Create a Surreal Matte Painting in Photoshop

By: Daniel Johnson

In these days of digital special effects, Adobe Photoshop is a key ingredient to the creation of matte paintings. This tutorial will take you through the steps to make your own matte painting using photographic and painted elements. This image was originally created as a background for a Flash animation. Photoshop CS3 was used, but any Creative Suite version should work.

Tutorial Details

• Program: Adobe Photoshop CS3+
• Difficulty: Advanced
• Estimated Completion Time:4 - 5 Hours

Final Image Preview

You can find the Photoshop PSD file in the Source directory that came in the ZIP file that you downloaded. You may wish to look through it briefly before you begin. A preview of the final image is below. You can view the large version here.

Step 1 - The Sketch

Even though most matte paintings these days are based on photos, many matte painters like to start off with a hand-painted conceptual sketch. This is a great way to try out several ideas, color schemes, and compositions to see what works. Obviously, strong painting and drawing skills are a must. This little sketch was quickly thrown together using a Wacom stylus. It established the overall mood, as well as the surreal skewed perspective that I would be attempting (as if a road floating above the clouds weren't surreal enough).

Step 2 - The Initial Photo

This is the photo that will form the foundation or background of the painting. I will be basing the overall lighting and color scheme from it. The photo wasn't quite wide enough for my painting, so I have duplicated and mirrored it. I only needed a bit more sky; everything else will get covered up. The Horizon and sky will work, but I'll need more clouds to extend to the bottom of the painting.

Step 3 - Adding Cloud Photos

Next, I brought in some aerial photos of clouds. They didn't match the hues or values of my horizon image, so they needed some adjustment. I always try to work non-destructively as much as possible, and Adjustment Layers are a great way to do this. I added a Levels adjustment to the cloud layer and moved the midtone slider to the right to lower the overall values. Now that the values were right, I worked on the color. I sampled a blue from the background and filled a new layer above the cloud layer. I set this layer's Blend mode to Color and lowered the opacity to 91%, or until it matched. I actually duplicated the same cloud photo a couple of times and moved them around to show different areas of clouds, masking off parts that I didn't want. All of these cloud layers with their Adjustment and tinting layers were placed behind the horizon/sky photos, which were given layer masks. I painted on these masks with a soft, scatter brush to mask out the ground and let the clouds on the bottom layers show through. You can see here a sample of what those masks look like. Again, A Wacom or similar pressure-sensitive tablet is essential for this kind of work.

Step 4 - Adding Highlights

Now my added clouds need some highlights to make them pop and integrate them into the scene. I sampled a pink color from the sky and filled a new layer above the clouds. I tried Screen and Overlay modes to see which I liked best, eventually settling on one of each. But the pink highlight color was affecting the entire range of clouds and I only wanted it to affect the highlight areas. I could have tried to paint on a mask or make one from the channels, but I decided to use Blend If instead. This little-used Layer Style feature is quite powerful. Double-click a highlight layer to bring up the styles and adjust the sliders on the Blend If: Underlying Layer. Blend If really means "Make Transparent If" and it will knock out colors on this layer. I want to make the parts of this layer that are over the darker cloud areas transparent. To do that, I take the black Underlying Layer slider and move it to the right. The pixels on this layer will become transparent if they are over any areas that are equal to or darker than the brightness value of the slider's position. The only problem is that the pixels are either 100% or 0% opaque, leaving a hard, jaggy edge. To fix this, you must use what has to be the most hidden feature in Photoshop. Hold down ALT/OPT and click on the black slider to split it apart. Everything to the left is fully transparent and everything to the right is fully opaque. The amount of space between the two halves controls how much softness or anti-aliasing you have. Pretty neat, huh? But I also painted in some highlights by hand over darker areas using the same color on a different layer.

