The Making of "A Walk in the Woods"

[Christopher Miller]

Jim Fenton had asked me how I made this image, so I decided to do a step-by-step walkthrough of my workflow and the techniques that I used for it.

Before starting, I want to point out that with these "enchanted forest" images, as I like to call them, it's all about the light and the mood it gives to the image. So as I work, I am constantly thinking how I want the lighting to look in the final image.

I use photoshop for all my processing. I also don't flatten any of the layers as I work so that I can go back and adjust the underlying layers if necessary.

The five main techniques that I used, each of which I will describe below in more detail, are:

1. Vignette
2. Orton effect
3. Light rays
4. Texture overlays
5. Blur overlay

Here is the original image. This is just one of a bunch of images I made that day, but I chose this one to process because it has the trail leading into the image with a logical space in the center for the light to shine through.

[Christopher Miller]

1. My first step was to add a curves layer to lower the brightness of the highlights and increase the contrast slightly.

2. I then added a vignette using the following steps.

(1) Select > All
(2) Select > Modify > Border - I think I set the width to about 50px.
(3) Select > Modify > Expand - I'm not sure I used this step on this image, but it's a good way to make the vignette larger if desired.
(4) Select > Feather - I think I used a radius of 200-250px.
(5) Repeated step 4 to make the selection even softer.
(6) Created a new color fill layer selecting black as the color and 100% opacity.

I wanted the top and bottom of the vignette darker, so I duplicated the vignette layer, lowered its opacity to 86%, and masked it off the left and right sides.

[Christopher Miller]

3. Next, I applied the Orton effect.

(1) Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E to duplicate the image onto a new layer and set the blend mode to screen.
(2) Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E to duplicate the image again and set the blend mode to multiply.
(3) I blurred the second layer(the one set to multiply) with Gaussian blur at a radius of 30px.
(4) I then created a new group from the two layers and lowered its opacity to 79%.

[Christopher Miller]

4. I then wanted to darken the top center portion of the image.

(1) Created a new color fill layer with black as the color and 39% opacity.
(2) Shift > F5 to fill the layer mask for the fill layer with black.
(3) Using a soft brush and a rather low brush opacity, I painted on the layer mask with white on the area I wanted to be darker.
(4) I also added a curves layer with a similar layer mask to darken that area even more.

[Christopher Miller]

5. Now for the part that really makes the image come alive, the light rays! The method I use is based on this tutorial, http://www.tutorialwiz.com/rayoflight.

(1) Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E to duplicate the image onto a new layer.
(2) Image > Adjustments > Threshold - I usually set the threshold level somewhere between 100-140. I don't remember exactly what amount I used for this image.
(3) Applied Radial blur with Amount: 100, Method: zoom, and Quality: best. I dragged the blur center to the top right corner because that's where I wanted the light rays to originate from.
(4) Repeated the Radial blur to make the light rays longer.
(5) Set the layer's blend mode to screen at 100% opacity.
(6) I then blurred the light rays slightly with Gaussian blur at a radius of about 5px.
(7) I don't usually do this, but I wanted the light rays a little lower down in the image so I used Transform > Scale to move the top left corner of the layer in a bit.
(8) I then added a layer mask and using a soft brush with black as the color, painted over the areas where I didn't want light rays.

[Christopher Miller]

6. Next I converted the image to black and white using Channel Mixer - Red: +30%, Green: +60%, and Blue: +10%.

[Christopher Miller]

7. Now for my signature technique, texture overlays. My old photo tutorial gives even more details on how I use texture overlays.

I first applied one of my own textures using hard light blending mode at 13% opacity(left image).

I then applied two curves layers, one to increase the contrast of the texture layer and one to increase contrast on the whole image after applying the texture, and a channel mixer layer at 34% opacity to mute the colors a bit(right image).

[Christopher Miller]

8. I applied the same texture again with soft light blending mode at 57% opacity.

[Christopher Miller]

9. I then applied a Selective Color layer using the following settings:

Whites > Yellow: +15
Neutrals > Cyan: -6 , Yellow: +14

I also added another channel mixer layer at 18% opacity to mute the colors a little again.

[Christopher Miller]

10. I applied a second texture, FallinApart from Shadowhouse Creations, using hard light blending mode at 48% opacity. I also blurred the texture with Gaussian blur using a radius of 50px(left image).

I then added two last curves layers, one to lower the contrast of the texture layer and the other to darken and increase contrast on the whole image(right image).

[Christopher Miller]

11. Last of all, I added a blur overlay, which produces a similar effect to the Orton effect but without increasing the contrast or saturation.

(1) Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E to duplicate the image.
(2) Blurred the layer with Gaussian blur at a radius of 20px.
(3) Lowered the opacity of the layer to 20%.

And that's it! Here's the final image.

[Indranil Sircar]

Christopher, this is outstanding workflow! Love the transformation and your approach. Thank you so much for sharing.

[denise ippolito]

Christopher, Thank you so much for taking the time to post your workflow. Excellent work and tutorial. The step by step with instructions will be a great help for those of us that want to recreate this look! Maybe we should do a Theme Week with this !!

[Brendan Dozier]

This is great, Christopher, thanks for sharing your creative workflow with us. Really shows the thought and care that goes into crafting your artwork.

[Christopher Miller]

Denise, I think a theme on this would be a great idea!

[Andrew McLachlan]

Thanks Christopher for sharing the workflow on this lovely image!

[John Storjohann]

Christopher, an outstanding step-by-step tutorial...THANK YOU!

[denise ippolito]

Denise, I think a theme on this would be a great idea!

Done, I called it Rays of Light so people could apply your technique to a bunch of different looks. Should be fun!!

[Bob Miller]

Thanks Chris....wonderful image and awesome tutorial ...thanks again!