Learn how to create fairy tale style landscape with Christmas tree, Crescent Moon, surrealistic snow fountain and different winter elements such as Christmas lights, icicles, stars and snow textures. You may get large (2600 x 2900 px, 300px/in) editable .psd* file of "Christmas Wonderland." Photoshop tutorial by making a payment. Put the tutorial title in "Add special instructions to seller" line of PayPal and it will be sent to you shortly.

 

Click to enlarge the image.

Christmas Wonderland.Learn how to create magic photo manipulation with big curly mountain top using Content-Aware fill option and digital painting techniques.

 

  • In this Photoshop tutorial you may find useful tips and files materials which can help you to create landscape without digital painting skills. This tutorial is written for users who know basic Photoshop tools and settings. It doesn't contain very detailed description for actions such as "how to create adjustment layer", "how to separate elements from background" and some others, because of big amount of steps. You may use tutorial materials to create your own artwork with different story.
  • Here is the announcing animation with the all stages described in the tutorial:

  • Create a new Photoshop document 2600 x 2900 px and resolution 72 pixels/in.
  • Apply radial gradient layer style effect to the first (background) layer. Unlock this layer first.

  • Insert the sky image above the gradient background.

  • Apply Warp transformation to the sky image. Edit > Transform > Wrap. You may choose preset "Arch"from the transformation presets (marked on screen shot), then correct the shape in "Custom" mode by adjusting the handles.

  • Add custom "Gradient Map" adjustment layer to the sky. You may find all adjustment layers in the bottom part of layers palette . Right click the adjustment layer and choose "Create Clipping Mask" to apply changes only to the Sky layer.
  • Add Layer Mask to the Sky layer and fill bottom part with the black and white gradient to make smooth transition from the sky to background layer.

Christmas Wonderland. Fairy night with the crescent above the clouds. Moon or crescent 3D model

  • For the Gradient Map layer use colors similar to the gradient background.

  • Insert Stars texture above the sky.

Christmas Wonderland. Fairy night with the crescent above the clouds. Moon or crescent 3D model

  • Apply Screen Blending Mode to the stars layer.

Christmas Wonderland. Fairy night with the crescent above the clouds. Moon or crescent 3D model

  • Insert Crescent image above the stars layer.

Christmas Wonderland. Fairy night with the crescent above the clouds. Moon or crescent 3D model

  • Make Crescent layer invisible for a moment. Then select all document (Select > All) and copy selected area (Edit > Copy Special > Copy Merged).
  • Paste merged layer above the Crescent. We are doing this to apply background colors to the Crescent image.

Christmas Wonderland. Fairy night with the crescent above the clouds. Moon or crescent 3D model

  • Make Crescent layer visible again.
  • Make clipping mask from the merged background for the Crescent layer, apply Color Blending Mode to it and Opacity 70%.

Christmas Wonderland. Fairy night with the crescent above the clouds. Moon or crescent 3D model

  • Insert "Snow wall" image, erase background area above the snow peaks. You may use simple Eraser Tool or select area above the peaks with any convenient for you selection tool and delete it.

Christmas Wonderland. Fairy night with the crescent above the clouds. Moon or crescent 3D model

  • Create a new layer and draw higher peaks by using simple solid Brush Tool. Also you can create selection by using Polygonal Lasso Tool and fill selected area with solid color. These elements shouldn't have perfect shape and smooth edges.

Christmas Wonderland. Fairy night with the crescent above the clouds. Moon or crescent 3D model

  • Load selection (ctrl+click layer thumbnail) for the created peaks shape, then add a new empty layer.
  • Take darker blue Brush Tool again and create shadow shapes inside the selection. Just add ragged silhouette to the edges of the cliffs.

Christmas Wonderland. Fairy night with the crescent above the clouds. Moon or crescent 3D model

  • Create a new layer above all created layers. We will use it to make snow texture for the new cliffs shapes.
  • Insert original snow wall image into this layer, select the original shape of this layer, then inverse selection (Select >Inverse) and fill whole empty area with the Content-Aware (Edit > Fill > Content-Aware). You should have the image covered with snow texture.
  • Then load selection for created cliffs shapes. (Ctrl+Click cliffs layer).

Christmas Wonderland. Fairy night with the crescent above the clouds. Moon or crescent 3D model

  • Add Layer Mask to the snow texture layer.
  • Erase top central part of the original snow wall layer which is located below the cliffs.

Christmas Wonderland. Fairy night with the crescent above the clouds. Moon or crescent 3D model

  • There are two ways to add shadows to the cliffs area. You may jus put the shadow layer created previously above the snow cliffs shapes, change Blending Mode for this layer to Multiply and Opacity 30-40%. The shadow layer should have blue/dirty blue color.
  • Another method, you may load selection for the shadow layer created previously and correct levels for the selected area on the cliffs. Keep selection, make snow cliffs layer active, go to Image > Adjustments > Levels. Move center(gray) and left(black) markers to the right a little bit.

Christmas Wonderland. Fairy night with the crescent above the clouds. Moon or crescent 3D model

  • Insert fountain image.

Christmas Wonderland. Fairy night with the crescent above the clouds. Moon or crescent 3D model

  • Apply Black and white adjustment to this image. Image > Adjustments > Black and White.
  • Surface Blur filter. Filter > Blur > Surface Blur.
  • Paint Daubs filter. Filter > Filter Gallery

Christmas Wonderland. Fairy night with the crescent above the clouds. Moon or crescent 3D model

  • Use these setting for image adjustments:

Christmas Wonderland. Fairy night with the crescent above the clouds. Moon or crescent 3D model

  • Add Layer Mask to the Fountain layer. Erase some parts of the image to make transition between snow background and stone wall. You may use smooth ragged brush from the Photoshop preset Assorted brushes (Texture 3, Texture 6 ).

  • You may see erased areas on the image below, it's marked with the red shade.

  • Let's add snow texture to the stone fountain. We need to add several adjustments layers and clipping masks.
  • First of all, go to the channels palette.
  • Duplicate "Red Channel", change the levels adjustments for the duplicated channel. Make it much more contrast. You may find Levels settings on the image below. Return to the regular RGB channel, we will use duplicated red channel little later.

  • Download texture file and put it above the fountain image as Clipping Mask. All Clipping Masks layers have small arrow on the left side of thumbnail.

  • Load selection for the duplicated channel. Ctrl + click channel thumbnail. Inverse selection (Select > Inverse).
  • Return to regular RGB channel (but keep selection), then return to layers palette.

  • Add Layer Mask to the texture layer.
  • Choose "Darken" Blending Mode and adjust Opacity 50%. We used these manipulations with channels and Layer Mask to apply texture mostly to the darken/shaded areas of the fountain part. The couple steps later we will add another texture to the light areas of the image. The usage of different intensity of textures for dark and light areas may help to create more realistic effect.

  • Add "Gradient Map" adjustment layer (make it clipping mask as well).

  • Next step is not necessary but if you would like to add more sharpness to the snow texture, you may load selection for the whole image (Select > All), then copy selected area as a merged object (Edit > Copy Special > Copy Merged).
  • Paste it above the Gradient Map Layer, go to Filter > Other > High Pass.

  • Apply Overlay Blending Mode and Opacity 80% to this layer.

  • Insert another texture. Apply Screen Blending Mode to it, also Opacity 80%.

  • You may see white texture covers some shaded/deep areas of the fountain. It looks flat and unrealistic.
  • In order to fix it, go to channels palette and load selection for the copied red channel again. Return to the texture layer and apply Layer Mask. This time do not inverse selection. The dark/shaded areas of texture will be masked.

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