Step 5 - Bringing the Background Together

Even after the photos have been joined with masks and Adjustment layers, backgrounds will still need some hand painting to tie everything together. Even with all the different options and custom brushes available in Photoshop, sometimes the simple ones work the best. One that I like to use a lot and works well in this situation is the Chalk 11 pixel brush that comes with one of Photoshop's default sets. The Opacity Jitter needs to be set to Pen Pressure and I changed the size as needed. Sometimes I add Scattering to randomize my strokes. I sampled colors from different areas of the underlying layers and painted on a new layer to cover any seams between photos and add the necessary detail. As I final step, I added Levels Adjustment layer with a radial gradient on its mask to brighten the center of the sky where the sun supposedly is. With matte painting, you can literally create your own world.

Step 6 - Creating the Concrete Blocks

The concept called for a wall of immense concrete blocks. Even though it will eventually have a skewed perspective, it should be created flat with vertical sides and horizontal top and bottom. I started a new file and used the Rectangular Marquee tool to create rectangular selections and filled them with PMS 403. I often start with Pantone colors, since they are a consistent selection of colors and have nice ranges of dark to light. The grays are particularly useful. To create the edges on the blocks, I used Layer Styles. One of the most important is Inner Glow. The secret is that glows don't have to be light. Change the Blend mode to Multiply and choose a dark color and they become a dark, weathered edge that adds to the realism. For the texture, I used a photo of concrete over the background color and edge effects, on a layer set to Overlay mode at 30% opacity. This is usually more effective than trying to create a texture from scratch with filters and it saves a lot of time.

Step 7 - Creating Streaks

Many architectural structures will have streaks created by being out in the elements. There is a great way to do this, but it takes a few steps and it has to be done with channels. I created a new alpha channel and then filled a narrow, vertical selection with some Render Clouds and the default black/white colors. This is to give the filter something to start with. I then applied Filter > Stylize > Wind. This is a great filter for doing many things except wind. I used the settings you see below. One pass usually isn't enough, so you can apply the filter several times until the streaks are as long as you need. An easy way to do this is to use the key commandCmd/Ctrl + F. I then applied some Gaussian Blur and then a Levels adjustment. The blur obviously softens the edges and the adjustment controls the density of the final streaks. By varying the amount of blur and tonal adjustment, you can create many different kinds of streaks: long and thin, soft, short and blobby, and so on. The one problem is that Adobe thinks that wind only blows left and right and the best uses of this filter require up or down, so the channel has to be rotated 90º before you load a selection. The last step is to create a new layer in Multiply mode and fill it with PMS Warm gray 6. I then took the Opacity down to 50%. I also created some shorter, softer streaks for the seams in the concrete, using the same technique, but with more blur and less Opacity.

Step 8 - Finishing the Wall

I added another photo of concrete texture and set the Blend mode to Multiply and the Opacity to 15%. A few more dark gray gradients in Multiply mode at the top and bottom of the image helped to darken it a bit more and then I selected All, Copy Merged, and Pasted the wall into my matte painting file as a new layer. Now it just needs to be transformed into position using Distort and Skew. I couldn't do this in CS3, but in CS4 and later you can convert the wall to a Smart Object and still apply these same transformations. That's very helpful if you need to go back and edit the original. To give the wall a shadow and highlight edge, I used Layer Styles. For Color Overlay, I picked a blue from a shadow area of my image and used Multiply mode. The Bevel and Emboss highlight color was picked from the background image as well, but the Blend mode was changed to Color Dodge, with gives intense colors that are great for suggesting illumination. As a final touch, I used a layer mask to paint out the bottom fading into the clouds and cut a little chunk out of the edge of the wall along the joint of the blocks. It's the little things like this that can really make your image stand out.

