Open this picture, select all(ctrl+a) and copy(ctrl+c)

Create a new document with the settings you see below and paste(ctrl+v) the picture in this document, and drag it up to the top.

Step 2

Open this picture.

Select all(ctrl+a) and copy(ctrl+c) and paste(ctrl+v) it into our document.

Now go to edit>transform>flip vertical and transform it so the sizes of the two pictures match each other, and drag it a little down.

Step 3

Add a layer mask (The square icon with the circle in the layers palette). With a soft, black paintbrush brush you will begin to erase/hide the water in the scene from “layer 2”.

Step 4

Now let’s transform the city in a little more perspective way. Go to edit>transform>distort and distort it so the objects on the picture is in same directions as the island. I have distorted mine like this:

Step 5

Now we’re going to add some shadows to the city. Create a new layer and name it “city shadows”.

On this layer, with a black and soft brush on 11% opacity, paint around the houses to give it a little more debt and set the blending mode to “overlay”.

Step 6

Go to “layer 2”

Go to quick mask mode (the same icon as the layer mask, the icon is in the bottom of the tools palette).

With a soft, black paintbrush on full opacity, paint around the skies, like this.

Now set the opacity on the brush down to 55% and paint a little over top (bottom) of the buildings.

Go back to standard mode, and click ctrl+shift+I to invert what we have marked. Now, create a new layer called “seawater” and go to Gradient (G) and add these colors:

Drag it with a linear gradient from bottom to top. Afterwards set the blending mode to overlay. It’s important that you don’t deselect what we have marked.

Step 7

Create a new layer called “seawater debt” – blending mode on “overlay”.

With a large, soft brush with an opacity on 35%, paint around the city and on the top of the picture with #052b3d this color.

Create a new layer called “seawater light” – blending mode on “overlay”.

With the same brush settings and with this #ebd9ac color, paint on the buildings and the boat.

The picture should look something like this:

Step 8

Still on the “seawater light” layer, paint with the same color and brush settings, on the cliff, where the light hits it.

Go to the “seawater debt” layer and add a layer mask. With a black and soft brush on 100% opacity you paint around the cliff on the island, because the cliff shall not have any debt as the seawater. It should look like this:

Step 9

Now we’re going to add some shadows to “layer 2”. Select the burn tool. Range: Midtones – Exposure: 40%.

With a brush size on 100px paint at the top of the picture when you are on “layer 2”.

Now we’re going to add some midtones to the bottom of the cliff. Go to “Layer 1” and select the dodge tool. Paint around these places:

Step 10

I actually think that I have painted/whitened the buildings on the “seawater light” layer too much. Go to this layer. Select the eraser tool (E) with an opacity on 60% and erase a little of the light color on the buildings.

Step 11

Go to edit>transform>perspective and transform it like on picture below.

Go to edit>transform>warp and morph the corners out like on the picture below.

Step 12

Now we want to make it a little more realistic, like the town is under the water. Go to “Layer 1”. Select the pencil tool (P) and mark the the part of the mountain as you can see on the picture below.:

Right click, make selection and make a feather on 15 px. Copy(ctrl+c) and paste it(ctrl+v). Name this layer “sea stone” and drag the layer upon “layer 2”.

Go to edit>transform>flip vertical. Now transform (ctrl+t) it so it is right under the real mountain, like it is hanging together. You can see the result on the picture below.

Step 13

Add a layer mask on the “sea stone” layer. With a soft, big and black brush with an opacity on 35% paint around the edges of your photo.

Step 14

Select the burn tool (O) with an “exposure” on 40% and the range on “midtones” (still on the same layer). Paint these places:

Step 15

Pick a 100px large blur tool brush and paint around the “sea stone” layer. Now mark the “sea stone layer” and “layer 2” and click ctrl+e to merge them together.

Step 16

Now we’re going to add some more colors to the water. Hold down ctrl and click on the “seawater” layers icon to mark it. Now create a new layer called “watercolor”. Set the blending mode to “overlay”.

Pick a medium/large soft brush with an opacity on 35%. We will be using these watercolors: #24a6c6 , #127891 and #35278b.

Now paint around the underworld, set the layers opacity down to 65% and it will look like this:

Step 17

Now here’s a little trick to make the picture a little more stunning. Create a new layer on the top. name it “blue” and set the blending mode to overlay and the opacity to 45%

Type in #475368 and hold down shift+f5 again.

Go to the “sea water” layer and set the opacity down to 75%. The picture should look something like this now.

Step 18

Now we want to make a little but cool effect to some of the buildings. Turn off the “blue” and the “sea water” layers so you can see the colors on the “sea stone” layer a little better.

