Quickly Create Surreal Scenary via Combining Landscape Images in Photoshop

Create a new document sized 900px * 1200px, leave the background colour as white, create a new layer on top of it called “sky gradient”, grab the gradient tool from the toolbox and fill this layer as shown below:



Create another layer and use a darker blue to do a gradient fill as shown below:



The reason I use two layers to create the gradient is to be able to adjust each layer seperately, should anything needs to be changed.

and you will have the following effect:



Create a new layer called “cloud”, and use the cloud brushes you download, paint some cloud on top of the gradient layers:



Create a new layer called “dirt”, use the dirt brushsets you downloaded, paint some dirt onto the canvas: (don’t paint too much, adjust the flow to around 20%)



Duplicate the dirt layer once and apply the following motion blur settings to the duplicated layer:



and you will have the following effect:



This is the overall effect so far:

Now let’s add some grass field to the image. Load the “Grass field 1″ image into Photoshop, select a portion of the grass as shown below:



Paste it onto our document, postion it to the bottom and use a soft brush to erase the top edge:



and here is the effect so far:



Load the “Grass Field 2″ image into Photoshop, cut out the mountain portion as shown below: (in this tutorial, there is no need to make precise selection of the mountain)



Paste it onto our canvas, move it to the right side and use a soft erase tool to remove the edges, as shown below:



Duplicate this mountain once, flip it horizontally and move it to the left, resize if necessary:



and here is the effect so far:

Load the “Lookout Tower” image into Photoshop, cut out the tower portion of the image and paste it onto our canvas as shown below:



Add the following layer mask to this layer to remove this edges of the mountain:



Add the following adjustment layer to this lookout tower layer, make sure you tick the “user previous layer as clipping mask” option:

Black and white



Colour Balance



Curves



Levels



Layer mask on Levels adjustment layer:



and you will have the following effect:

Now let’s create a ray of light to shoot from the mountain. Create a new layer and use the rectangular tool to draw a selection and fill it with white colour:



Then apply the following Gaussian Blur settings:



Perspective this layer as shown below:



Use a soft brush eraser to remove the top and bottom of the light, as shown below: (Also reduce the layer opacity to around 80%)



Duplicate this layer a few times, adjust the sizes of the duplicated layers, and put them into groups as shown below:

Now let’s add a floating rock to the image. Load the “mountain” stock image into Photoshop, then use the quick selection tool to select a piece of rock as shown below:



Paste it on to our document, name this new layer as “big rock”:



Erase the bottom-left portion of the rock with a soft brush to it blends into the cloud:



Add the following 2 adjustment layers to this big rock layer: (make sure to tick the “use previous layer as clipping mask” option)

Levels



Curves



and you will have the following effect for the rock:



Duplicate this big rock layer a few times, reduce the size of the rock and scatter the smaller rocks around the canvas, as shown below:



Also render some cloud on the grass to create some foggy effect. To do this, simply use the lasso tool with a 50px feather to draw a selection, set the foregound colour to be white, background colour to be light-grey, then render some cloud in it:



Duplicate this cloud layer a few times and scatter them round the canvas:

Now let’s create a ring effect for this image. Create a new layer and use the elliptical tool with 10px feather to draw a seletion as shown below:



right-click and choose “stroke”:



Apply the following stroke settings:



and you will have the following ring effect:



Attach this ring to the big floating rock, make sure you erase the portion behind the rock, as shown below: (use the free transform tool to adjust its size to fit the rock)



Add a curves adjustment on top of all previous layers:



Layer mask on this curves adjustment layer:



As you can see, we add a bit of depth to the sky portion: (upper-left becomes darker than the rest)



and here is the final effect: (click to enlarge)



That’s it for this Photoshop tutorial! Hope you enjoy it and find it useful. Until next time, have a great day!​