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Description
Welcome to her fairy-tale.

I've gotten a lot of notes asking to share some of my techniques in my manipulations. One of the most-asked questions is how I achieve an end-result that looks drastically different from the original stock pictures. I use a few techniques that I'll share for those who are interested. I do a LOT of re-painting. I usually repaint the models in my pictures, and parts of the background. In this picture, the model has been completely repainted. And in the background, parts of the wings and the lily pads have been re-painted.

To get all the various stock to fit together & look unified, I edit the levels in each stock photo so all of them have the same colors (almost like they were all taken with the same camera). I also match up the amount of shadows and highlights, and I change the lighting in each photo so they all have the same light source. I do this first and then in the end when layers have been merged it's much easier to go through and apply effects (rather than merging them when they don't really match to begin with and then trying to work with them). That can be a real headache that I personally don't like to go through.

Also, a lot of digital artists work on a very large canvas and then shrink it down to upload onto the web. What I've learned is that it's EXTREMELY important when working on something, NOT to do that & to keep it the same size as your final result. A lot of artists on deviantart love to make huge pictures, and shrink them down for submission, and I'm not putting them down; I just personally think it's better to create something that will be viewed at the original size intended, and I'll explain this further in the next paragraph.

When you shrink something on the computer, you're taking pixels away. It's only natural that details will be lost. That's why it's important to work on something that will be the same size when it's finished.
So, what I do is I create two pieces. The one I keep on my hard drive is usually about 300% larger than the one I submit (and lacking a watermark). However, I don't just "shrink" it and then submit it. There's a lot of details lost when you do that, so instead I get the work to a certain point, then I make a copy & shrink that in another document. I then work on both the small and large version seperately. I do this because when you apply effects to the large version, the results will change if not nearly disappear when you shrink it down (because you're taking pixels away). That's fine if you show the "details" of the picture when it was blown up, but it should look beautiful & be appreciated without having to look at any of the original details.

The effects on photoshop are applied to the pixels. That's why when you shrink and take the pixels away, you're also taking away that effect. That's why it's important to make two seperate files, the large version and the small version, and applying the effects on each of them seperately. An example of this is the sharpening effect. If you sharpen the large version, and then shrink it. It doesn't look sharp anymore. If you shrink it, THEN sharpen it, it works

If you disagree with anything I've said, that's perfectly fine! No need to debate or argue with me. If the techniques you use contradict what I said but work for you, then stick with them. As long as you're successful, how you get there really doesn't matter. Everyone has different techniques, this is just what works for me & might for someone else too
Hope this has been helpful!

Stock used
Pond - [link]
Wings - [link]
Trees - [link]
Model - [link]
Rest - [link]

Edit: I added two more wings so she has four, the tree branches are now split so they look more like two trees (instead of one tree with two trunks), I edited her face a little bit more, took away some lily pads, added some lotus flowers, and repainted part of her leg

Edit 2: The picture was really bothering me for a while but I couldn't quite place what was wrong, I upped the saturation and the contrast and now I think it looks MUCH better. I'm finally satisfied with it, so I've added a border to signify it's completion

Edit 3: I took some of the brightness in the wings away, it was a little too overdone. I also took some of the saturation away in part of the trees that were WAY too blue

Thank you so much everyone for giving your critiques, it helped make this much better

Description
Welcome to her fairy-tale.

I've gotten a lot of notes asking to share some of my techniques in my manipulations. One of the most-asked questions is how I achieve an end-result that looks drastically different from the original stock pictures. I use a few techniques that I'll share for those who are interested. I do a LOT of re-painting. I usually repaint the models in my pictures, and parts of the background. In this picture, the model has been completely repainted. And in the background, parts of the wings and the lily pads have been re-painted.

To get all the various stock to fit together & look unified, I edit the levels in each stock photo so all of them have the same colors (almost like they were all taken with the same camera). I also match up the amount of shadows and highlights, and I change the lighting in each photo so they all have the same light source. I do this first and then in the end when layers have been merged it's much easier to go through and apply effects (rather than merging them when they don't really match to begin with and then trying to work with them). That can be a real headache that I personally don't like to go through.

Also, a lot of digital artists work on a very large canvas and then shrink it down to upload onto the web. What I've learned is that it's EXTREMELY important when working on something, NOT to do that & to keep it the same size as your final result. A lot of artists on deviantart love to make huge pictures, and shrink them down for submission, and I'm not putting them down; I just personally think it's better to create something that will be viewed at the original size intended, and I'll explain this further in the next paragraph.

When you shrink something on the computer, you're taking pixels away. It's only natural that details will be lost. That's why it's important to work on something that will be the same size when it's finished.
So, what I do is I create two pieces. The one I keep on my hard drive is usually about 300% larger than the one I submit (and lacking a watermark). However, I don't just "shrink" it and then submit it. There's a lot of details lost when you do that, so instead I get the work to a certain point, then I make a copy & shrink that in another document. I then work on both the small and large version seperately. I do this because when you apply effects to the large version, the results will change if not nearly disappear when you shrink it down (because you're taking pixels away). That's fine if you show the "details" of the picture when it was blown up, but it should look beautiful & be appreciated without having to look at any of the original details.

The effects on photoshop are applied to the pixels. That's why when you shrink and take the pixels away, you're also taking away that effect. That's why it's important to make two seperate files, the large version and the small version, and applying the effects on each of them seperately. An example of this is the sharpening effect. If you sharpen the large version, and then shrink it. It doesn't look sharp anymore. If you shrink it, THEN sharpen it, it works

If you disagree with anything I've said, that's perfectly fine! No need to debate or argue with me. If the techniques you use contradict what I said but work for you, then stick with them. As long as you're successful, how you get there really doesn't matter. Everyone has different techniques, this is just what works for me & might for someone else too
Hope this has been helpful!

Stock used
Pond - [link]
Wings - [link]
Trees - [link]
Model - [link]
Rest - [link]

Edit: I added two more wings so she has four, the tree branches are now split so they look more like two trees (instead of one tree with two trunks), I edited her face a little bit more, took away some lily pads, added some lotus flowers, and repainted part of her leg

Edit 2: The picture was really bothering me for a while but I couldn't quite place what was wrong, I upped the saturation and the contrast and now I think it looks MUCH better. I'm finally satisfied with it, so I've added a border to signify it's completion

Edit 3: I took some of the brightness in the wings away, it was a little too overdone. I also took some of the saturation away in part of the trees that were WAY too blue

Thank you so much everyone for giving your critiques, it helped make this much better