Have every post delivered to your inbox and get access to hundreds of useful design freebies.
As always, this is the final image that we’ll be creating:
So let’s start with a new document of 2000 px width and 1600 px height at 300 resolutions. Actually size doesn’t matter here; you can keep any size according to your preferences.
Press G to select gradient tool and choose color b91414 & ffc600.
Drag from top of document to centre. The result will be look like this.
Now select gradient tool by pressing G and select white color and gradient type “Foreground to Transparent”.
Now open the green crop image and remove the sky and clouds from image and name this layer “Crop”.
Drag Crop layer to our main document. Press Ctrl + T to transform layer and increase its height according to scene.
Now create a color balance adjustment layer and put these settings:
Midtone ; Cyan-Red = -43, Magenta-Green = +29, Yellow-Blue = 0.
Shadow; Cyan-Red = +10, Magenta-Green = 0, Yellow-Blue = -17.
Your result will look like this:
Now open a forest image and hide its unwanted area to fit in our scene.
If everything goes well then result will be like this.
Now open Hill layer and press P to select pen tool. Remove all the unwanted area from image.
Drag this image to our scene and transform it to fit proportionally in our perspective.
Open Tree image now if you’ll isolate it with pen toll then it will consume your too much time. So to save that time there is a short method of quickly isolating such images. To isolate tree go to channel palate and duplicate blue channel because in this channel, tree is darker and can be easily isolated. Rename it “Tree”. Now select “Tree” channel and press Ctrl + L to adjust level and put these settings; 0, 0.10, 255.
Ctrl + Click “Tree” channel and you’ll get a fine selection of tree to isolate.
Now remove tree’s steam and keep only leaves to use it for grass near hill layer. Open another tree layer, isolate it same as in step 10 and name it Tree 2. Use its upper leafy part as grass near hill.
Select a soft brush of size 30 px and color black. Paint the grass base from right to left to give it shadow.
Now it’s time to add some tree in scene. Open Tree 2 file and drag isolated tree to scene. Transform and resize it to near hill perceptively. Hide the bottom part of tree and add shadow to give it natural look.
Put few more trees to give it a more natural look. I want a red tree to enhance my scene for this open Tree 1 file and repeat step 13 to add another tree. Add Hue/Saturation adjustment layer of these values Hue -78, saturation 0, Lightness 0. Press Alt + click between Tree 1 layer and adjustment layer to clip mask it.
Now open the background hill image and remove its sky. Drag it to our scene and place according to perspective. Create a color balance adjustment layer with these settings; Midtones -3, +62, +32, Shadows +7, +22, +15.
Your result will look like this.
Now we need to add sun in our scene. Select a brush of size 250 px and 50% hardness. Click once to make soft circle, this is our basic shape of sun.
Select another brush of size 400 px and 0% hardness. Click once on sun to give it a light glow.
Select another brush of size 600 px with 0% hardness. Choose color fced9e and click once behind the sun to give it warm glow.
Select light rays brush of size 1200 px with 80% opacity and create rays on left side near to hill.
Select another ray brush of size 1200 px and create rays right side and middle part of crop.
Select another brush of size 900 px with 48% opacity and create few more rays to sun. Mask unwanted area of rays to give it perfect natural look. Group all rays layer and sun layers and name group SUN.
Now add some clouds from cloud brushes to give life to the sky. There are many websites where you can download free brushes.
Looking good but need more touch up? Ok, give some lighting to the scene by adding some adjustment layers below sun layer group. Create a Selective color adjustment layer and apply these settings;
Create a level adjustment layer with these settings:
Apply layer masking in this way to get desired effect.
Now create a curve adjustment layer with these setting; and use same layer mask as in Step 24.
Create a color balance adjustment layer and put these settings; Highlights +59, 0, -58.
Press Ctrl + I to hide all effect and select brush tool for masking. Select soft brush of white color and apply this layer mask.
Your result will look like this;
We are nearly finished. Now duplicate all layers and merge them. Go to filter menu and apply lighting effects with these settings;
Spotlight
Intensity; Full 32
Focus : Wide 85
Properties
Gloss: 0
Material : Metallic 71
Exposure : 0
Ambience : Positive 10
Choose soft brush and apply layer mask like this:
That’s the tutorial finished! I hope you’ve enjoyed it and learnt something useful.
