Quote Originally Posted by jfrazierjr View Post
If you have the time to commit and want some distinct mountains symbolic mountains that don't look cut out, take a look at the end of this thread. You might also want to take a look at Pasis's tutorial here as there are some really nice mountains done in PS.

Indeed they are - a very artistic and effective approach.

One of the goals of this project is to try to limit myself to using flat wood-grain textures as much as possible - so that exact technique should not, ideally, use smudging, dodging, burning, or similar tools

I did try a refined version of a mountain range similar to V1, but much less "cut and paste" CC-ish. It's hard to describe but the basic idea is to imply atmospheric recession using different levels of transparency. In other words, the closer the mountains are (more southern here) the darker they are. Further away, the get more transparent = less distinct from everything else. If I get a chance this weekend I'll post a sample.