Advanced photo manipulation | The Mysterious elephant | Adobe photoshop

1. 0 Intro: Hello guys, welcome to the masterclass in photo manipulation. In this class, we will learn how to make this visual step-by-step. Every detail I took to make this visual using advanced photo manipulation techniques, this class will go beyond the basics. So for example, I'm not going to teach you how to cut images. I'll focus on teaching you how to correct values, how to match saturation, and how to match colors of each element. Also how to draw light into subjects and how to add the final look and grading. I'm so excited to start with you guys. So let the fun begin. 2. 1 Blending the sky: Alright guys, I encourage you to follow up with me step-by-step to make the best use of this class, you will find all the images that I'm using in the description. The first thing we're going to start with is that I'm going to make a new file. I'm just choosing the full HD size, 1920 by 1080 B and press Create. The first thing I love to start with is the background and the sky. So I'm going to start with the sky image, trying to put it here, making it a little bit bigger like this. Then I will just duplicate the layer by pressing Control J and then Control T and right-click and flip horizontal to pour it into the other side. Like this. So now I will press on the Mask button, press here. And was the soft rounded brush with the black color. You can press X to toggle between the white and black and then erase the edges so that they blend nicely together like so. Then I will create a new layer to make the edges a little bit darker and having this magenta tone like so, I'm just picking this color, making brush bigger with the brackets pattern and put some dark areas like this because I want the focus to be in the middle. Okay, let's blend it nicely. And there we go. Then I will put everything I've done in a group pressing Control G because we want to be somehow organized. So I will also blend the sky layers, pressing Control E and then creating a new mask to, to erase and mask the edge of the bottle. So I created a new mask and with the soft edges brush, I will just erase and then store to erase this part. Try to blend it nicely. 3. 2 Bending the grass ground: The next thing, I'm going to grab the ground, the grass layer, this image and put it right here. Of course, they have a lot of differences. The two images of the sky and the grass, or have different values of light, have different colors, have different situations. So what we're going to do is to match every image to this guy. So we have this magenta looking sky. We need to match every image to its main color, saturation and light value. So I'll just, What's it here? Making get a little bit shorter and just expanding it. It's okay to expand it. And the first thing we're going to select the sky by pressing from the select menu and press sky. This feature is only allowed, I guess in the 2021 version of Photoshop. Before that, this option is not available. I've selected the sky and before making the mask, I'll press Control I to invert the selection, to only select and raise the sky like so. That sounds cool. So next we're going to define some edges because this edge was not erased properly and trying to make the edges softer, like so. And that's it. So next, I'm going to, I feel like the sky have a lot of color and it's very saturated. So I think we need to make it a little bit low or saturation. So I'm going to make a hue saturation adjustment layer and decreasing the saturation a little bit like this. So next, I'm going to make a new group for the grass or fall to the ground and I will start to match everything. And the first thing we're going to match these colors. So I'm going to create a color balance adjustment layer. And from there we can start. So we can start in the shadows. As you notice here, the shadows of the sky have a magenta purple color. So this is the main colors that we want to dominate in the shadows. So in the shadows we will just increase. I'm now working on the shadows of the grass. So I need to create a clipping mask so that the effect is only affecting the grass layer. So I'm now just increasing their magenta in the shadows. And I guess we can also increase the red, like so. Okay, and the mid tones, we're going to do the same, but let's increase the yellow and increase the magenta. A lot of bad, increase the red color a little bit. What do we need here is to match the two colors of the sky and the grass. And in the highlights, let's bring the yellows up. Because as you can see in the sky, there's a lot of yellow colors in the highlights and bring the red and the magenta little bit higher. I guess we need, I guess this is good. So as you can see where affects it, the color of the grass. So from here we are good to go. But we need to first add this atmospheric effect. Because when you go further in destined, you will find that the atmosphere affects the, the grass layer. So we need to replicate this by creating a new layer and just picking some colors from the background with the soft edges. I'm just picking some color from the background and trying to draw some atmosphere effect. Of course, I will bring the opacity low. The blend mode to screen. And let's decrease this effect on the opacity. Like so. This perfect. So as you can see, this adds some depth and the visual. And I guess let's put some hazing effect here. Increasing the effect L little bit, like fee 5058 is good. And I'm just using the mask or the eraser, erasing some parts and adding other ports. I want to make sure that it blends properly. Okay, that sounds cool. So next we're going to match the saturation of the colors of two images of the sky and the grass. What I'm going to do now is creating a chick layer for saturation. So I'm just pressing on selective color layer. This will be a check layer that will show us which areas have a lot of saturation and which have low saturation. So what I'm doing is bringing the blacks down, up to 0 in all the colors. So in the red, bringing the blacks in 0 or minus 100, and the yellows and bringing them to minus 100, the greens and also the cyan and the blues and the magenta. But for the whites and neutrals out and blacks just increase them to plus 100. These are the steps for creating this Check layer. Okay, So what we're seeing now is a map for saturation. So the areas that have a more white color have a high saturation and areas with low white color or with more black color mean that they have low saturation. As you can see, the grass layer have a lot of saturation. So we need to lower the saturation of this part by creating a hue saturation adjustment layer and decreasing the saturation a little bit. Let's create a clipping mask and decrease the saturation. I need to create clipping mask where the grass part. Yeah. So I guess we're good to go. 4. 