Island Nation - Khemli

[palehorse]

The mountains always feel a bit glossy and it's hard to change. It's one of my biggest qualms with this style. I duplicated the mountain layer, took away the bevels, and then peppered it. I put it over the mountain layer with about 25% opaquity. I'm wondering if that just made them seem blurry rather than getting rid of the gloss.

You might try this:

Ctrl-Click on the mountain layer thumbnail to select just the mountains.

Create a new layer, and in the new layer fill the selection with a neutral brown. With the selection still active, Add Noise to this layer (just a bit; around 5-10% should be plenty). Depending on the resolution of your original image,you might need to add about a half-pixel Gaussian Blur to soften it up a bit, too. Change the Blend Mode of the layer to Multiply, and adjust the Opacity down a bit if need be. (You could do with a solid color, instead of adding Noise, but IMO that'd probably end up looking too flat.)

Not sure if I can do 2 attachments on one post, so I'll put the After up in a sec; this is just a quick example of what I'm talking about.