Step 9 - Creating the Monitor With Vector Shapes and Layer Styles

For the monitor hanging on the wall, I used Photoshop's own shape tools to create vector Shape layers. I started out with the Rounded Rectangle tool to make the initial rectangle with PMS Cool Grey 4. Then I held down ALT/OPT with the same tool to cut a rectangle out of the middle. The shapes were then transformed into position using my perspective guide lines. Layer Styles were added to give it a metallic bevel, reflected gradient, and the same Color Overlay as the wall. The side edge was also done as a Shape layer with Cool Gray 9. To give the monitor screen a bit more edge and depth, I copied the inner rectangle to a new Shape layer and set its Fill to 0% so that the shape wouldn't show, but its layer effects would. A Drop Shadow with a hard edge on the upper left helped to show that inner edge. There is also a rectangle right on top of the wall with Drop Shadow and dark Outer Glow effects to help attach it to the wall. I also added some streaks underneath, this time with a rusty brown to suggest some corrosion of metal. Using vector shapes within Photoshop is an extremely useful but probably underused technique.

Step 10 - Building and Texturing the Roadway

I built the roadway as a vector Shape layer with Photoshop's Pen tool. I know many tutorials would rather have you make a path, load a selection from it, then fill that on a new layer, but why introduce an unnecessary step? And if a shape starts out as vector, there is no need to rasterize it; keeping it vector makes adjustments to it much easier. The road texture was a simple repeating pattern for use as a texture map in 3D programs. Keeping a library of images like this will really help your Photoshop work. Because the road curves, I had to transform another piece of texture at the first curve and do some hand painting to blend everything together. This might have been a good time to try a Warp transformation. As a last step, a layer in Multiply mode was put on top with a dark blue sampled from the background to hold the shadow cast by the wall. All of these layers use the bottom vector Shape layer as a clipping mask.

Step 11 - Finishing the Road

The far end of the road has a layer with a gradient of blue chosen from the midtone background areas to fade it into the distance a bit. Then I added a highlight layer of the pink from the background over the road in Color Dodge with the Fill set to 45%. Lowering the Fill instead of the Opacity is a good way to reduce the strength of the color on that layer, while still retaining some intensity to make things seem luminous. In this case, the road isn't a light source, but I do want to suggest a very shiny surface that picks up a lot of light from the setting sun. The highlight edge and stripe were done on separate layers with effects and some I added some texture by adding the Noise filter to a layer filled with 50% gray and set to Overlay. Midtone gray is transparent in Overlay mode, so you just get the lights and darks. It's a great way to add texture but keep it on a separate layer. I added a mask to the bottom vector Shape layer and painted out bits of the far end of the road. Since all of the clipped layers 'inherit' the mask and Layer Styles of the base layer, they all get masked as well.

Step 12 - Transforming and Masking the Text

The concept called for skyscrapers in the form of words and phrases sticking up out of the clouds. Now I don't know what all of these mean, but they meant something to the client, so that's all that matters. Initially, I tried to set this part up in Illustrator using its 3D effect, but it doesn't have enough control over the perspective, so I ended up doing it all by hand in Photoshop. I started with type layers and used Impact because it was a very heavy, sans-serif typeface and I needed the letters to be as close together and blocky as possible, because they were going to represent the sides of buildings. I rasterized each type layer and transformed them into position with Skew and Distort, using my perspective lines as guides. I then merged them all into one layer. If I had to do it again, I would probably not rasterize the text, but rather convert it all to vector shapes by right-clicking the text layer and choosing Convert to Shape from the layer's drop-down menu. Then I could have had all of the words as shapes on one Shape layer. But this still works. I added some of my usual Layer Styles, but the Outer Glow was extending too far into the sky. I created a layer mask based on the selection you see here, then checked the Layer Mask Hides Effects option, which is unchecked by default. That way, the exterior effects won't appear in the black areas of the mask. This is the only way you can try to mask out effects on layers.

