Storybook Comes to Life

1. Storybook Comes to Life Jamie Smith Etherson Per.02

2. Make a new file with these settings.

3. Create the background. • Open the picture of the sky and activate the rectangular marquee tool (M) and click on a point on the edge of the image and drag the mouse down to where the sky meets the ground.

4. Open up the orange sunset image. Activate the Rectangular Marquee tool (M) and then select the sky, and then drag that selected layer to the canvas. Once the new sky is on our canvas, activate the Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd + T) and then expand the image. • Now that our new sky has been transformed, let’s change its Opacity so it would blend in with the sky layer under it. On the Layer window, go to Opacity and reduce its level to 70%

5. Now that the sky is done, let’s add the table texture. Tileable Wood Texture and activate the Move tool (V) and then drag this image to our canvas. • Activate the Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd + T) and increase the size of the image as seen below:

6. Let's group these layers by clicking on all the layers that we have clicked and pressing Ctrl/Cmd + G. After doing that, you’d notice that all the layers are now inside the group. Let’s rename this group to Background. To rename a group, simply click on the words “group 1” and a text box would appear and you may now rename it.

7. In this step we would be adding the book on our canvas, so to start, let’s open Book . Now, on this image, it would be quite difficult in selecting a part of the image, since we can’t use the Rectangular Marquee tool (M) on accurately selecting the book. So what we’re going to use is the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L).

8. Now we’re ready to remove the book from its background. Activate the Move tool (V) and drag the selected image to our canvas and then rename the book’s layer to book. Activate the Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd + T) because we would need to resize the image.

9. Let’s create a new layer (Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + N) and name this layer book shadow. Make sure that this layer is under the book’s layer. • Activate the Brush tool (B), set the foreground color to Black and then use the following brush settings.Brush size: 1300 px • Hardness: 0% • Opacity: 15% • Flow: 100% • Click on the book shadow layer to make sure that you are going to brush in the shadow on the right layer.

10. In this step we would be adding the grass on the book’s open page and make it appear like the scene in a book came to life. To start, let’s open Grassy Field and then activate the Rectangular Marquee tool (M). Now drag the selected area using the Move tool (V) on our canvas and rename the image as grass. Activate the Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd + T) and then resize the grass layer as seen on the image below

11. Remove the excess grass using the polygonal Lasso tool, duplicate the area from the image hide Layer 10 & change the opacity back to 100%.

12. Now for the next part, we will be distorting the grass layer to make it blend in with the book and in order for us to do that we would need the effectiveness of the Liquify tool. To activate that tool, go to Filter > distort> Liquify • Brush Size: 344 • Brush Pressure: 100 • Turbulent Jitter: 50 Now use the warp tool. To activate the warp tool gotoFilter > distort> Liquify. • Activate the Burn tool (O) and use it on the region shown on the image below. Now when you’re done with liquefying, just press OK.

13. What we are going to do here is that we would be adding a small road on the grassy field on the book’s open page. To start, let’s open Long Road and then activate the Polygonal Lasso tool (L) to select the road on this image. After you’ve created the selection area, use the Move tool (V) again to transfer it to our canvas. Once in the canvas, rename the layer to road. Next, we will be transforming the road to blend in with the grass. Click on the road layer and then activate the Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd + T) and resize it.

14. After that, we’ll have to erase some edges of the road to make it blend with the grass. Activate the Eraser tool (E) and input the following settings: • Brush size: 100 px • Hardness: 100% • Opacity: 100% • Flow: 100% Next, let’s darken the edges of the road; activate the Burn tool (O) and input the following settings: Brush size: 200 px Hardness: 0% Range: Midtones Exposure: 25%

15. Open the street clock After you’ve moved it to our canvas, change the layer’s name to street clock and then change its Brightness/Contrast to make it blend with the rest of the images. First, make sure that the Street clock image is selected and then click on Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast and then apply the following settings: • Brightness: 5 • Contrast: -15

16. After that, let’s create a new layer and rename it as clock shadow. Put this layer under the Street Clock layer because we’re going to create the clock’s shadow. • Activate the Brush tool (B) and input the following settings: • Brush size: 175 px • Hardness: 0% • Opacity: 15% • Flow: 100% • Next, let’s brighten the clock by using the Dodge tool (O). Use the following settings for the Dodge tool (O). • Brush size: 150 px • Range: Midtones • Exposure: 25%

17. In this step we will be flattening our image and more importantly, we would try to make it look a bit dreamy. Before we move on, make sure you have saved the file as a PSD. Now we will be flattening the layers, to do that, right-click on any layer to bring up its menu and click on Flatten Image. Once it is flattened, duplicate (Ctrl/Cmd + J) that single layer then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian blur on the Menu bar and input the following: • Radius: 16.0 pixels • Now your image is blurred, now this is a bit too dreamy, to achieve the dreamy effect, change its Blending mode to Lighten and the Opacity to 30%. Once you’re done, flatten the image. After that, let us sharpen the image to bring out some details but still maintaining the soft contrast. Go to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen and input the following values: • Basic: Checked • Settings: Default • Amount: 125% • Radius: 1.0 pixels • Remove: Gaussian Blur • More Accurate: Checked

18. Final result