3 Blending te mountains: The next element that we're going to put in our design are the mountains that form mountains. So I'm just putting it into a separate group also. But first let's make it bigger, like so. And putting it into the horizon, we need to match the two horizon lines of the two images that we have a match IT perspective for the visual. So like this, I guess. And then we're going to select the sky was the same way we selected the sky of the grass layer BY select menu and then select sky. And it will automatically select the sky. Then we're going to press Control Shift I to invert the mask and then press the mask so that we select only. So I'll put this layer here and make it a little bit bigger. I guess. These sounds good. And then let's just erase some parts. These parts with the soft rounded brush. I will erase the sports that the image is splints together better. I guess. I guess this sounds cool Already. Well, don't have to make a lot of effort here. Sounds cool. And then I will press Alt and drag the image to duplicate it. And then press Control T, right-click and then flip horizontal and put it right here. We are trying to pick specific area in which the two images blend together more. So I'll just erase this part. I'm trying to choose good area, Enter to be the intersection. So I guess this area is cool enough. I guess so. Let's erase this. Okay. They sound score. Now we're going to add the hazing effect and the atmosphere effect because these mountains should be very far away. So first we're going to blend these two layers by pressing Control E. And then let's add the atmosphere effect by making these mountains and not contrasty. So we need to decrease the contrast. We will do this by curves adjustment layer. I'll create a clipping mask and then bringing up the shadows like so. From here, as you can see here, it immediately lost some contrast, which gives our brains the illusion that they are far away into the sea. They are not close to the camera that shot this image, right? Let's bring the light, the light parts or two bit lower. And this sounds good. And I guess I can change the blending mode of this curves adjustment layer, tool luminosity so that I only affect the lightness values, not the saturation or the colors of this month. So next I'm going to put the mountain into a new group by pressing Control G. And now it's time to add hazing effect or the atmosphere effect into the mountains. So I'm going to create a new layer and choosing some color from the rocks and trying to draw this effect by the soft round brush or with some smoke brush, like this brush, make it a little bit bigger. Try to draw some pressures like so. But we need to focus that this effect is effecting the lower ages of the mountain much more than the higher edges. Because as you know, the dust and the in the atmosphere is affecting the parts that are near to the ground with the higher degree of the upper parts of the mountain like. So. We are going to just draw these brushes like so. And then decreasing the opacity. Let's say for a 34, Let's try to make it screen. I guess it works better. And try to make it a little bit higher, then we can create a mask and erase some parts that we see. It's over. The effect is high on them. 5. 4 Blending the sun: Now we're good to go to add the other main element, which is the sun, bringing this image. So what was in my imagination is that this is a sunset scene and son should be a very big sign. So I'm trying, I choose, I've chosen this image to replicate my idea and make it a lot bigger than normal, like so. And then let's build this product firstly behind the mountains and create a new group, pouring it into the group and create a mask, press Control I to invert the mask. And with the soft rounded brush or any brush we can bring back the sun. And the sun was some effects around it. That's good also because it's already a sunset scene. So it's not a problem having some colors around the sun. So let's choose the soft round brush. And then let's exclude some parts that are not like these birds and like this tree on the right, and other parts the bottom. Let's erase this part softly. I guess we can also create a glow effect around the sun. So I will creating a solid color adjustment layer with an orange color and then bring the blend mode into linear light, or linear light is good. Let's change the color of the bed to be more reddish because this color is good, we can also decrease the intensity of it. So I press Control I, and then trying to draw some effect around the sun. Like so. As you can see, it's very, very high effect and very intense. So I will first lower the saturation of the color. And it gets this color is good. And then press Okay and then decrease the film, not the opacity because the linear light mood is one of the seven special modes in Photoshop that has different effect when you decrease the opacity and DFL. So if you decrease the fell, it just decrease the intensity of the effect. Not only decreasing the opacity. I guess this is perfect. 6. 