Step 13 - Texturing the Building Fronts

I added patterns created from tileable skyscraper textures and transformed them into position. I keep a library of patterns like these and they are extremely useful, often for things other than buildings. Each one is on its own layer and they use the word front layer as a clipping mask. The textures are all Normal at 100% Opacity, so they completely cover up the color of the bottom layer, but they inherit its Layer Style. In addition, each one has its own layer effects as well. To use the same Layer Style on multiple layers, right-click a layer with effects you want, choose Copy Layer Style from its drop-down menu, then SHIFT + click the other layers, right-click over them, and choose Paste Layer Style. It's that easy. The building faces behind the words were made with the Polygonal Lasso tool on a layer below all of these. This same selection was used to create the layer mask in step 12. I duplicated all the building texture layers and clipped the duplicates to this bottom layer. They look darker because of the dark Outer Glows and Drop Shadows on the word front layer. Also, most have a Darken Color Overlay in their Layer Styles. You may also notice that I offset these textures just a bit to suggest that they are recessed.

Step 14 - Creating the Building Sides

Now the building fronts need some sides added to give them some depth. I created a new layer just for perspective lines for the sides. The lines converge at a vanishing point on the horizon. I made selections with the Polygonal Lasso tool and picked light and dark gray-blues from the background to fill these selections. The sides for the ORDER and TRACKING were done on separate layers. A subtle highlight was added to the edge facing the sun with Bevel and Emboss layer effects.

Step 15 - Texturing the Building Sides

The textures on the front of the buildings need to wrap around the sides. I used the same patterns on separate layers, clipped to the flat side layers, each on its own layer, just like on the front. I transformed them with Skew and Distort. I also figured that the CRM would be casting a shadow on the top of TRACKING, so I added that on a separate layer in Multiply mode.

Step 16 - Making a Mask from Channels

The dark areas on the building textures are windows, so they should be much more reflective than the other areas. I would like them to catch a lot of light from the setting sun, but I don't want to add any more highlights to the non-window areas. I'll need a mask for this, but I don't want to create one by hand, but I should be able to do it procedurally with the channels. Whenever you need to mask off specific parts of an image, check the channels first. Since a mask is just a grayscale image and each color channel contains grayscale information, a channel can easily become the foundation for a very complex layer mask. First, look at the different channels: Red, Green, and Blue. Choose the one that has the most contrast between what you want to keep and what you want to mask out and duplicate that channel. On this image, they were pretty close, but I decided on Red. This should work, but the windows are dark and I want them to be light so that the reflection will show through that part of the mask, so I inverted the channel. Cmd/Ctrl + I is an easy shortcut for this. Then run a Levels adjustment on the layer. Select the black eyedropper and then click on an area in the channel you want to be black. That value and everything darker is now black. Do the same with the white eyedropper. Remember that in a mask, black conceals and white reveals. You will see the black and white sliders under the histogram move closer together. You can also adjust them by hand. The closer they are, the harder your mask edges will be and the farther apart, the softer your edges will be. You may need to select parts of the channel and give some areas different amounts of Levels adjustment, based on how dark and light they already are. When the channel is ready, load the white areas as a selection by pressing Cmd/Ctrl and clicking on the channel thumbnail.

Step 17 - Creating and Masking the Highlight Layer

Here you can see the selection that was loaded from the alpha channel. I created a new layer above the building texture layers and clicked the Add layer mask button. The selection was turned into a layer mask. Then I picked a warm orange color from the sky and filled this layer with a linear gradient going from foreground to transparent. The Blend mode was set to Color Dodge and the Fill (not the Opacity) was lowered to 80%. This added just the right amount of reflected sunlight in the windows, fading away toward the edge of the image. Now the words/buildings look just about done.

Step 18 - Painting in the Final Details

Some parts of the buildings still look a bit flat, so I painted in some fine details on a new layer: the curving windows at the top of the P, the roof and top edges of ORDER TRACKING, and a bit of architectural detail on the E of FINANCE. You often need to go in and do some touch-up painting as a final step.

Step 19 - Finishing the Reflection

It's about time to finish up the reflection and using the background photo is a good way to do this. I wanted it to be more opaque in some areas and less in others, so I started with filling a new layer and then fading back the Opacity of the fill, then adding a foreground to transparent radial gradient. I picked a medium blue from the background, but the color doesn't matter, since this layer will only be used as a clipping mask. A layer mask on this layer will hide everything except the windows. A copy of the background photo will be clipped to this bottom layer. I did it this way in case I wanted to place an additional mask on the reflection layer.

