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In
today tutorial I will try to create a magic scenery , a forest that
unexpectedly comes to live revealing charmed trees that can talk ,
white rabbits and magic light sparkles . .....
Preview
of the Final Image
Magic
Forest – Fantasy Fairy Tale Photo Manipulation
Step
1
I've
started by searching the internet to find an inspirational photo and
I have found the most incredible photo , that I consider a true
beauty. Not only that the photographer captured the image extremely
well but the image itself , without any effect looks magic.
So
this Old
Danish Tree by gumuz
is my source of inspiration.
Open
a new document size 1024 / 575 px. Because of this unusual size I
will not be able to show the entire image in the tutorial I will have
to crop parts to see the actual pixel size.
The
first photoshop treatment will be for the tree. The color is not
important now, the main objective is to apply a face to the tree. An
old tree goes well with an old face. With a little bit of luck I
have found this beautiful photo Face
by simurg(parm..).
Scale
the photo to 60% .
Crop
only the face of the old man and remove the rest.
Now
change the blending mode of the Old Man Layer to Overlay 100%.
You
can see that there is a big difference between the Overlay mode and
the Normal mode.
Unfortunately
the tree as it is now is not perfect with the blending. The good news
is that we can fix that .
Step
2
Take
the Clone Stamp Tool and hide the area shown in the image below:
Now
with The Smudge Tool hide the little imperfection in the eye area:
Step
3
Face
treatment. As you remember the face is obtained only from a layer
with overlay blend mode.
Duplicate
the Old Man Layer . Go to Image – Adjustments – Exposure
and do the following settings:
From
this layer create 2 new ones . With the Magic Wand Tool select the
lighted areas and put it in another layer CTRL + C and CTRL + V. Name
this layer Light Areas and change the blending mode to Soft Light
80%.
Do
the same this time with the dark areas . With the Magic Wand Tool
select the dark areas and put it in another layer CTRL + C and CTRL +
V. Name this layer Dark Areas and change the blending mode to Darken
80%.
The
result is this so far. To soften the look a little bit you can apply
Gaussian Blur Filter to the Dark Areas Layer.
Now
it looks pretty good but there is a small color difference where the
face ends. So we have to adjust all 3 layers with the Eraser Tool.
Play with sizes and opacity to obtain a good result.
Step
4
The
Face of the Tree needs eyes to add expression. So
copy this image Look
into my eyes
by Look
into my eyes.
The
eye actually looks like my eyes ??!!? Strange
Scale
the eye to 10 % and than easily erase the skin area.
Now
the eye is a little to bright in comparison with the rest of the
face. So go to Image – Adjustment – Brightness / Contrast
:
Step
5
The
next thing to do is give a little symmetry to the tree. Because the
left side of the tree is a little odd I will duplicate the right side
and move it to the left side.
So
above all the other layers create a new one called TreeImage. Go to
Image – Apply Image.
I
have now a layer that contains an image of all the visible layers
merged.
Make
a selection like in the image, press CTRL+C and CTRL+V . A new layer
was created; go to Edit – Transform – Flip Horizontal :
Move
the selection to the left area. With the Eraser Tool erase part of
this selection as shown in the image below...i have colored the image
to see exactly what you have to erase;the red area is the one that
stays , the rest was erased:
I
did that move because:
The
left area was not suited for a face blending
I
wanted to give the tree a symmetric look
I
have erased that parts because if you can notice there can be one
shadow for the nose and in the duplicated case we had 2 shadows.
And
last but not least I have erased parts of the tree to look symmetric
but not the same.
Step
6
The
Tree looks pretty good but I want it to be the house of the fairies;
so I will added a magic window to look like a home. I have found this
lovely photo Old
Window by BugMan50.
I
have to first crop only the window without the stores:
Resize
this image to 40% . With the Eraser Tool and the Burn Tool try to
blend the window with the tree as good as you can:
Step
7
Add
the princess , photo In
the fog by Only
Sequel.
Copy
the large size image and crop only the girl. Scale to 70%.
Because
the image has a lower contrast I have to go to Image –
Adjustments – Curves and do the following settings:
The
tone of the girl is more to blue while the tone of the rest of the
image is warm orange, but this is not a problem for me because when I
will apply the blue filter it will not matter. The important part is
the contrast.
A
thing that I dont like is that the girl has short hair. For that you
can search for really nice hair brushes or do what I did. Create a
new layer and with a small size brush , and the color of the girl's
hair try to draw over. To give the hair a more realistic look use the
Smudge Tool, size 4-5, opacity 70-90%. It would be better with a
graphic tablet
Step
8
Add
Rabbits, this beautiful photo Rabbits
by Halans. Scale
to 80%. Spread the rabbits through out the forest and scale them to
different sizes.
Step
9
Blue
Filter. Simply add a new layer and color it with the color that you
like . I choose #1a3c37 but I will show you how it looks like with
#8c7527
I
will work with the image below that has a beautiful blue tone:
Create
a new layer and go to Image - Apply image..
Now
paint with light with the Burn Tool (shadows) and the Dodge Tool
(highlights), Accentuate face features, the tree and also burn the
edges of the entire image.
In
the end add in another layer white sparkle coming out of the
tree..you can use special brushes or simple small size brushes like I
did.
Fairy
Tale – The Magic Forest and the Lost Princes
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