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Photo Manipulate the Stunning Piece ‘Reach of Hell’ in This Mega Tutorial

Learn how to create the incredible photo manipulation ‘reach of hell’, featuring a hellish flaming tree reaching up to a fallen soul. There is a ton of professional techniques in this tutorial, such as intense photo blending, warping and digital painting. Let’s jump right in!

We’ll be building up a powerful scene filled with movement and intensity, letting you create a realistic yet artistic rendition to be proud off. So lets take a peek at what it will look like and then get right on to the first stage.

What You’ll Be Creating

Take a look at what you’ll learn how to create in today’s lesson. By the end of this lesson you’ll be able to say ‘I designed that!’.

It’s not going to be quick or easy, but stick with it, and you’ll learn a whole lot and produce something you can be proud of.

1.TREE

Step 1

Ready? lets get to it; first thing we will do its use this image of what its called the bleeding dragon tree, native of the Yemen republic, and extract it so we can use it in our main image. So lets use the color range tool to select the sky and clouds as best as we can as shown here.

Step 2

Then invert the selection and copy paste it on to a new layer, and delete the background. Then create a layer mask for it.

Step 3

Now just use the mask and this kind of brush to mask off any dirt and whatever was not picked up by our color range selection.

Step 4

Great, now we are ready to create our new document as shown here and then drag in from the other the tree image.

Step 5

Once we have it on our document we can continue refining the mask getting rid of all the leafs from the original tree.

Step 6

Now to be completely sure everything its cleaned up lets first duplicate our tree layer and hide the original just in case, then make a background layer filled with a medium blue. With this it is very easy to finish refining the mask and be sure that everything its clean.

Step 7

Once we are sure our mask its clean and in place lets apply the layer mask and access the puppet warp tool and distort the tree as shown here. An we are finished setting up the tree for our image.

2.HANDS

Step 1

Next up we will be using some images of arms to build up the hand branches. So lets start with this image here, select the arm content and copy it on to a new layer in our document, then make a quick magic wand selection of the black background.

Step 2

Then apply a refine edge command with the settings shown here, and then inverse the selection.

Step 3

Once you have inverted the selection just create a mask, and touch up any details of the edge as shown here.

Step 4

Now lets use the burn tool to lighten the shadow side of the arm a bit.

Step 5

Lifting the shadow area gives a bit of grain and noise so lets just apply some noise reduction to eliminate that.

Step 6

Perfect now lets just do the same with the other two images we have available for hands.

Step 7

Now lets start personalizing each hand, starting with this one here scale it down as shown.

Step 8

We will now use the puppet warp tool to change each hand slightly to avoid the cloned look.

Step 9

Lets duplicate the first one and make one a bit different. As you can see changing the position makes each feel completely different, just don’t go crazy with the warp tool, the more you distort the more it degrades the image.

Step 10

Lets continue with the other image we have and as we did with the other arm just scale it down and rotate it into place as shown here.

Step 11

Then make duplicates and apply a bit of puppet warp to make different poses.

Step 12

Once you have a good variation lets group all these copies on to a folder.

Step 13

Duplicate the first group, drag it below the first then rotate and rearrange the hands as shown, again to avoid any repetition patterns.

Step 14

Do the same with a couple more copies of the group.

Step 15

On the first group on top lets select one of the arms and apply a drop shadow with the settings shown here. Then copy the layer style.

Step 16

Once you have copied the layer style paste it on the other layers of the first group. Then go to the second group and paste to each layer the same layer style. Be sure to disable any hand in these groups that seem too much or don’t fit; in my case I disabled the single hand images for the top groups since those don’t have an arm.

Step 17

OK perfect now lets grab all the hand groups and make yet one more group out of them called hands.

Step 18

Then simply duplicate the group, hide it for safe keeping and the duplicate, just merge the group into a layer as shown here. And that is it we have managed to make a nice group of images to combine with our tree in the next stage.

3.MERGE TREE AND HANDS

Step 1

Lets start our next section of the tutorial by applying some adjustments to our hand layer. Starting with some levels and color balance adjustment layers clipped to the hands, and adjusted as shown here.

Step 2

Then next up we will be working to merge the hands and the tree layer together, and we will do that by painting and texturing to make the hands really come out of the tree. So create a new layer on top as shown here and grab this 23px chalk brush, then make sure you enable pen pressure for it in the brush palette.

Step 3

OK so now we need to start sampling color from the tree to merge with the hands and start painting into the fingers as shown here, size of the brush can be varied as we go along.

Step 4

Then we sample darker color and continue merging in the branches and arms.

Step 5

Then we sample even darker color to match as shown here. It doesn’t matter how many times you need to sample color to be able to come up with a good transition.

Step 6

Then we do the other way around in case we need sample from the arm color and bring it down as shown here.

Step 7

Once we have a base painting going in between the tree and arms, we reduce the brush size quite a bit to start suggesting more detail in this section. The process should go in the same way all over the tree and arms as shown here.

Step 8

Once we are done painting we need to adjust our hands with some hue saturation in a new adjustment layer as shown here.

