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Layering Techniques For Landscapes In Photoshop For Depth And Detail
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Focus Stacking With Photoshop For Landscape Photography
You are free to print the layers, cut them out and recreate my landscape if you wish. If you have Adobe Photo Shop, the magic wand tool will remove all the black and you can easily overlay the layers.
Now create your own landscape on five separate sheets of paper. Then click on the layers and see what happens when you stitch the image together.
When you layer, it not only creates a sense of depth to the image; This creates a sense of mystery.
If you are creating your landscape on thick paper such as cardstock or watercolor paper, you can create a three-dimensional shadow box scene. Simply glue small pieces of corrugated cardboard or foam between the layers of your image to space them out a bit.
How To Create A Surreal Upside Down Landscape With Photoshop
A helpful art teacher explains how you can use your knowledge of Foreground, Foreground, Midground, Background and Overlay to create cool works of art. With a little imagination, you can portray realism, create optical illusions or simply make people laugh.
Artist Hiroshige was a master of creating layered landscapes with a deep sense of space, with large foreground framing:
Create your own landscape using Extreme Foreground, Foreground, Midground, Background, Vision, and Sky, following the same basic composition formula as the worksheet above.
A distant foreground can completely cover or overlap part of the foreground, middle ground, background or horizon line, as in the image above. This is not why certain aspects of the landscape are not visible. Overlap, when done well, will add to the dramatic feel and three-dimensionality of your artwork. Without an overlay, landscapes often look flat and flat.
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The large tree in the foreground of the photograph above creates a portal that draws the viewer into the mysterious world of the image.
To learn how to create your own 3D shadow box that displays landscape overlay layers, click the link below:
Below is an album of my own photographs of extreme foreground landscapes. All the images are different from each other, but they all cover the same basic layers of space common to all landscapes.
Note how extreme foreground objects frame the composition, as in Hiroshige’s prints, emphasizing a sense of space (near and far) and inviting the viewer into the image’s world. In this tutorial, I’ll show you my complete workflow for editing landscape images. Please watch the video to see many steps that will be omitted in the written steps. This is my general workflow, sometimes I can use an additional tool and sometimes I can skip some of these steps. I hope you like it and find it useful.
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I used a Sony A1 with a 24-70 G prime lens (at 24mm). I shot ISO 100 (to keep noise low) at F4 to open up the iris and give a higher shutter speed. Shutter speed 1/640. I tried to use a faster shutter speed because the helicopter was moving. I shot the image in RAW as usual. Even if you don’t have a RAW file, the process is exactly the same. I’m using Photoshop 2022, but these basic steps will work for any version of Photoshop
Select File > Open. Because it is RAW, it will open in ACR, Photoshop’s RAW editor. You can right click and select open in Camera Raw to other formats like jpg, tif from Bridge.
Browse through the different profiles and see which one offers the best starting point. These profiles can significantly change the look of a photo. I go deeper in my Camera RAW course if you want to learn more.
Now is the time for major adjustments. Don’t be fooled by the base panel name. This panel is very powerful.
How To Add Depth To Photos Using Photoshop
First, I add the shadow back and highlight the details. Don’t worry if these moves seem overwhelming. Thomas Knoll (the man who created Photoshop and Camera Raw) taught me how to do this. Thomas, pushing them to their absolute limits. I don’t always move them, it depends on the image.
Let’s add some punch to the shadows and highlights by shifting the blacks and whites. This adds contrast.
Add punch and detail to the detail section with texture and a bit of blur. I rarely use Clarity because it makes the photo look fake.
Enable profile corrections to reduce lens distortion and vignetting. Here I used a Sony A1 with a 24-70G prime lens.
Landscape Post Processing Course
This opens the image as a smart object. Always use Smart Object whenever possible as it saves the image and allows you to return to Camera Raw by double-clicking the thumbnail.
The first pass is about composition and the second pass is about adding dimension and shape. (See my Dogging and Burning course here if you really want to learn this powerful technique)
Hold Alt/Option and click the Create New Layer icon. This opens up a new set of options.
Switch to Overlay blending mode and turn on Fill with Gray. (The gray fill is optional, but I get less banding than using a transparent layer).
Photoshop Landscape Focus Stacking Tutorial
Use one of these layers to Darken and the other to Lighten. I always go first. I don’t really have a reason, it’s just my way.
If you are using a pressure-sensitive tablet such as a Wacom, click on the folder with the brush,
If you don’t have a tablet, you can use a mouse, just set the basic opacity to 20-30%. Otherwise, keep it at 100%. Reduce the flow to 10%. I have a tutorial on the difference between flow and transparency.
With the gray Dodge Burn layer selected, start painting (the video above shows the brush strokes)
Photoshop Layering Tutorials: Master The Art Of Layer Management
Here I painted the clouds to make them darker. Also on the edges to draw the eye to the photo.
Select another gray layer and use a white color for the brush. I drew a lighter path in the middle of the photo to simulate sunlight.
Use a smaller black brush and start painting in the shadows to deepen them. Be sure to use the shadow (Method) layer again.
Take a white brush and paint the highlighted details, you must watch the video if not, it makes a big difference to see it in action.
Photoshop For Landscape Photographers
At this point, bring it back to Camera Raw and make some adjustments. I added some contrast and some vibrancy.
We tighten it. But instead of using an unsharp mask that works well, we’ll use a more advanced high pass.
Adjust the radius to change the amount of sharpness. Try to be subtle. No cracking, please (where the highlights turn white due to over-sharpening). I call it sizzle, and not in a good way.
There are literally hundreds of things we could do with a photo. I’ve created my main training series to cover all of this and more. If you are serious about Photoshop, please check out these 3 courses (check out the reviews, people love them and I don’t think anything compares in terms of depth and tracking.
Focus Stacking For Landscape Photography
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How to use layer blending modes in Photoshop to create amazing collages and compositions. This free Photoshop tutorial shows you how to… I love taking photos of the ocean. Every wave is different and every whitewash wave is unique. However, nature does not always provide the perfect wave. Sometimes the waves play nicely on one area of the rocks and not on others. With a little patience and persistence in this area, you can take a series of photos that can be easily combined to create the perfect seascape.
When shooting seascapes, I usually use a neutral density filter for a slower shutter speed to emphasize the emotion of the scene. This means that my camera is on a tripod, which allows you to take a series of photos to create later. Take a few photos as the waves work their way through your composition. Pay attention to the foreground and background to ensure you take enough photos to blend later. If you get that perfect wave and all the elements come together, great! And consider yourself very lucky. You can also buy a lottery ticket!
Photoshop Layer Management
I have three below
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