Create a Fantasy Photo Manipulation “Walking Away” in Photoshop

In this Photoshop tutorial I’ll show you how to create a fantasy photo manipulation named ‘Walking Away’ in Photoshop. We’ll learn how to create a fantasy and colorful scene using a range of photo manipulation techniques. You’ll also learn about color matching techniques, blending and making the scene relaxing and vibrant. A tea of coffee and some snacks would be great for company.

Tutorial Resources

• Sky
• Bridge
• Bird
• Model
• Tree
• Leafs

Preparing Fantasy Background

Step 1

Start by creating a new document with height 900px and width 1500px.

Step 2

Place the sky image to our main document and place it by clicking File > Place Embedded.

Step 3

The colors in sky are great and perfectly suitable for any dreamy, fantasy photo manipulation. The benefit of this kind of colors in any photo, gives you complete freedom to convert the colors into those which you want. Make a Curves adjustment layer and use the Green Channel to add Green colors to it. You can add an adjustment layer by clicking on third icon at the bottom of layer panel.

Results:

Adding Bridge

Step 4

Place the bridge image to main document as shown below.

Step 5

Activate the Quick Selection Tool (W) and make the selection of sky.

While the selection is active, click on add Layer Mask
icon at the bottom of panel to extract the sky parts of bridge.

Step 6

Now we’ll match the colors and brightness of bridge with the sky.
First, add a Curves adjustment layer to bridge and increase the brightness. Remember to set this layer as Clipping Mask.

Also, use the Red and Blue channel to add some colors to it.

Results:

Step 7

Add Color Balance adjustment layer to bridge and continue coloring it. Only change the value of Midtones and Highlights.

Reduce the opacity of Color Balance to 80%.

Step 8

Make a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer. Please note that I am not using this adjustment layer as clipping mask because I want this adjustment to affect the sky as well.
Use it with following settings and reduce the brightness of the whole scene.

Results:

Adding the bird

Step 9

Extract the bird from its background and place it as shown below.

Step 10

Use Curves adjustment layer to darken the bird.

Step 11

On the layer mask of Curves, hide the effect using soft round black brush to keep the lights on the bird front parts.

Results:

Step 12

Use a Color Balance adjustment to match its colors with the background. Only change the value of Midtones.

Results so far:

Adding Model

Step 13

Isolate the model from its background and place her on the bridge.

Step 14

The model looks like floating in the air due to lack of shadows. Create a new layer under the model and use a soft round black brush to paint some shadow under the model shoes.

Create a new layer and this time paint cast shadows as indicated below. These are the cast shadows, casted by the model body.

Step 15

It’s time to adjust the model. First, use a Curves adjustment layer to darken the model as it looks too bright.

Results:

Step 16

On the layer mask of Curves, hide the effect on model parts highlighted in red color. Also, I am aiming to create light source on the middle of the scene and model front parts should have lights.

Results:

Step 17

Use a Photo Filter adjustment layer to add magenta colors tones to model. Use the color #b400ff with Density of 48%.

Results:

Step 18

Continue coloring her using Color Balance adjustment layer. For highlights set Red-Cyan to -9, Magenta-Green to -16 and Yellow-Blue to +31.

Results:

Step 19

Create a new layer and name it ‘Light’. Set your foreground color to #694d1f. Acviate the Brush Tool (B). Now use a soft round brush to create light as shown below.

Change the blend mode of this layer to Color Dodge. Results with glowing light effects :

Step 20

Duplicate the light layer but this time reduce its opacity to 50%. This will also stronger the effect of lights.

Step 21

Extract the tree from its background and place it as shown below. If you are facing any problem regarding the extraction of tree then please read our complex selection tutorial. I devoted a full tutorial on that and this will surely help you. Read it here Top 3 Selection Techniques in Photoshop.

Duplicate tree layer and move it to the top little bit. Select all the tree layer and put them inside the group. To group tree layers, select them and then press CTRL + G to group them. Now change this group blend mode to Normal.

Step 22

Add a Curves adjustment layer to tree (inside the group of trees) and reduce its brightness.

On the layer mask of Curves, hide the effect of Curves to keep the light reflecting on tree.

Results:

Step 23

Use the Color Balance adjustment layer to tree and add some colors to it.

Results:

Adding Leaves

Step 24

Add the leaves to the main document and arrange them in a way so it looks like they are falling from the tree. Feel free to arrange them in your way. Place all the leave layer under the model.

Step 25

Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set the Radius value to 2.5px to add some depth to scene. Always apply the
Filter using Smart Objects.

Now go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. Set the Angle to -63 degree and Distance to 8 pixels. This will add movement to falling leaves.

Results:

Step 26

Make a Curves adjustment layer to leaves and darken them.

Results:

Step 27

On the layer mask of Curves, hide the effect on those areas of leaves in which you think that they will be illuminated by the light.

Final Adjustments

Step 28

Make Photo Filter adjustment layer (above all layers) to add warm colors tones to scene.

Results:

Step 29

Use the Color Balance adjustment layer to add some more colors to scene. While using this adjustment layer keep the valentine’s day theme in your mind.

Results:

Step 30

Make a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer to reduce the brightness of whole scene.

Hide the effect of Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer on the selected parts as shown below.

Final Results:

Conclusion

Thanks for following the tutorial. I hope you enjoyed it. Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you. If need any help then just let me know. Have a great day!