This one's especially for Roslyn because she's the first person to ever ask me to make a tutorial.
1. Take some pictures of fluffly clouds (clouds at sunset work beset, as the sky is more of a warm tone instead of blue) and a smallish picture of a castle that has a blue sky, and blend them together. Don't blend them very well; you want some of the blue sky overlapping the clouds. Do not flatten these layers!
2. Dublicate your castle layer and set it to color burn. Do that once more. Duplicate your clounds layer and bring it to the top; set it to lighten. (If you have multiple clouds layers, do the same to all of them.)
3. Add a gradient map using #6F4063 for the dark colors and #EBE6C7 for the light colors. Set this layer to Darken. I added one more picture of clouds because it was looking a little empty.
4. I edited my clouds layers a bit because they weren't looking as seamless as I wanted them to. Duplicate you castle layer, bring it to the top and erase all the background. Nothing should be left except the castle. Desaturate it and set the layer to Saturation.
5. Add a black and white gradient map. Set it to Vivid Light with an opacity of 35%. Add another black and white gradient map, this time setting it to Overlay 100%. You want these two layers on full stength on your castle, but erase over the background and clouds a little.
6. Add
this texture from
Hybrid Genesis on Soft Light at 65% and
this texture from Tre-xture (which is now a dead link) on Color Burn at 30%.
7. Now add a selective color layer that just intensifies all the colors. Play around with the settings until it works on your image. This step is optional, as it doesn't make much difference later on. My settings are:
My settings are:
Reds:
C: -100
M: +100
Y: -34
B: +31
Yellows:
C: -100
M: +15
Y: +84
B: -9
Greens:
C: +100
M: +100
Y: +100
B: +60
Cyans:
C: +100
M: +100
Y: +100
B: +100
Blues: none
Magentas:
C: +100
M: +100
Y: -100
B: -100
Whites:
C: -22
M: -11
Y: +15
B: -8
Neutrals:
C: +12
M: +7
Y: +13
B: -11
Blacks:
C: +25
M: +38
Y: +100
B: +100
I have this layer on 67% opacity.
8. Add a curves layer so that the graphic is darkened and the shadows are intensified. Set it to Muyltiply 50% opacity. It's okay if your castle is pixely or looks harsh; we're going to fix that later. If you don't have curves, you can either skip this step or add some sort of adjustment layer to darken it up.
9. Make a new layer. Take a soft bush and paint in #49103B along the bottom and castle. Put some #A0134E on top of most of the purple you just painted on the castle. Set this layer to exclusion 100%.
10. Add a black and white gradient map set to Hard Light 27%.
11. Add a dark blue fill layer and set it to exclusion 100%.
12. Add a gradient map using #244E5B and #D6E8EA. Flaten and make a copy of your image, then undo until you get your layers back. Delete the gradient map, then paste in the layer you just copied. Go to Fliter>>Blur>>Radial Blur. Amount: 40. Set this layer to Darken 45%.
13. Flatten and make a copy again. Undo until your layers reappear. Paste the copy. Use radial blur on this layer, also. Amount: 10. Set this layer to Darken 100%.
14. Paste the copy you made in Step 13 (plain, no radial blur) and set it to Multiply.
15. Add a fill layer of #ECE5F2. Set to Color Burn.
16. Go back through your layers and adjust the opacities so that everything looks really nice.
17. Add text and some light textures set to screen and you're done!
I'd love to see what you come up with if you try this! This is my first tutorial, so I apologize if I'm confusing or didn't explain very well.
This post has been edited by Cornie on Aug 21 2008, 02:26 PM 
[PS] Castle in the Air Tutorial, Selective Color and Curves Optional