Narendra is a freelance graphic designer specializing in the fields of corporate identity (logo) design, print design, advertising and web designs. I'm currently living in India. I design because it's my passion and I love to do it. To know more about me please visit to my online portfolio.
Do you know the basic tools in Photoshop but feel that your work is still looking average? Join our creative community at FanExtra and get the direction you need to take your work to the next level.
Nice tut. Keep up the good work
Thanks Grafpedia, the tutorials at your site are looking great as always .
Thanks to Narendra for writing yet another great tutorial!
Wow great post, i like tutorials that’s detailed just like this one, it shows that a lot of time and effort went into this which resulted in a great outcome.
Nice tutorial. But I would just say that there is a problem of shadows and light especially with the left mountain. Shadows on it aren’t coherent with the light coming from the middle. Maybe you should have tried to find another stock image that could fit this use.
Still, very nice tutorial. Keep up the good work.
Thanks designvore for pointing on that problem. I tried to put another image but there was an issue that the source of light is from back of mountain in that case whole mountain were darkened and details were missing. If I change the light on mountain according to sun light then whole mountain were getting dark. To avoid this I used this image having different source of light to balance and highlight mountain equally.
Grafpedia, Tom,
Thanks for appreciating my work. I’m always keen to work with such supporting guys like you.
Thanks again.
Narendra: For the shadows on the left mountain you might have been able to create a new layer and just applied them using a low opacity black paintbrush. This wouldn’t interfere with your mask layers and would allow you to gradually build up shadow.
great tutorial
Nice effects yaar…… u r master in photoshop
Nice tut. Keep up the good work
Thanks to Narendra for writing yet another great tutorial!
The image isn’t shown original nature…. Because the sun poison … when the sun on full face that time sky is show bright or ice blue…..
Well lesson is excellent…keep it up…
really beautiful tutorial with best techniques and anyone can learn and understand about photoshop tool tips.
Wow… it’s amazing what PSD can do ad manipulate. I’m really impressed… Would love to try out an image like this. Thanks for the tutorial, very easy to follow.
very easy to follow tutorial to make a great work. this is suitable to all those new in the design field so they can learn very quickly.
I didn’t follow the tutorial all the way, but I read it. I used some of your techniques to make my very first photo manipulation!
This is the outcome: http://sexyed.deviantart.com/art/First-photomanipulation-144041089
Good article! Thanks
Nice tutorial.
However i would have liked some blue in the sky gradient
Maybe the next step would be to add the shadows, created from the sun to get a more realistic effect.
Thanks for so many great comments everyone! Keep them coming
Edwin: That’s really good for your first manip. I think there are some issues with shadowing/perspective, but I love how the soft eraser seemed to create a highlight on the lion’s mane cast from the sun, it’s got a really nice, soft feeling to it.
These designs are every extraordinary……….
I learn some thing professional skill from this………
I am Photoshop Designer at present
thank you
regards
veerababu
secunderabad
AP India
Greats Tutorial for sharing! it’s make me so easy to learn Manipulating Photo..
very nice, you finished it by very awesome steps! i like your idea..
very nice, i like your idea..
Excellent,,,
Thanks You
Looks like a cool tutorial, definitely going to try it when i get a chance!
Thanks.
its very good tut. very nice
These designs are amazing thank you
what’s name of the brush?
The brush name was “SS-light-beams” but I forgot the source from where I downloaded it.
excellent tutorial, but I want to know where I can get brushes that show in your image, you could tell me or enjoy myself
Is this something I can do in Corel Draw Graphics Suite X5 or in Photo Shop Elements 9?
I am just a beginner and can’t afford $500+ for Photoshop software.
It’s a useful tutorial. As above, echoing some comments, how can we do this in X5 or Photoshop?
Such a beautiful imagery result. Another very well written and… able to follow along tutorial. Bravo!
Thank you for this tutoriell, it’s very nice!
Amazing final result! I love seeing these totally different pieces come together to make a completely new and beautiful landscape.
Thanks for the feedback Chris!
where the resource??
Hi Peter, which resource are you referring to? If you mean the member file in our FanExtra area you can find it here: http://fanextra.com/373/photo-manipulate-a-beautiful-sunrise-landscape/ or simply search for it within the members area.
Thanks for the tutorial.. I appreciate that it was done step by step. I never thought that there be so much work for the sunrise effect and the result is really nice. Really capture the essence! Love the keen details too!
Hi. Thank you for the sunrise effect tut. It’s got a lot of GD applications and is an easy fix for a great result!