On the “sea stone” layer, go to quick mask mode, and with a little black brush your going to paint these places:

Go back to standard mode, invert it (ctrl+shift+i), copy (ctrl+c) and go to the blue layer and paste it(ctrl+v). Call the new layer “city colors” and set the blending mode to “soft light” and the opacity to 70%.

Right click and duplicate this layer, and set the new “city colors copy” layer’s opacity to 40% Remember to turn on the “blue” and “seawater” layers again. Then it will look like this:

Step 19

It will be a little more cool if we had fog down at the water. Go down to the “sea stone” layer. Create a new layer and name it “fog”.

Select the Pencil Tool (P) and draw around the cliff of the mountain. When that is done, right click>make selection… and feather it to 15px.

With black and white colors on the palette go to Filter>Render>Clouds, and finally, set the opacity to 60 % and the blending mode to multiply.

Go to edit>transform>perspective, and transform it into the same perspective as the picture below. As you can see it is getting a little more dramatic after this.

Step 20

Right click on the fog layer and click on “duplicate layer…”.

Go to edit>transform>flip vertical and drag right under the first fog.

Step 21

Go to the “blue” layer, add a layer mask and select the Gradient tool (G).

With the black color and the linear gradient selected, draw from the top to the half of the picture, so it erases some of the blue color. It should look like this:

Step 22

Now we want to add the right balance to the color of the mountain picture (“layer 1”).

Go to image>adjustments>color balance and add the settings as you see below:

Step 23

Now we’re going to do the same to the “sea stone” layer. Go to image>adjustments>color balance and add the settings as you see below:

And We’re Done!

I really hope that you enjoyed this tutorial and would love to hear your feedback!

(Click the image below to view the full-sized outcome)

Download Source File for this Tutorial

In this tutorial I will show you how to make a horse reach out of a frame with some simple, but cool techniques. Besides of the techniques you will learn how to combine colors to make the scene even more dramatic.

Final Image

As always, this is the final image that we’ll be creating:

Step 1

Open up this picture in photoshop Frame Photo

Select the “Pen Tool (P)” and mark around it like on the picture below. It will help you if you’re holding down the left mouse-click when you’re on the wheels. This makes it more rounded.

When you have marked it all, right click on it and click on “make selection…” and press ok with the settings you see below:

When selected, press “ctrl+c” to copy and “ctrl+v” to paste it. Name the new layer “Frame” and delete the “Background layer” After this we still have some red spots inside the cogwheels. You can erase them by also using the “Pen Tool (P)”, select it with the same settings and delete.

Step 2

Now you’re going to do almost the same here. As you can see on the picture below, we’re going to erase the scene inside the frame, so we can design it just as we like. With the Pen Tool (P) you’re going to select the area inside. But mark around the cogwheels, because we want to keep them. When selected as on the picture below, click delete.

Once again we have some spots inside the cogwheels we need to erase. Do it in the same way as on step 1. As you can see on the picture there is two places I have erased the inner cogwheel because we don’t have all of it and therefore it’s better without.

Step 3

I think that the frame has a lot of grain, which will be prettier if we reduce them a little bit. So go to Filter>Noise>Reduce Noise… and use these settings.

Look if you can see the difference:

Step 4

Create a new document with these settings:

Now we need a black background for this document, so set the foreground color to #000000. Pick up the “Paint Bucket Tool” (G) and click on the document.

Step 5

Now go back to our old document and drag the “frame” to our new document by holding down the mouse button. As you can see on the picture below, the frame is too big. So hold down “ctrl+t” to transform the frame.

Before we get started with the fun part, we need to flip the frame horizontal, so go to edit>transform>flip horizontal… Now we have the highlight to the right, where the horse also will be jumping out from.

Step 6

Open up this picture in Photoshop http://www.flickr.com/photos/vegaseddie/3309223161/sizes/l/in/photostream/ and drag it into our document. Name this layer “horse”

Set the layer’s opacity down to 50 % so we can see where to transform it to. Hold down “ctrl+t” to transform it into around the same settings as I used:

When you’re finished transforming it you can set the layer’s opacity up to 100% again.

Step 7

Now we’re going to cut the horse out, so we can erase other parts of the horse. So you need to use the “Pencil Tool (P)” again, and mark the house. Take your time. It’s better that you cut it out in the exact same shape than thinking of being finish as quick as possible. When you’re finish marking the horse, right click on it and click on “make selection” and use the settings as you see below on picture 2. After that, hold down “ctrl+c” to copy and “ctrl+v” to paste it. Name the new layer “horse outside”.

Step 8

Go down to the “horse” layer, and create a layer mask.

Hold down the ctrl key while clicking on the thumbnail of the “frame” layer, so we have that selected. (Remember, you still need to be on the layer mask on the “horse” layer)

Now with your foreground color set to black hold down “shift+f5” to fill the layer mask with black, click “ok”, and hold down “ctrl+d” to deselect. Now it should look like picture 2 below.

