In this photoshop tutorial, we are going to create a photo manipulation based on ‘The Frog Prince’ fairy tale concept. This tutorial is for users who know Photoshop basics and who able to work with the medium difficulty level tutorials. It doesn’t contain very detailed explanation for actions such as “how to create adjustment layer”, “how to separate elements from background”.

Final Image:

Resources:

Step-1

Create a new document with 3000x2000px size, resolution 100 px/cm.

Import sky image into the scene.

Step-2

Decrease saturation (color) and brightness with adjustment layers ‘Hue/Saturation’ and ‘Curves’ respectively.

Step-3

We need light rays to come through the clouds.

In order to achieve this effect, we are going to add some bright spots in the sky.

Create new layer above all, fill it with gray color(#7e7e7e) and set blending mode to ‘Overlay’.

Using Dodge Tool (O), paint wherever you want bright spots.

Step-4

Duplicate the sky image(without any effects ), flip it vertical , mask unwanted areas like this.

This image works as lake with sky reflection.

Step-5

Apply following adjustment layers (‘Hue/Saturation’ and ‘Curves’) with following properties.

Palace Settings

Step-6

Import palace image and position it like this. (mask unwanted areas)

Step-7

Reflection of the Palace:

Duplicate the palace image and flip it vertical, place it just below the original image and decrease its layer opacity to 30%.

brightness adjustments with following settings.

Step-8

Lets add some adjustments layers to the Palace with following settings.

Step-9

In the ‘Curves’ Ajustment layer mask, unmask the following area to get lighting effect from the sky.

Step-10

In a new layer, add shadows to the palace in respect to the lighting from the sky, using black soft brush with opacity 20%.

Step-11

Highlight the left side and darken the right side of the palace:

Create a new layer just above the palace, fill it with gray color (#7e7e7e), set blend mode to ‘overlay’ and using Dodge Tool (O) and Burn Tool(O)

Step-12

Add lights to the palace:

Using square brush with orange color(#ffb922), layer effects ‘Outer Glow’ add lights to the palace.

Working with model:

Land settings:

Step-13

Import land image and mask unwanted areas like this.

Step-14

Add color and brightness adjustment layers with following settings.

Step-15

The land reflection:

Duplicate the land image, flip it vertically and decrease opacity a little bit.

Step-16

Using soft black brush with opacity 20%, brush shadows in the following way.

Working with Model:

Step-17

Import the model and mask unwanted areas.

Step-18

Change the color of the dress to blue:

Add ‘Color Balance’ adjustment layer with following settings.

Step-19

Change intensity of the model color and saturation with following settings.

In the ‘Curves ‘ adjustment layer’s mask , unmask the edges of the model to give lighting effect.

Step-20

Add Hair:

Using soft brush with size 4px, pick color from random places in the hair and draw hair like this.

Step-21

Adding highlights:

Make selection of the model, create a new layer above the model layer and fill it with gray color(#7e7e7e), set blend mode to ‘Overlay’.

Using Dodge tool(O), highlight the following areas.

Step-22

Add shadow to the model:

Create a new layer above the model, using soft black brush add shadows like this.

Working With Frog:

In this section, we follow the same procedure as we have done with the model.

Step-23

Mask out the lotus leaf and position it like this.

Add ‘Hue/Saturation’ and ‘Curves’ adjustment layers with following settings.

Step-24

Add shadow:

Using soft black brush with opacity 20%, add shadows in a new layer just below the lotus leaf layer.

Step-25

Add frog:

Similarly, add frog to the scene, with following settings. (‘Hue/Satuation’ and ‘Curves’)

Step-26

In the ‘Curves’ adjustment layer’s mask, unmask following areas of the frog to get lighting effect.

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Step-27

Add shadows to the frog and leaf.

Using a soft black brush with opacity 20%, paint shadows to the frog and the leaf.

Add Lotus Flowers to the Scene:

Step-28

Copy multiple lotus flowers and place them like this.

Step-29

In a new layer just below the lotus flowers , using soft white brush with opacity 25%, paint fog and smear them using ‘Smudge Tool’

In the same way, fill rest of the scene with fog.

Step-30

Just above the lotus flowers, create a new layer and paint fog over the lotus flowers.

Add light rays:

Step-31

Create new layer just above the sky and lake layers.

With white soft brush with opacity 20%, draw straight lines from the brightest parts of the sky to the lake like this.

Step-32

Just like in “Step-3” , add bright spots where light rays are hitting the lake.

Step-33

Similarly, add new layer above all.

Add light rays and bright spots (lighting over the frog and lotus flowers ) like this.

Step-34

Above all layers, add ‘Hue/Saturation’, ‘Curves’ and ‘Photo Filter’ adjustment layers with following properties to achieve this magnificent effect.

Step-35

Finally, add bokeh effect using soft brush and bokeh brush with pink color(#d886ff) and opacity 30-40%.

Final Image: