WIP - Ascension's Photoshop Town Tutorial Follow-Along

[phatticus]

19. Click on the Hills layer (in the layer stack). Click, hold, and drag this layer up to the top of the layer stack. Repeat for the Mountains layer. Set the blend mode of the Hills and Mountains layer to Overlay with a 50% opacity.

[phatticus]

20. Duplicate the Background layer and move it to the top of the layer stack. Rename this layer to “Bumps”.
21. Select > Color Range = use white with a fuzziness of 200. NOTE: Photoshop Elements does not have this function so skip this step. Select > Inverse. Hit the delete key then deselect. Set the fill of the layer to zero and then add a layer style of Bevel and Emboss. Style will be Emboss, Technique is Smooth, Depth is 50%, Direction is up, Size is 250, Angle is -45, Altitude is 30, Highlight Mode is white at Color Dodge and 75% opacity, Shadow Mode is black at Multiply and 75% opacity. On this layer you can use the airbrush and add in more hills or erase hills if you want.
22. Our base terrain is done and you should have 8 layers: Background, Background copy, Land color, Adjust1, Adjust2, Hills, Mountains, and Bumps.

Attachment 25668

[phatticus]

23. RIVER
24. These steps are optional but I figure that I'd better cover it.
25. Click on the Pencil Tool. If you only see the Brush Tool then right click on that and change it to the pencil. You can choose any size tip that you want, I went with the Hard Round 19 pixels. We have to do one minor edit to our tip so at the top of the screen click on Window > Brushes. This brings up the Brush Editor window. On this window click on the words that say “Brush Tip Shape”. At the bottom of this screen find the word that says “Spacing” and set this to 1%
26. Create a new layer and rename it to “River base”.
27. Using white, draw in some squiggly lines to define the edge of the river and make sure that they reach all the way to the edge. Grab the Paint Bucket Tool. If you only see the Gradient Tool then right click on that and change it. Fill in the space between your lines.

[phatticus]

28. Duplicate this layer (it becomes River base copy) and then hide the River base layer. The reason that we make duplicates is that if we mess up or don't like something then we can go back and start over. Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur = 25.
29. This layer will have 4 layer styles but first set the fill of the layer to zero (on the layer stack). First there is a Pattern overlay. Find a good, realistic-looking water pattern on the web. I got mine at the Dunjinni.com user forums and it is called RealWater1bLg_dgw.png (don't worry I have included it in the zip file that accompanies this tut). I set the mode to Screen and the scale to 25%. Next we add a Color Overlay of something teal, hex code 4B7D7D (RGB 75, 125, 125). The mode is normal and the opacity is 90%. I want the middle of the river to be deeper, and therefore darker, so add an Inner Glow. I use a medium gray, hex code 606060 (RGB 96, 96, 96). The mode is Multiply, the size is 100, and poke the button for Center instead of the default Edge. Lastly, we start adding in some wet sand with an Inner Shadow so I went with a sand color, hex code E9E2B4 (RGB 233, 226, 180). The mode is Color, the angle is -45, distance is 0, choke is 33, size is 76. When we do the next layer, most of this will barely be noticeable.

[phatticus]

30. Duplicate this layer (it becomes River base copy 2). On the layer stack, right click on this layer and choose “Clear layer style”. This layer will have 2 layer styles. First, we put down some good looking mud as a Pattern overlay. I used something called mud_grass found here: http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourk...ud/index2.html I then reduce the scale to 75%. Next, I want my mud to be wet so it needs to be darkened with a Color overlay of something...I went with a medium gray, hex code 84817B (RGB 132, 129, 123). I set the mode to Multiply.

[phatticus]

31. Duplicate this layer (it becomes River base copy 3). On the layer stack, right click on this layer and choose Clear Layer Style. Ctrl+click on the River base layer to load it as a selection. Select > Modify > Contract = 50. Select > Feather = 50. Select > Inverse. Hit the delete key then deselect. What this does is cut our river away from the edge because we want our edges to be shallow (and therefore we can see some of that yummy mud). Lastly, set the fill of this layer to zero (on the layer stack).
32. This layer gets 3 layer styles. First, we put in a Color overlay of a medium gray with a hint of blue, hex code 505A64 (RGB 80, 90, 100). Set the opacity at 90%. Second, we add an Inner glow of a medium gray, hex code 606060 (RGB 96, 96, 96). Set the mode to overlay, opacity at 50%, and size is 100. The reason that our gray is not 50% gray is because in overlay mode it is invisible; so by setting it to be darker than 50% gray the overlay acts to darken things up. Lastly, we add an Outer glow to enhance our sandy river bank. I went with a sand color, hex code E9E2B4 (RGB 233, 226, 180). Mode is soft light, opacity is 100%, and size is 100. This might not look like much but just wait to see what happens after the next few steps. You will notice that I went and smoothed my bumps with a big airbrush.