Still on the layer mask, select a black brush and paint the outgoing scene of the “horse” layer. It will afterwards look like this:

Step 9

I think that I have made my document too small, but don’t worry, it’s easy to fix. Go to image>canvas size (“Alt+Ctrl+C”) and use the settings you see below:

Now it should be a little bigger:

Step 10

Select the “frame” layer, the “horse” layer and the “horse outside” layer at the same time, hold down “ctrl+t” to transform it a little bigger. In order to maintain image quality you should always work with Smart Objects when possible. The settings of the transformation shall be like on the picture below:

Step 11

Now we’re going to give the horse some highlights. Start by creating a new layer upon the “horse outside” layer. Name the new layer “horse highlights” Set the blending mode to overlay and the opacity down to 85 % like on the picture below.

Hold down the “ctrl” key and click on the thumbnail on the “horse outside” layer, but still be on the “horse highlights” layer. With the color set to #fffcd9, you’re going to paint around the places as you see below.

Step 12

Now we’re going to add some drop shadows to the “horse outside” layer. Go to Layer>Layer Style>Drop shadows and enter in these settings:

Step 13

I’m not satisfied about the look of the frame yet. Go down to the frame, right click and click on “duplicate layer”, so we got another frame layer. On the new layer (“frame copy”) set the “blending mode” to “multiply” and the “opacity” down to 70%. It should look like this:

Now do the exact same thing to the horse layer with the exact same settings, so it’s going to look like this

Step 14

Now we’re going to add a little dept to the “frame copy” layer. Go to Layer>Layer Style>Bevel and Emboss and enter the settings you see below:

Step 15

Now we’re also going to add a little dept to the “horse” layer. Select the burn tool with “Midtones” in the “Range” and an “Exposure” on 50 %. Burn these places.

Step 16

Now we’re going to add some extra soil beneath the horse. So create a new layer upon “horse highlights”. Name it “soil”

Download this brush Debris Brush Set

Install the brush in Photoshop by select a random brush and load the brush this place:

Pick this color #22110a, and paint with the first brush, but adjust the size to around 5-600 px. After you have painted it, set the blending mode to “Multiply”

Step 17

Actually I think that we can make the horse look a little more outstanding. Right click on the “horse outside” layer and click on “Duplicate Layer…” And stay on the new “horse outside copy” layer

Go to Layer>Layer Style>Drop shadows to check the layer style off.

Now go to the old “horse outside” layer and blur this layer by going to Filter>Blur>Motion Blur and enter these settings:

Step 18

We can actually duplicate the “frame copy” layer one more time. Do that. On the new “frame copy 2”, set the blending mode to “overlay” and the opacity to 45 %.

Step 19

Now we’re going to make the scene a little more dramatic. Create a new layer right upon the “horse copy” layer (beneath the “horse outside” layer). Name it “clouds”.

On our new layer, select the “Rectangular Marquee Tool (M)” and select this place you see below:

Go to Select>Modify>Feather (“shift+f6”) and feather it with 30 pixels.

Now when have a black and white color in your color palette, go to Filter>Render>Clouds… Hold down ctrl+d to deselect.

Set the blending mode to “multiply” and the opacity to 70 %.

Create a layer mask, and pick up the “Gradient Tool (G)” With these settings:

Hold down shift drag the “Gradient tool” from left middle of the frame to about half way in the scene.

Now click on the “clouds” layer’s thumbnail, and go to edit>transform>distort and distort it like this:

Last, go to edit>transform>flip horizontal… The result will look like this.

Step 20

Now we’re going to make the reflection. This is a very easy technique. Make the “Background” layer invisible by clicking on the eye icon.
Now click “ctrl+a” to select all.

Go to edit>copy merged (“shift+ctrl+c”) and hold down “ctrl+v” to paste. Name the new copied layer “Reflection”.

Now go to edit>transform>flip vertical and drag it right under our original frame like this:

Now let’s make that “Background” layer visible again. But still be on our “Reflection” layer. Set the layer’s opacity to 30 %

Create a new layer upon the “reflection” layer, name it “reflection shadow”. Pick up the “Gradient tool (G)” with the same settings and before, and drag it from down to up like on the picture below:

Step 21

Create a layer upon all other layers. Name it “Blue”. Pick up this color #3f3e65. Pick up the “Paint Bucket tool” and fill the layer with this color. Set the blending mode to “overlay” and the opacity to 65 %

Create another layer upon the “Blue” layer. Name it “Brown”. Pick up this color #624b2b and fill the layer with this color. Set the blending mode to “color” and the opacity to 60 %

Download Source File for this Tutorial