5 Blending the elephant: So let's drag the elephant image and put it here. And let's try to make it a little bit bigger. Like so. And let's put it above everything and put it into a new group. And then I guess let's make it a lot bigger because we want the visual to be, to have a lot of contrast in sizes. So I need to have a very big elephant versus a very tiny human, which will give it greatness. So I'll just press Control T trying to also correct the perspective of the image. I want the legs of the other fun to be completely vertical. And then we're good, we're good to go. And for selecting the elephant image, I want to use the pen tool. I can use the object selection tool. But here I want the selection to be very sharp because this is the focal element of our image. And I wanted to be 100% clear and 100% have a very precise selection. So I'm going to select it with the pen tool. Like so. I assume that you know how to use pen tool because this is an advanced tutorial. So I'm going to speed up the process of this selection because it's somehow time-consuming. So as you can see, I'm trying to make the best selection as I can. I'm going to speed up this process and get back to you. Once this election is done. Perfect, after making the selection, I will press right-click with the pen tool. I should be on the Burn tool and press right-click and make selection and press. Okay, this will create a selection from the past of the pen tool. And then let's create a new mask precisely. And I guess now we can just rotate it a little bit like so, a lot of bit higher to make it look somehow giant. So next I'm going to make a smart object of this layer because I don't want to lose this selection. So and also I will try to mask this part because this part needs to be masked with a different way than pen tool. So I'm now grabbing a grass brush, which will create a mask. With this grass brush, I will try to refine it first, like so. And then try to erase the bottom parts. Like so. Let's just increase the flow and turn off this button. And then let's blend it better, making it a little bit smaller. These parts, because I want this, the elephant to be like is in the middle of these grass or bushes. So in this part, erasing this part. And I guess like so. Perfect. So as you have seen in the final visual, I have created water reflections in the bottom side of our visual. How can we do this? It's just by duplicating the whole scene and flipping it vertically and put it in the bottom. So I'm not going to do this. Now. What I'm doing now is to just make the bottom part as a black part and creating this box, this black. Let's make it black. And in this part, we will have the water reflections and we'll continue our design. And then we'll get back to the water reflection and created a new layer and tort it to pick this brownish color from the dust and start to paint it here. Because this is now make, make much more sense. Because as you can see here, it's a hazy atmosphere and there should be a lot of dust at the legs, at the bottom of the legs of the elephant, of course. Like so. So we want it to be very subtle, like so. Perfect. And by the way, I'm using graphic tablet from where comb. This gives me complete control of the pressure sensitivity. Okay, Let's erase it with the eraser to erase some parts. Now, I guess let's add some parts here. Yes. This is good. Now we can start to edit the lightness and the colors of the elephant. So I will firstly make a curves adjustment layer from here. And let's create a clipping mask and try to open up the shadows a little bit and dark, darkening the light values. And let's try to make it a little bit darker, not so much light. And the light pixels make it a little bit darker that I'm doing this because I want to match the lightness values of the elephant to the background. So I will also mask this part because I want this part to be a little bit light and I don't want it to be dark. And let's also decrease the opacity of this dust effect. I guess we need to remove this, some parts of the selection like so. And this bar needs to be added also. And now let's draw the shadows. The sun is behind the elephant. So we need to have a long shadow in front of the elephant because this is a sunset scene. And I'm doing the shadow by a curves adjustment layer, making the blend mode as luminosity as you can see here. And then I'm trying to draw the shadows. Like so. Let's put it behind the elephant and let's draw the shadow. Simple as that. Draw it here. And let's erase it from the edges. Yes. I guess we need to erase this part because the light will pass through the legs, this part. So we need to firstly erase this part from the elephant layer. It's open the pressure sensitivity and let's erase this part using a mask. Make the flow 100%. And let's use the brush to erase this part. Like so section. Okay. This isn't good. So in this part we don't, we shouldn't have any shadow because light will pass through it. This gives it so much realism. So on just close the pressure sensitivity and let's draw the shadows in here and there. This is the main shape of the shadow. Then we will decrease the flow of the brush and erase some parts from the edges. Like this will give it much more realism. Okay, That's enough for the shadows, I guess. Now we're going to make the near ports of the grass a little bit darker because as I've told you, that near ports should be a little bit contrasty and dark and the four parts should be light and less contrast. So what I'm going to do is create a curves adjustment layer and create a clipping mask for the grass pressing Control I. And then with the soft rounded brush, I will draw some parts here. Here. This will make it somehow dark. Let's put it above everything, I guess. Yeah. Okay. So erase this. Every time you add something to your photo manipulation, you need to make sure that it blends better with the whole image. So this is good, I guess. Okay, Next what we're going to do is to match the colors of the elephant to the background. So we need to add some magenta tone to the elephant. So I'll just create a color balance adjustment layer and start to edit everything. I will start with the shadows as lot. But first let's create a clipping mask by pressing into this button. And then let's correct the colors. I will start firstly from the shadows. I will add some magenta and some blue to the shadows as we have already done in the grass layer. And I guess this is too much. Let's make it a little bit slower. Perfect. You need to be careful adding the color balance effect because it changes the saturation also of the element. So we need also to add some, I'm Brett. And then in the mid tones, I guess let's just increases the yellows and increase their reds. Sounds cool. Make sure to zoom out and zoom in so that you see the whole picture and the big picture and the highlights. I guess we need to increase the reds and increase the yellows. And that's it, I guess. Okay, this is the color balance effect. As you can see, the colors are now much better. 