Step 20 - Reflecting the Buildings

If the windows reflect the sky, they would reflect other buildings as well. The ERP should have a reflection of the back of the CRM, and the large cement structure in the foreground should probably be there as well. Perspective lines are helpful for transforming and placing the reflected buildings, but I don't need to worry about being too exact; as long as it looks okay, it should do. The building reflections started with the same textures as their sources, but they were given Layer Styles to suggest a highlighted edge, included a Color Doge Bevel and Emboss and a Color Overlay of a background orange in Normal mode at 40% Opacity. When these two layers are clipped down along with the photo reflection layer, their Opacity is reduced and they only appear over the windows.

Step 21 - Adding Atmospheric Perspective

It's almost there, but to really sell it as being real, the distant objects need some atmospheric perspective. This basically means that the farther away something gets, the less contrast it has because there is more atmosphere between it and the viewer. This can usually be accomplished by tinting these objects with a color from the surrounding environment. To do this, I first created what is essentially a depth mask. I added a mask to a new layer, loaded selections from the various word/buildings, and filled those selections against the black background of the mask. The lighter the mask area, the more that part of the image will get knocked back. I filled this layer with a bluish-gray sampled from the background and lowered the Opacity until I liked it, or 30%. Now the darkest, brightest, and most saturated colors of the image are in the foreground and these distant objects look really far away.

Step 22 - Some More Hand Painting

For some reason, I did a bit more painting on the window reflections. This was done with a soft brush and just picking colors from the existing reflection layers. This smoothed out parts of the reflection and pulled things together a bit more. This layer used the same layer mask as the mask on the bottom-most reflection layer that is acting as a clipping mask for all the others. This is the time to give the entire image a good look over and do any final hand painting to cover up hard edges, seams, or other problems.

Step 23 - Painting Shadows on the Clouds

With the sun at the far right of the image, all the structures should be casting shadows to the left. I picked a blue from the background and painted on a new layer in Multiply mode with a soft, natural brush to create the shadows cast by the buildings, both far and near. This layer was right above the clouds and I adjusted its Opacity until the shadows looked right, which turned out to be 35%. For the shadow cast by the road near the left edge of the image, I didn't want to go any darker than the shadows that were already there, so I painted on yet another layer, this time in Normal mode. I picked a color from the shadow area and just continued that same value along where I thought the shadow would fall.

Step 24 - Creating Some Light Wrap

As a finishing touch, I decided to add some light wrap along the edge of the concrete wall. This effect, sometimes called 'bloom' is created when a strong light source is behind a foreground object and appears to bleed over it a bit along the edges. It can help to suggest intensity and illumination and can easily be done with an Inner Glow. I created a new layer above the concrete wall, loaded the wall's shape as a selection, and then filled on the new layer. The color doesn't matter, because I set the Fill to 0 so that only the Layer Style would show. Then I made an orange Inner Glow, but I only wanted it to appear at the horizon, where I wanted the sun to be. Until Photoshop gives us the option to mask Layer Styles like we can on Smart Filters (and they should), we have to be content with masking the entire layer. I added a white-to-black reflected gradient on the layer's mask, but the important tip here is to check the Layer Mask Hides Effects option, which by default is left unchecked. If you don't do this, you can get some very strange effects. But with this option checked, the glow is only visible along the white and lighter areas of the mask, so it's just what I wanted.

Final Image

And that should do it. Now is the time to step back and try to appreciate the overall image. It's possible that might need some Adjustment layers to do some final tweaking, but that is easy enough to do. I know it seemed like there were a lot of complicated steps here, but that's what it takes to put together a decent matte painting, even if you are primarily working from photos. I hope you enjoyed it and maybe learned something. I know I did. The final image is below. You can view the large version here.

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