Nature and history combined

Import from Cinema 4D

I started with an A3 landscape format on 300DPI. The ‘3’ is made in cinema 4D including its texture. In cinema 4d I suggest you export it as a TARGA format with an alpha channel. With the alpha channel you can easily select the 3 and then paste into the A3 Document.

Shade

To get the shade realistic in photoshop it’s always a pain, so I decided to also make the shadow in cinema 4d. Then you are 100% sure you have a realistic shadow.I used an infinite light type to cast
this shadow.

Shadow and Highlights

In this step I made the shadows and highlights a bit stronger with the curve adjustment. I also made some crumbled rocks in cinema 4d with the explosion FX tool. A pyramid is also added.

Petra pillars rocks

After trying different things out I decided to use the historical Petra mountain carvings for the top part.  I also thought it would be nice to add some pillars.

Water

Now we are going to start with the bottom part (the water). I mostly used some digital painting techniques to accomplish this (brush tool). With a 3pt hard brush tool I painted some air bubbles.

 

Water 2 

It was relly diffcult to find a diver with corresponding perspectives. After I positioned the diver I made the shadow and added a couple of fish. I adjusted the water overall with some contrast. In the last water step I placed some rocks underwater and a stone ancient head. To match the colour of the water I used a colour balance  adjustment.I also made water reflexctions on the ground.

Plants

Now it’s time to add some plants. Again it’s really important to find plants that have the right perspective,and that's pretty difficult if you work with stock photos only. I added more plants and payed more attention to the shadows.

Plants 2

I was missing something, so I found this bonsai tree and put it in there. The shadow and highlights made it really come alive! To fit it all better together I placed some green moss to the sides.

Waterfall

The middle part was a bit empty so I added another plant with a waterfall. The waterfall is a stock photo combined with some digital painting.

Details

In this step I was looking at the overall picture and thought, What else I could add to the 3 to make it look better? at the bottom I added water reflections on the ground (stock photo). And above the water I made a wooden sign with the logo of the website I made this for. On the top part I added falling sand and an old book. 

Color, shadow, highlights

In this step it’s time to add adjustment layers to let everything fit better together I used: Curve adjustments for the shadows and highlights. Colour balance and Hue & Saturation for the colour. If you combine adjustment layers together with different blending modes you can achieve amazing effects, I suggest you experiment a lot with this.when I'm finished I also sharpen the final image.

Text

In the last step I added the text. It says: The birthday of scientism! And then the dates and website below. The point of this tutorial is to give you an idea how this is built, I did not go into further detail because that would be too much.