Create a Scenic Landscape Composition in Photoshop Part-1

Create a Scenic Landscape Composition in Photoshop Part-1

Final Image

Photoshop is a fantastic application for combining average photos to create something entirely new. In this tutorial we will combine several stock photos to create a scenic landscape panorama. Let’s get started!

Tutorial Assets

The following assets were used during the production of this tutorial.

Step 1

The first step is to create a rough composition of the image. Take the stock images from the tutorial assets section of the tutorial and drop them onto your canvas. Use the Move and Free Transform tools to place the images into position and be sure to keep them on independent layers.

Step 2

Select the Girl Stock layer and hit Command/Ctrl + B to adjust the color balance. Use settings for "Midtones" tab and for "Highlights" use the settings as shown below.

Step 3

Now make a mask on the Girl Stock layer by clicking the mask icon in the layers palette. Erase all the unnecessary space around her using a black round brush. Now apply a brightness/contrast adjustment and use the settings shown below.

Step 4

Now apply a Hue/Saturation adjustment using (Command/Ctrl + U) and lower Saturation a bit (-21) – to lower some values of colors on this stock.

Step 5

Now hit the Command/Ctrl + L for “Levels” window and put sliders like these – it will do the job similar to “Brightness/Contrast” in step 3 but it also adds higher highlights on our stock so it creates illusion of light on girl.

Step 6

Then again, go to “Color balance” (Command/Ctrl + B) and select following settings but this time, on our layer “trees” behind girl. For “Midtones” select: 0, + 8, 0.

Step 7

Then go to “Cliff” layer and change the brightness and contrast in “Brightness/Contrast.” After that hit Command/Ctrl + B and change settings like you see here.

Step 8

Drop a fragment of big tree (“laying trees stock”) on your canvas, hit (Command/Ctrl + T) to "Free Transform" this fragment, resize and warp it a bit (right click on this image > "Warp" while being in "Free transform" mode) and change it’s brightness and contrast and saturation to -23.

Also duplicate (Command/Ctrl + J) "Trees" layer behind our model and move it to left side, we will take care of it later. Name it "Left trees".(Red arrow below)

Step 9

Create mask on our "Left trees" layer (Here it’s "Layer 0 copy") and paint stroke with black brush on our mask, to make these layers fade into each other.