7. 6 Adding the haze effects: Okay, I guess we need to add a layer of hazing effect into the mountains. So what we're going to do is to create a solid color adjustment layer into the mountains group and press Okay, I guess we choose this brownish, light brown color and put the blending mode to screen, then press Control I. And with the soft, rounded brush with a very low flow, the brush, we will just paint. Let's make it normal blending mode as normal and decrease the opacity, increases the light. I guess this gives us much more appealing effect. Then press Okay. Let's erase some parts from the top of the mountain. Okay, next two are going to create a glow effect around the sun. So I'm just going to duplicate this solid color adjustment layer and change the blending mode into, let's make it screen and change the color into orange. She saturated color. Press Okay, and then let's draw some glow effect around the edges of the mountain. Like so. Because this makes more sense around the around the sun on the edges of the mountain. And I guess the colors are very saturated so we need to decrease it like so and press Okay, perfect. Let's open up the opacity, make it a little bit higher, and let's refine the mask and the blended better. Like so. It sounds a little bit better. This is very glowy and moody. I loved this one. Perfect. I'm going to spice things up by the, this overlay layer. Put it here, let's make it bigger, like so very big. And these rays will spice everything up. Let's distort it a little bit. This layer is supposed to be sun rays, and I'm now trying to distort. It, just changes the blending mode to screen. And now I'm trying to reposition it into a very good position. Of course, I will change It's colors by pressing control the EU and press on colorized, change, the saturation and the hue and tools, some orangey color. And then press Okay. You can see, okay, perfect. If I want to make the effect much more intense, I will press Control L. This will open the levels and I will increase the contrast and press Okay. I guess we need to make a mask to erase this edges. Soft, rounded brush. And yeah, this is very hazy and gives me the impression that I wanted. So now I have just duplicated the layer by pressing Control J to make the effect much more intense. I'm trying to mask some parts. And I guess this looks very cool. So now we're going to add some soft flights into the elephant from the sun. So we need to create a hue saturation adjustment layer. And let's make a clipping mask by pressing Alt and pressing between the two layers. And then I will press colorize. And let's choose the orange color. After that, I will increase the saturation and the lightness like so. And let's make it some more orangey. Now I want to erase some parts of the these slides. So I will double-click, double-click into the hue saturation layer and remove the effect from the dark parts like so. And let's press Alt to split the cursor and to make the selection much more the blending much more moose. And I'm now trying to make it smoother and then press Okay, then I'll press Control I and draw this warm orangey soft light into the top parts of the elephant and into his ears to the legs. These are the outer parts of the elephant. And this gives it a little bit good-looking effect. Draw it here. And by using the blend F, we are assured that the effect is only applied into the bright pixels, not the dark pixels. And then I will duplicate this layer by pressing Control J and erase everything into the layer and create clipping mask. What I want here is that I want to add another layer of highlights. So I'm now making the brush smaller and trying to add a glow into some specific edges around the sun area. As you can see. I guess we need to break this effect. And let's make it a little bit more and much more intense. Increase the lightness. I guess this is kinda cool effect because we have the sun right behind the elephant itself. 8. 7 Bleding the man: Okay, that's good for the elephant. Right now we're going to start working on the man. So I'm bringing the image of the man and putting it above everything, putting it into a separate group, press Control G to make, to put it into a separate group and start to make it a little bit smaller to make our selection. I will do this by the objects selection tool. I'll just select this area and it well be selected by the AI. So this is, this is enough, I guess, for civic, I guess here in the hands, there are some parts that needs to be excluded. So by the brush, I will just erase the sports. So I'm going to make it very small. Like this, very small. It is something relative. So if the man looks very small, the elephant will look very big. So now I'm going to create a smart object from this layer. I will right-click and press Convert to Smart Object. And then I'm going to add a mask to mask the leg part because they wanted the man to be like He's immersed into the grass, the same as what we have already done into the elephant. So I'm just using the grass brush and erasing his legs like so. This part the bottom. And these parts with the grass. I guess they Sounds good. Next, we are going to correct and match the lightness