Underground cavern/pool

[Ascension]

Steps look good but there is a line across the top. To fix that merge the layer to an empty layer beneath then erase the line. The water color looks a bit off unless it's magic water. Try something darker, bluer, and grayer. On the color picker move the slider up away from the green/aqua towards the blue then come across and move the little circle thingy towards the left where the grays are...put it somewhere in the middle or left of middle. Moving that lil circle up will make things lighter, down is darker. Lastly, depending on depth of the water the underlying texture can be seen - if the pool is deep then it won't be seen but if it is shallow then it will be seen - but murkiness also plays a part there. Murkiness makes the water gray or brown as well. Magic water can be any color you want.

~Double live and superfly

[bmmurphy]

Thanks for the advice, I've attached an updated shot.

The water is supposed to be around 20 feet deep, so I upped the color overlay's opacity a bit as well as changing the color. I also added a pair of "murky" layers above the water and below the island, using your "clouds -> color range -> delete" technique (though I kept the black, deleted the white) to get some good swirling eddies, then set the blend modes of one to soft light and the other to hard light.

As far as the line you refer to with the steps, I just wanted to be clear on what you meant. Did you mean the dark brown edging at the very top, or the black stroke of the first step?

[bmmurphy]

Of course, how much better would it be if I actually attached the shot? Sorry about that.