How To: Create a soothing pastoral scene in Photoshop

Pixel Perfect is the "perfect" show to help you with your Photoshop skills. Be amazed and learn as master digital artist Bert Monroy takes a stylus and a digital pad and treats it as Monet and Picasso do with oil and canvas. Learn the tips and tricks you need to whip those digital pictures into shape with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. In this episode, Ben shows you how to create a soothing pastoral scene in Photoshop.

Bert first creates a body of water by filling a layer with blue, using the Render>Fibers filter to create waves and then adjusts the size with Transform>Distort. Bert then adds a gradient on top in a new layer, clips it, and then adjusts the opacity.

To create the banks on the side, Bert simply uses a brush and adds texture with the Texture>Texturizer filter and dodge/burn tool.

To make the leaves on the tree, Bert creates a unique brush stroke (define brush/brush engine). He then adds texture to the tree with the bevel/emboss layer style and texture>craquelure filter. Bert adds dimension to the tree by using different colors for the leaves.

For the reflection in the water, Bert simply merges the layers of the tree and merges the layers of the bank, copies, rotates, adds a motion blur filter and adjusts the opacity in the water.

Bert adds mountains in the background by first creating the shape with the pen tool and filling it in with a gradient. Bert also creates the sky using the gradient tool.

Search Pixel Perfect on WonderHowTo for more Photoshop episodes from this Revision3 show.