Photoshop Tutorial: Create a Surreal Atmospheric Phone Booth Scenery in photoshop updates

 In this tutorial we will be creating a Surreal Atmospheric Image from these 2 source images.

Simpson Desert: Download here - Courtesy of tensaibuta form Flickr.com
Red Public Phone Boxes:Download here - Courtesy of law_keven from flickr.com

The Fog and Light Beam are created within Photoshop and are described below.

End result:

Step 1

First of open the desert image.

Step 2

Now go to Image->Adjustments->Hue/Saturation and give the desert image a reddish colour.

Step 3

We are now going to add 2 Adjustment Layers to the background image, they are as follow: Levels and Hue/Saturation.

First of go to Layers->New Adjustment Layer->Levels, make sure Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask is ticked and set the values as follow:

Levels - 131, 0.52, 255 and click OK

Go back to Layers->New Adjustment Layer->Hue/Saturation, make sure Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask is ticked and set the values as follow:

Hue/Saturation - Hue:0, Saturation:-29, Lightness:-34 and click OK

Step 4

Now create a New Layer and fill it with black then on the layers palette set the Blending Mode to Saturation to give it more of a night feel.

Step 5

Open the image Red Public Phone Boxes. We are wanting to select them from the background. You can use The Pen Tool or The Extract Tool or whatever you feel comfortable using. I used a Layer Mask and with a Medium Sized Hard Edged Brush I painted over the image and as close to the phone boxes as possible then changing the brush size to a smaller one I zoomed in to remove the rest

Step 6

Now drag the selected phone boxes onto the desert image and resize the phone boxes to suit as below.

Step 7

We are going to add 2 Adjustment Layers to the phone boxes they are as follow: Levels and Hue/Saturation.

First of go to Layers->New Adjustment Layer->Levels, make sure Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask is ticked and set the values as follow:

Levels - 136, 0.70, 255 and click OK

Then go back to Layers->New Adjustment Layer->Hue/Saturation, make sure Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask is ticked and set the values as follow:

Hue/Saturation - Hue:0, Saturation:-53, Lightness:-25 and click OK

Step 8

Now we will create the shadows. To determine where the shadows will be, we need to know where the light source is and looking at the phone boxes the light source is coming from the right side so we need to create the shadows on the left side. (photoshop updates)

Create a New Layer below the phone boxes, take a medium sized soft edged brush Hardness set to 0% and draw around the of the phone boxes like in the image below, then go to Filter->Blur->Gaussian Blur and set it to about 0.6 and click Ok (photoshop updates)

Step 9

Create a New Layer above the phone boxes, we are now going to make the Light Beam.

Select the Polygonal Lasso Tool and set the feathering to about 30px and draw a rectangular shape on the image like below. (photoshop updates)

Step 10

We are now make Fog for the background. Create a New Layer below the phone boxes, set the colours to White for foreground and Black for Background select the Rectangular Marquee Tool set the Feathering to about 30px and draw a selection from about the center to almost top of the image now go to Filter->Render->Clouds, set the Layer Blending Mode to Lighten and the Opacity to around 36%. (photoshop updates)

Step 11

Now for the foreground Fog. (photoshop updates)

Create a New Layer above the phone boxes this time and with the same setting as in Step 10 but from almost the bottom to the center of the image this time and change Blending Mode to Lighten.

Step 12

These last 2 steps are optional but do add that little bit of Dramatic Look to the image.

The first is the Highlights. Create a New Layer above the phone boxes and with a small round soft edged brush paint over the phone boxes to where the highlights will appear then use the Eraser Tool with a medium sized brush Hardness set to about 90% and erase any excess highlighting if necessary and set the Blending Mode to Overlay. (photoshop updates)
Create another New Layer and do the same for the shadows on the phone boxes but set the Blending Mode to Hard Light.

Step 13

We've reached the end of the tutorial. I hope it was helpful and understandable as this was my very first tutorial. I would like to thank the following people "tensaibuta from flickr.com and law_keven from flickr.com for the use of their images.

Again thank you for your time and patience.

sr:pc