values. So I'm going to create a curves adjustment layer and just make clipping mask. And I'm going to correct the lightness. The man should be very dark because he will be in the shadow of the elephant and open up the shadows a little bit, decrease the highlights. And then I will create a color balance adjustment layer to match the colors of this man to the whole image and to the other objects. So we need to add some magenta to the mid tones and to add some breads. So I will just start by increasing the bread into the mid tones and decreasing the greens are increasing a green's a little bit, and increasing the yellows, the mid tones and the highlights, I guess, need to increase the yellows and the reds. In the shadows. We need to increase the red, I guess. Yeah, increase it a little bit and increase the magenta little bit and the blue. Or I guess we need to decrease the blue. We need to make it a little bit more to the yellows. Feel free to experiment everything until you get the best results. We need to put it behind the curves. Know. I guess now we need to open up the shadows a little bit like so. That is good. This is very good. Perfect. To make it a little bit dark from here. And we're good to go. 9. 8 Drawing the elephant lights: So in this part, I decided to add another color that will bring contrast in colors because as you can see here, we have a lot of hot colors, like the red, the orange, the yellow. We need to bring this and add another cold color. This will bring contrast to our design. So I decided to add this color into the teeth of the elephant, if I can say it. So, by creating a solid color adjustment layer and choosing this cyan bluish color. I guess let's make, let's say it's cyan and change the blending mode to screen and press. Of course, let's create a clipping mask and then press Control I to invert this mask. And now I'm going to draw the effect in the teeth. So I'll just draw it here. This is just simple drawing process. I'll just speed this up because, you know, you can make a selection of this part by the pen tool and draw on this selection or you can just draw it as as what I'm doing. Now. Let's add this slide into the eyes. Also, this will make the elephant much more mysterious. So we will draw the eyes. I will of course, turn on the pressure sensitivity. And by using the graphic tablet, I can draw the eyes like so to make the edges thin. So if you want to make the edges Fen human being, you need to have a pressure sensitivity tablet. You need to have a tablet and turn on the pressure sensitivity. Then I will draw the other. I hear. The same way. Like so. This is not heart, simple eye shape. I guess it's not identical. So we need to edit it a little bit. So erase this part. And let's add, I guess they are now somehow identical. Now, we need to add some parts here into the skin of the elephant. And this can be done only with the graphic tablet because you need to have pressure sensitivity to make these shapes. Like so. As you can see here, I'm pressing into the pen. In some parts and other parts, I'm producing the pressure. This will give me Marty uniform line. So in some parts around the teeth here. And let's erase this one. You can do this effect by mouth, I guess, by creating a line and then erasing some parts for our from it. So I'm doing the same effect here. And let's make this line continuing. And here. Around the eyes. I want, I want it to look like that. The main source of light, which is their teeth or the eyes, is diffusing sunlight through the skin. The elephant, like so. And here. Very good. This part, of course. This one. Yes, this looks very good. Well, it's trace the end unconformities on the skin. Like so. This is something very artistic. So it's up to you. However you like it, you can make another virgin. And show us in the comments section. This is very good. Here, of course, in the the sports. Because this is a focal point, the trunk is a focal point. So we need to edit this part also here. And here also. This process, somehow consuming time. But it's also in, I'm also enjoying doing this. This is fun doing, of course. So I guess now we're good. The next thing, I'm going to duplicate this solid color layer and erase everything on it. And let's change the color to a darker color and press Okay. And with the soft round brush, I can draw the light that reflected light. So these were the main source of light, the teeth and the eyes. And then we need to have some reflected light into the skin. So I'm going to bring the flow down and then I will draw some lights. It should be some way subtle, like so here in this part. And around the main source flight here, here and there. And let's erase it from here. But some lights here around the eye and also around the skin. This part. And around the sports. Of course, it's decreased a little bit. And let's draw the lights this part, around this part also. And here of course, here the lead should be this should be a glow of the main light sources. So it should be around any light source. Also, make this reflected light around the teeth. And do the other one. So this looks cool, glowy. And I guess we can make a new layer of highlights by duplicating the solid color adjustment layer, this layer up the cutting it. And then from the properties panel, we will increase the feather. As you can see now, I'm now creating a glow effect from the main source of light, which was the eyes and the teeth, and also these lights in the skin. I guess this is better. So I guess we need to change some stuff in the blend. If sliders in this layer, I'll double-click into the layer. And from the underlying layer, this one slider, I will split it. And I'm now trying to execute this effect from the dark parts of the elephant. So this is good, I guess. Then press Okay. Now I will complete drawing the reflected light. This light will be reflected from the main source, so the left teeth will drop some lights into the trunk. Here. Let's erase it from this and let's draw some lights here and around the edges and in the