This tutorial will provide you with a fanatasy environment where the clouds are so obscure that they are without a doubt NOT from this world. The technique is great for science fiction style artowrk. Follow the tutorial below to learn how to do it:

1. Open up an image of a landscape in Photoshop, preferablly one where there is a horizon of clouds.

2. Be sure that this landscape image is on a new layer and name it “Landscape”.

3. Create another layer named “Crazy Clouds” just below the “Landsape” layer. Leave it blank. You will be adding content to this white, blank layer later in this tutorial.

4. Click the “Eye” icon next to the “Landscape” layer, so that it is no longer visible on your canvas.

5. Click on the “Crazy Clouds” layer so that it is active.

6. Make sure the foreground color is a “Dark Red” and the background color is “Black”.

7. Use the paint bucket to completely fill in the “Crazy Clouds” layer.

8. With the “Crazy Clouds” layer still selected, goto Filter > Reverse > Clouds.

9. The result should be a black and white cloud mixture. To enhance the cloud effect, goto Filter > Reverse > Difference Clouds.

10. Still, the clouds need some additional adjustments. So goto Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast and djust the sliders so that the clouds appear pleasing to your satisfaction.

11. Click the “Eye” icon next to the “Landscape” layer so that it is visible again. Select the Eraser tool, zoom in close and begin erasing the clouds that are on the “Landscape” layer. As you erase, you will see the “Crazy Cloud” layer becoming visible from the layer below.

12. When you are done erasing all of the skyline from the “Landscape” layer, you should now have your finished image with the “Crazy Cloud” image as the skyline instead of the previous skyline from the “Landscpe” layer.

13. As an additional option, to make the red clous blend better with the underlying landscape, you can use the hue/saturation feature in Photoshop. To do this, make sure the “Crazy Clouds” layer is active, then goto Images > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation. Adjust the Saturation slider so that it matches the landscape better.

Related posts:

Tags: Crazy Looking Clouds

This entry was posted on September 14, 2009 at 11:28 pm and is filed under Tutorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.