Step 9

Next up we will keep our brush small and go in closer to paint in even one more level of detail over as shown here, trying to match branches and arms.

Step 10

We do the same all over the image in other sections converting rough strokes into a more detailed branch to arm transition.

Step 3

And that is the end of this stage, we should have some nice connection between both main parts of the image; of course this process its long and time consuming, take your time to achieve the best result you can, it is worth it.

4.TEXTURING

Step 1

To add detail to our painted layer we will use some texture of trees to accomplish this. So go ahead and select from this image and copy it to a new layer on our document, and scale it down as shown here.

Step 2

Then we will also select from our own tree and copy it to yet another layer.

Step 3

Now merge those two tree bark sections on a single layer and desaturated them.

Step 4

Now both trees differ quite a bit on shading so lets select the one from our own tree and apply some levels to it so its matched with the other tree bark.

Step 5

And now select the clone tool and start cloning sections of the tree texture on top of the painted area as shown here.

Step 2

Clip this clone layer to the painted layer and set its mode to overlay with a reduced opacity as shown.

Step 2

Make a duplicate of this texture layer and bring it down over the hands layer; select the source texture of the trees and scale it down a bit more as shown; and then clone over the rest of the arms.

Step 2

Clip it to the hands layer stack and also set it to overlay with reduced opacity of about 67%.

Step 2

And as you can see this combination of textures really merges everything together making our arms and painted section feel part of the tree. And that brings us to the end of this section.

5.BACKGROUND

Step 1

It is now time to prepare a nice ambient for our scene, so lets start with this great image of a ruined church and bring it in to a new layer; then use the magic wand selection tool to mask off the white sections easily.

Step 2

And for the rest just carefully mask by hand until you extract the whole structure.

Step 3

Once you have it ready since its such a nice fit for our back, just make a selection following the structure and crop our main document to that size.

Step 4

Perfect, now lets apply some darkening to the structure by using a levels layer as shown here clipped to the church layer.

Step 5

And to better match everything we also add a new curves layer to the tree and adjust as shown here.

Step 6

And as you can see the drama its already building up.

Step 7

And now lets introduce yet another image on to our document in a new layer.

Step 8

Create a mask for it and roughly mask off what we don’t need as shown here. Then create a clipped curves layer for this section and adjust it as shown here.

Step 9

Great, now lets just flip the layer horizontally and position it as shown here.

Step 10

And we add to that with a color balance layer adjusted as shown here.

Step 11

Now we have a nice surface and back for our scene.

Step 12

Lets add even more drama by adding this sky image on the far background; scale it and position it as shown here.

Step 13

Now just mask off the top edge with a very big soft brush.

Step 14

Now to complete the sky lets make a new layer bellow the image and select the gradient tool.

Step 15

For the left color sample from the section of the image on the edge where you masked off.

Step 16

For the right color sample just choose black and drag the gradient as shown here, and we get a longer natural transition all the way to the top.

Step 17

Now that we have the pieces in place and working, lets go back to the floor layer and detail the mask as shown here.

Step 18

It is a good idea to use the blue background to detail the edge of this edge.

Step 19

Continue all over the rough edge until you detail all of it.

Step 20

Once you are finished disable the blue layer and adjust the position a bit as shown here.

Step 21

Now lets create a new layer below the tree and select a dark color from the plate.

Step 22

Now lets use the lasso tool and define a shape for the shadow as shown here, then fill the selection with the color we chose and set the layer mode to multiply.

Step 23

And to finalize this stage lets apply some Gaussian blur to the shadow and that is it for this stage.

6.FALLING GIRL

Step 1

Time to start working on the main action; open this image up and copy paste it on to a new layer, then scale it down a bit as shown here.

Step 2

Lets extract it using the color range tool trying to sample all of the gray back, and then inverse the selection.

Step 3

Once you have the selection inversed, lets create the mask and look for missing sections that will need hand masking.

Step 4

And we also need to check for sections of the mask that went inside what we want in the image as shown here.

Step 5

We might end up with black or white edges that need special attention, so once the rest its done and clean, lets apply the layer mask to treat those details separately.

Step 6

To refine the edge lets make a selection from the outside, and use the brilliant refine edge tool as shown here.

Step 7

before doing anything else check if the selection spilled inside the content and fix this with the lasso tool.

Step 8

Once its done inverse the selection and create a new layer mask.

Step 9

We can see that the white edge its now gone and the edge its nice and smooth overall. So now lets flip the layer horizontally.

Step 10

Then to start blending this to the rest of the image, lets setup a curves layer clipped to the girl layer and adjust it as shown here.

Step 11

Then add a hue saturation layer and adjust it as shown here.

Step 12

And to finish off the adjustments add a color balance layer and adjust the settings as indicated.

Step 13

Great, our subject its looking nice, now lets scale it down a bit more as shown.

Step 14

To complete the fabric on top lets use yet another image from the brilliant Marcus J. Ranum select the section shown and copy paste it on to a new layer. Then rotate it and scale it down as shown.

Step 15

We will remove the back as we did with the model layer and then we will use the warp tool to distort the image a bit; once toy are done make a duplicate of this layer.

Step 16

Mask off the top in a different way so it is different to the other section. then add a levels layer to make this section white and match the model image.

Step 17

Now that the shade and color matches the original model image, lets refine the mask to integrate it and make it softer. And we are done we successfully integrated the model into our image in terms of masking and shape.

7.FIRE

Step 1

Its time to bring up the heat on the image so lets open up this cool looking fire image, copy paste it on to a new layer; then scale it and flip it as shown here.

Step 2

Position the image as shown and set the layer mode to linear dodge.

Step 3

Then we will add a layer mask and with a soft big brush we will mask of around the fire so we only keep the main fire and get rid of any glow.

Step 3

Then we will add a layer mask and with a soft big brush we will mask of around the fire so we only keep the main fire and get rid of any glow.

Step 4

And now we will make a duplicate of that fire layer and set the mode back to normal, delete the mask and create a new empty one. Then fill the mask with black.

Step 5

Use the soft brush and white color to in this case mask in to give substance to the base of the fire as shown here.

Step 6

Now with this other fire image lets copy paste it onto our document, then as we done before set the layer mode to linear dodge and mask off as shown here.

Step 7

OK perfect now using the models layer, load a selection of it and mask off the content of the fire that goes on top of her.

Step 8

Now lets make a duplicate of this last fire layer, delete the mask and scale it down a bit into the position shown here.

Step 9

And to finalize yet another part of the tutorial, just repeat the same steps as with the other fire to add some detail and substance to the base of the fire with a duplicate of it in normal mode.

8.FIRE AMBIENT

Step 1

At this stage we will take some steps to spread the illumination coming from the fire on to our scene, yet lets first do some arranging of the layers. First grab all the girl layers, make a group from them and name the group. Then grab all the fire layers and make also a group and name it.

Step 2

Make a duplicated group of the fire and merge the group.

Step 3

Set the resulting layer to screen and apply Gaussian blur with this settings.

Step 4

With this we get an instant base glow around the fire as you can see here.

Step 5

OK great now on top of the tree stack of layers lets add a new one set in overlay and also clipped to the rest. Then sample bright yellow from the fire itself as shown.

Step 6

Now simply with a soft brush paint in some light from the fire bouncing on to the tree.

Step 7

When needed reduce the brush size and paint in some more light as shown here.

Step 8

Lets repeat the operation with the girl group adding a clipped layer to it and painting in some light influence as shown here.

Step 9

Reduce the opacity on this layer to about 77%

Step 10

Perfect!, now lets go to the background structure layer and do the same; a new clipped layer in overlay mode, and we sample color from the fire. This time a bit more orange.

Step 11

In the same way lets start painting light bouncing of the walls, taking into consideration the direction of the fire relative to that of the walls.

Step 12

With the added ambient on the walls the image its really coming alive.

Step 13

Now lets repeat the steps fro the foreground structure layer, once again adding a clipped layer on overlay and painting in some subtle light bouncing of the rocks.

Step 14

Fantastic, we are well on our way to finalize our image; at this point lets add a color fill layer on top with the deep blue shown here.

Step 15

Set the layer mode to overlay and reduced opacity of about 36%, then select a big brush as shown here.

Step 16

Then simply mask off the influence of this layer as shown here.

Step 17

To compensate lets add a color balance layer to our tree stack. And that brings us to the end of this stage in the tutorial.

9.SKIN DAMAGE AND FINAL ADJUSTMENTS

Step 1

We are at the final stage of the tutorial where we will be adding some final adjustments and details. Lets start by adding one more layer to the stack clipped to the girl layer. Set the brush size as shown here, and add a rocky texture to the brush.

Step 2

Sample dark color from the girl and start painting in some cracked damage on to the skin as shown here.

Step 3

Lets now create yet one more layer and set the mode to overlay as shown, and select this time bright orange from the fire.

Step 4

Now just paint alongside the cracked detail as shown.

Step 5

OK perfect, now lets choose this brush here and create a new layer as shown.

Step 6

This brush its great for painting in small bits coming of the fire and girl; so start painting that and then sample some darker orange to add on to the lighter pieces.

Step 7

Once finished it might be too much so just mask off a bit of it randomly as shown.

Step 8

It is looking very close to final at this point, yet lets create a new color balance layer for the girl stack, and adjust it as shown.

Step 9

Then grab the soft brush again and mask off the reddish influence of this last layer from the inner sections of the model body.

Step 10

And now to finalize lets just add a levels layer to the sky and apply the settings shown here. This brings us to the end of the tutorial.

Congratulations, You’re All Done!

Awesome job making it this far! You should be proud of what you’ve created. Show it off to your friends and colleagues and get some feedback.

You can also comment here with your version, or any questions you had about the techniques used. We love to see what you guys create and we’re always here to give helpful feedback and tips to help you to improve.

Download the Source Files for This Tutorial

Download the original .psd file and accompanying resources you need to complete this tutorial:

DOWNLOAD .PSD FILE