ears. So now let's increase the saturation of the colors. I guess this should be better. Then press Okay. I will increase or draw some lights. Here. Slides are from the eyes. So the main source of this slide is the I and its reflect into the ears is something very artistic and it's not hyper-realistic. So now we shouldn't be worried about having the most realistic light rendering. We're just making something that looks good and at the same time make sense. And the edges. So this is good. And add some more intense highlights in some parts like here. And I guess we can choose the Howard rounded brush and decrease the flow. This gives me some texture. This gives a good texture into the light. Let's draw it here. It should be much more intense here, this part, and then erase it here, follow the form of the shape. So I'm now following the form or the shape of the vase part of the elephant. And then erase some parts to blend it better. This looks cool here in the trunk, of course. This should be better here also. I guess we need to make it bigger. In the legs and in the ears. Of course. Sharp highlights are always good locking. So I'm trying to add this sharp highlights by drawing with sharp brush and then erase some edges. This gives me a very good texture. Let's draw it into the other ear. Like so. This part. And in the legs of course, that's making the brush bigger. Andro here. That's what all what I'm doing here. Drawing some parts and erase some other ports. You need to practice. You need to practice how to distribute light in shapes. And you need to start with some simple shapes, like distributing the light into a sphere, into a box. And little by little, Adding more complex shapes like organic shapes like this elephant. And time. By time, you will master this skill. And it will help you a lot in your photo manipulations or digital art in general. So I guess this is good. So now what we're going to do is to reflect some of these slides into grass. Um, I will duplicate this layer and remove everything from it. And then choose the soft rounded brush, changing its shape and make it bigger. And let's draw some light into the grass. Of course it will not be so intense. But we will, we will remove and erase some parts later. And let's add it here. And then let's double-click into the layer and remove some reports from the dark areas by using blend if sliders and then press Okay. And let's erase some parts from the edges. Like so. Because we want it to blend nicely and to look good. So next, I'm going to duplicate this layer because we need to have some lights into the guy. So I'll duplicate it to remove everything from it and press Control. I guess you already know the process and then make the brush smaller. And Let's draw some lights here and here and the shoulders. These slides should look very subtle. And it of course, separate the guy from the elephant because it makes some, somehow some depth. So this, this lead our eye to the guy of course. So that's good for the guy and the elephant. So now we're going to add other elements into our photo manipulation. 10. 9 Blending the palm tree: So I'm going to bring this image of the palm tree. And now we need to separate this palm tree from the background. So I guess we can do this by the object selection tool. I will roughly select the palm and rocks part and create a mask and then we can refine the edges. We will do this from the properties panel from here and press Select and Mask. And now from the Refine Edge tool from the above, I can refine the edge and remove these parts. That's I don't want. Here. We can also use channels to separate this. But I guess the Select and Mask option gives me a very decent result. So I will refine this edge here. Just removing the white parts from the palm tree. This part here also, and also this part here. And here. In this part. I'll do this for all the parts, so I'm going to speed the process. Okay, Now we're good to go. I guess also we need to remove some parts, but let's firstly drag it and drop it into our composite here. And now press Control T to make it a bit smaller and put it into the right possession. So now I will put it into a new group, pressing Control G. And then let's erase the parts that I don't want. Buy the hard brush. Let's make the flow one-hundred percent and let's erase this part. Course. The sport. We don't, we don't want all these so I will just erase it. You can use the pen tool, but I'm now just using the brush tool to erase this section. So from here, and like this, I will enhance the intersection between the grass and these rocks later. But for now, let's erase this one. And I guess we're good to go. Okay, after selection the palm tree, we will change the colors, the saturation and the brightness values don't match the sky and the other elements into our visual. So the first thing we're going to start with hue saturation layer. I'm going to create a clipping mask. And I will decrease the saturation because it has a lot of green color. So I want to get rid of this green and I guess this is good. Next, I will use curves to adjust the lightness value. So I'm going to create clipping mask and then try to make it a lot darker. Like so. And make the dark values or the shadows a little bit also lighter. Next, I'm going to correct the colors. I'm going to make color balance adjustment layer. I guess you already understand this point. I'm just matching the lightness values, the saturation and the colors. Here, I'm changing, creating a clipping mask. And then in the mid tones, I'm adding this magenta tint and the shell. Let's start with the shadows. Adding the magenta and the blue and some red color. Let's open up the shadows alphabet. Not so much and decrease the lightness. Highlights, I guess we need to make it like this. Okay. This is cool. I guess. Maybe you need to change the saturation a little bit. Let's make it a bit higher. Cool. So let's make the whole thing a little bit lower here and good. So now we're going to create some rim lights that light reflecting from the