I played around with the Contract and Feather sizes. 50px was too much for my narrow river, and I ended up with 30px.

[phatticus]

33. Let's add some eye candy and put in that sandy river bank. Create a new layer, rename it to “Sand1”, and fill it with black. Ctrl+click on the River base layer. Select > Modify > Expand = 100. Create a new layer and then fill it with white then deselect. Merge down (ctrl+e). Filter > Pixelate > Crystallize = 12. Filter > Pixelate > Crystallize = 6. Filter > Pixelate > Crystallize = 3.
34. At the top of the screen click on Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast. Move the slider for contrast all the way up to 100. Filter > Brush Strokes > Spatter = use the default settings. Select > Color range = black with a fuzziness of 200. Hit the delete key and deselect. Move this layer underneath the River base copy layer.

[phatticus]

35. This layer will have 5 layer styles. First we put down a pattern, I like that mud grass so let's use that again...and again set the scale at 75%. Since this doesn't look like sand we need some color so add a color overlay of something yellow, I went with hex code F0DC82 (RGB 240, 220, 130). I set the mode at Linear dodge and the opacity at 33%. I want this river to look more like a stream than a full-blown river and so it will have banks rather than just being kind of flat so let's add a Bevel and Emboss. Inner bevel, chisel soft, depth is 50%, direction is down, size is 100, angle is -45, altitude is 30, highlight mode and shadow mode are both the same color of brown, hex code 5A461E (RGB 90, 70, 30), highlight mode is at screen and shadow mode is at multiply and both are at 100%. We add a contour as well; on that window you will see an image that looks like a square with part of it white and part of it gray with a little triangle next to it...click on that triangle and a screen will pop up so scroll down and choose the Half Round. Next, we add an Inner glow to enhance the shadow effect. I went with the same brown as in the bevel, hex code 5A461E (RGB 90, 70, 30). Mode is normal, size is 150, range is 40, and the contour is the half round. Lastly, we add an outer glow of something tan, hex code 8C8250 (RGB 140, 130, 80). Mode is normal, opacity is 50%, and size is 250.

[phatticus]

35. This layer will have 5 layer styles. First we put down a pattern, I like that mud grass so let's use that again...and again set the scale at 75%. Since this doesn't look like sand we need some color so add a color overlay of something yellow, I went with hex code F0DC82 (RGB 240, 220, 130). I set the mode at Linear dodge and the opacity at 33%. I want this river to look more like a stream than a full-blown river and so it will have banks rather than just being kind of flat so let's add a Bevel and Emboss. Inner bevel, chisel soft, depth is 50%, direction is down, size is 100, angle is -45, altitude is 30, highlight mode and shadow mode are both the same color of brown, hex code 5A461E (RGB 90, 70, 30), highlight mode is at screen and shadow mode is at multiply and both are at 100%. We add a contour as well; on that window you will see an image that looks like a square with part of it white and part of it gray with a little triangle next to it...click on that triangle and a screen will pop up so scroll down and choose the Half Round. Next, we add an Inner glow to enhance the shadow effect. I went with the same brown as in the bevel, hex code 5A461E (RGB 90, 70, 30). Mode is normal, size is 150, range is 40, and the contour is the half round. Lastly, we add an outer glow of something tan, hex code 8C8250 (RGB 140, 130, 80). Mode is normal, opacity is 50%, and size is 250.

[phatticus]

36. Now that looks much better. The screen edges kind of mess up the bevel so grab the Eraser tool. At the top of the screen make sure that you are in brush mode, set the flow to 5%, and pick the airbrush soft round 300 tip. At the screen edges do some light erasing to get the bevel back under control...this will take a certain kind of touch so you will need to play with it and undo thins until you get it right.