sun. So I'm going to do this by creating a hue saturation adjustment layer and person colorize and create a clipping mask. Of course, increasing the saturation. Turning the color into orange and opening up the lightness as this color is good. And then double-click into the layer to open the blend. If slider here, I'll try to make the light as sharp as I can because I want just a subtle rim light into the palm tree. Not so much light. So I wanted to be like this and then change the blending mode into Color Dodge. I guess when we change it, we need to lower the saturation a little bit. And let's just start to paint. So I'll press Control I. And to them the mask itself press Control I. And then start to draw some rim lights. And we will change the values of lightness later if we don't like it. So let's draw it here. Don't forget to lower down the flow a little bit. And now I'm trying to draw some rim light that's reflected from the sun. Like so I guess we need to lower the saturation of the color is so vivid. Like this. No, I guess this is better. So let's make some other highlights here. Here. Here, here, and here. Here also. This is giving us some very good locking. Renoir. I guess we need to decrease the filter a little bit. And as I've already told you, the color dodge mood is one of the spatial modes in Photoshop that have a different effect between the opacity and fell. So I will hear decrease the intensity of the effect by decreasing the fell a little bit. And let's try to put some, hey, room lights here. And here. I guess we're good to go. So I'm now trying to bring this grass layer to enhance the intersection between the rock and the grass. This part. So I'll put it here and of course I will change its color and saturation and all stuff don't match colors and the visual. So I'll do this by pressing Control M to change the lightness values. Like this, make it a bit darker. And press Okay, then press Control B and the keyboard. To open the color balance adjustment, Let's change the color and to somehow magenta color and the mid tones. And we're good to go some, adding some blue also. And then press Okay. Then I can duplicate this layer by pressing Alt and dragging the layer and putting it right here. Let's select both layers and press Control E to merge them. Put it here. And let's also duplicate this layer to the edges. And let's also duplicate this whole layer and make it a little bit smaller. We're pressing Control T, make it a bit smaller. And put it here. This is very cool, I guess is the colors needs to be adjustable for bits. So in the mid tones, I will decrease the magenta bit because it's a bit too much, decrease it a little bit. And I will increase the yellow's a little bit and the reds. So I'm now tweaking the sliders so that I get the best colors that match our theme. Let's make it a little bit darker by pressing Control M. And now we're good to go. I think of course we need to erase some parts from the bottom of the graph, so we need to create a new mask. And with the software on the brush, I will just erase the bottom edges. Make sure that the brush flow is not high because we want to make very good selection. I guess this grass piece needs to be edited. It's very big, so we need to make it a little bit shorter. I am using now the warp tool. You can find it from here. And I'm pressing, I'm pressing Control and putting some points that from which I will change the shape of the grass as you can see here, I'm now trying to blend the grass together. Okay, next I'm going to duplicate the whole group of the palm tree by pressing Alt and dragging into the group. And I will make it a little bit smaller because I don't want it to be 100% identical. I want it to be somehow different from the writer. So I'm now trying to put a T here. And I guess we're good to go. Sounds perfect. 11. 10 Making the water effect: Alright, now we will start to create the water part. We will do this by firstly erasing this black strip at the bottom. I will just delete this layer and arrays the grass part from the main grass group. Let's increase the flow of the brush and let's erase this part. I want this part to be transparent. And then creating a new layer and press Alt Control Shift E. This merge all the visible layers into a new layer. And then I press Control T and right-click. Or we can just drag it from the top and put it here. Like so. And that set, as you can see, you can now find the reflection. Let's make it a little bit compressed. We can create distort to change the perspective. And pressing Alt Shift, we can distort it in perspective as you can see here. And let's put it right here. As you can see, once we have done this process, it's immediately somehow looking that it's water reflection. But we need adding some motion blur, some water reflection. So I'm going to filter, Let's firstly make it a Smart Object and then go to filter, blur and motion blur. You need to change the angle to be 90 degrees. And then let's decrease the intensity. Be like so. Then press Okay. And let's decrease the opacity. And then we can also create liquefy filter. And by using Liquify, we can make the brush smaller. And let's start to distort the shape layer so that it looks like it's water distortion. And the reflection should be, shouldn't be perfect. It should be somehow distorted because it's what is happening in nature. So we need to distort it like so here and here, make sure that you're doing It's subtle, not over. And let's, though, let's decrease the opacity. I think this is good. Now we're going to get this water reflection layer. I will just expand it and put it right here. Let's erase this white part first by just selecting it and masking it out or deleting these pixel. And then change the blending mode to screen and press on troll you first to change the colors and saturation. Then press Okay, and then press Control L to play around with the intensity and then press Okay. As you can see, I'm now creating a mask and erasing some parts from the water reflection. So erase this part. From here. We need also to create reflection for the palm tree. So I duplicated the group and press Control E to merge the layers and then press Control T flip vertical and put it right here. And then press Enter. Let's put it above everything, and let's erase these parts. And then I will create a motion blur, filter. Blur and motion blur. Then I'll press Okay. And let's put it T. I'll just take the same layer and press Alt and drag it and then flip it horizontally to match the other one. Perfect. I guess we're in a good point now, but do we need first to create a clipping mask for this layer? I guess the elephant needs some adjustment. It needs to be a little bit darker. So what I'm going to do is create a new Curves Adjustment Layer. And I'll just make the elephant darker here. I guess this is good. And then press Control I to invert the mask and try to mask some parts out. Let's create the blending mode as luminosity to only affect the lightness. And then press Control I and with the soft round brush, I will paint in the bottom parts like so. It gives it more contrast and good looking. Next, I'm going to bring this lens flare layer and make it bigger. And let's put a tier, change the blending mode to screen. It gives us another level of realism to the lights. Let's create a mask and erase some parts from here. And I guess this is good. 12. 11 Blending the butterflies: Okay, next, I will have this butterfly brush. I'll use it to create some butterflies in this part. So I will choose this color and create a new layer. And this layer, I'll just create these Potter flies. And let's erase some of them. There is a lot of them. So we need to erase some of them to make it look cooler. This one, I guess. Now I'm going to add some outer glow to the butterfly. I'm pressing double-click into the layer and press outer glow and change the color to whatever color you want. And then press Okay. Very good. Let's create the application from this layer by pressing Alt and dragging the layer and press Control T, right-click Flip Horizontal, and make it a bit bigger. Let's add a light reflections into the water. I'm going to create a solid color adjustment layer and choose this brush, change the flow tool about 9%. And now I'm trying to create some hazing light effect like so. As if these butterflies make some light reflections into the water. We can also use this border brush to create some hazing effect like this and then erase it to be subtle. With them, that sounds very cool, very cool. The last part, I will add this bird's layer. I'll make it very small and very subtle in the background. And I'll press Control M into the keyboard. And let's make it a very light should be very subtle. I guess this part needs to be blended better. So I created new layer and start to paint with, let's say, this magenta color, very dark magenta color. This will blend everything together. Make the brush a little bit bigger here and here also this part. And this is blending it in a very good way. 13. 12 Adding the final grading & tones: Okay, Now it's time to the final vignetting effect. So I'm going to create curves, adjustment layer, make everything a bit darker, and then using the brush press Control I. And then let's draw some vignetting effect. We are going to darkening the edges. This will give our main focal points more focus and it will make the visual look better. Okay, and finally, we're going to create a new layer and press Alt Control Shift E to blend all the layers into a new final layer. And I will right-click press Convert to Smart Object. And then it's time to a camera raw filter in which we're going to edit all the colors to match everything together. So I will start with editing some basic stuff, like adding some greenish tint or I guess magenta. Let's try it. Try to use these sliders and change everything until you are 100% satisfied. Guests, we need to decrease the contrast alphabet. And let's decrease the highlights because it's very high and open up the shadows and decreases the whites. Blacks, I guess we need to add some blacks texture. I guess we need to add some texture here. Lower, lower the clarity and the haze it a little bit and increase the contrast. This is depending on your taste and your opinion into other visual. The y-prime also going to increase it a little bit. I guess not so much. Then let's get two curves. In the highlights. I will increase the yellows and in the shadows, I will increase the blue. This gives me a very good looking split effect, I guess. And also in the red channel, I will add some red. And I guess we don't. Let's make it very subtle like five, like 4%. And then in the details, I will add some sharpening. And the Color Mixer, let's change. The greens and the reds course. Lose a little bit. Not so much. I'm trying to change everything to see what's It's looking better and what's not. Let's add a color grading layer. And the shadows, I will add some bluish tone or I guess reddish know, some magenta to it and make it a little bit dark. And in the highlights I will add some orangey tune and make sure that you don't overdo it. You need to make this saturation number up to ten or nine. Not, not bigger than this. Let's decrease the lightness a little bit and green. Let's add the grain effect to unify everything together and vignetting effect, of course. But make sure that you don't overdo it. And adding grain effect and the calibration, let's try to change it. I guess doesn't need so much change. So I will just keep it like so. And here you then, I guess we're good to go. We can change, get back some contrast and highlights. Why it's, you know, you do everything your eyes till you, until you are fully satisfy. Something that has no rules. You don't know what will be good in advance. You should try it. So this is a Camera Roll effect. As you can see here. This is before and after. I guess we're in a very good point. And that's it. Okay guys, thanks for watching. I hope you liked this video and most importantly, enjoyed it. See you soon in the next classes piece.