How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop

Sometimes designers have to create a collage from several photos. In this Photoshop tutorial I would like to show you the technique of creating collages, by creating a gothic collage as an example.


Final Image

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop

Note: Original tutorial published on Photoshopstar.com some years ago. Tutorial was updated and now republished.


Resources


Step 1

Start by opening Cathedral Saint Julien du Mans photo.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 1

Step 2

To begin let´s remove the sky from this photo. Double click on the background layer in the layers palette to remove the lock. Now we are going to select blue sky. It can be easily done by using the Magic Wand Tool, as the sky is monotonous. Select the sky with Magic Wand Tool (Tolerance: 20). If you want to add to selection press Shift and click, if you want to subtract from selection press ALT and click. Use Lasso Tool or Polygonal Lasso Tool to select areas identified on photo below and add those to selection.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 2

Press Delete button to clean the selected area.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 3

Step 3

Open Unique Sunset photo. Drag the photo on our main canvas and go to Edit > Transformer > Scale to scale it down.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 4

Place the layer with the sky under the layer with the cathedral.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 5

Step 4

Although cathedral is the centre of composition, the mood of the whole picture is indeed made by the sky, so let´s try adding more contrast. Create a new layer above the layer with the sky. Select soft-edged brush, 400px in diameter, opacity 30% and colors: red (#cb1e00) and blue (7389f8). Then using the Brush Tool add these colors to the canvas carefully as show on image.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 6

With layer selected change blending mode to Color.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 7

Now change the layer opacity to 50%.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 8

Step 5

Open Dock To Nowhere photo. Cut out a fragment of sky by using the Polygonal Lasso Tool (Feather: 10px).

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 9

Copy the selected area on the main canvas below the layer with the castle.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 10

Transform this layer using Edit > Transform > Scale and move to the right a bit.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 11

Then desaturate this layer using Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 12

Adjust brightness and contrast using Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast with the following parameters:

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 13
How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 14

Now select the Eraser Tool and soft-edged brush and erase the empty area of the sky on the left.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 15

Set Hard Light blending mode for this layer.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 16

Then change layer opacity to 65%.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 17

Step 6

Create a new layer, move it at bottom and name it Background. Select Paint Bucket tool, choose black color (#000000) and fill new layer with selected color.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 18

Step 7

As we are finished with the sky, we should correct the cathedral taking into consideration the sky colors. There is much red color in this image, so we should make cathedral more red. Go to the layer with the cathedral (it should be above all the layers) and apply Image > Adjustments > Color Balance to it.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 19
How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 20

The composition centre is where we should put emphasis on so in this case it’s the cathedral, to be more precise a couple of towers, that stand out above the cathedral. Copy layer with the cathedral and desaturate copied layer using Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 21

Change brightness and contrast by using Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast with next presets:

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 22
How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 23

After that assign Soft Light blending mode to this layer and get this result:

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 24

Step 8

The whole cathedral became sharper, but we should put emphasis only on some of its parts, in order to make the cathedral look more three-dimensional. Therefore we select the Eraser Tool and soft-edged brush, 200 px in diameter and partially delete this layer along the edge of the cathedral on the left and on the right, erase the cathedral fragment with the tree and leave only the central outstanding part of the cathedral.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 25

If we assign Normal blending mode to this layer, it would look like my image below (this helps you see where you should have applied Eraser tool). This image shows clearly, what parts of the layer were deleted from the black-and-white layer.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 26

If you update blending mode to this layer to help you apply Eraser tool, don’t forget in the end to go back to Soft Light blending mode.

Now it’s worth putting emphasis using shadow and light. Create a new layer, assign Multiply blending mode to it, select the Brush Tool (Opacity: 30%) with soft-edged brush, black color (#000000) and darken the cathedral on the left and on the right.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 27

Then change the color to white (#ffffff) and brighten the outstanding parts of the cathedral, the other parts darken again. If we shift the layer to Normal blending mode, we get such a result, as in the screenshot below.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 28

Shift back to Multiply blending mode in this layer and you will get this result:

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 29

Step 9

The cathedral seems to be separated from the sky, we should remove this drawback. To begin with let’s admit, that cathedral is reddish, it’s a warm color, and there’s cold blue color in the sky. Let’s add some cold tone to the image of the cathedral. As the sky is the majority carrier of color, in contrast to it the cathedral should not be too many-colored, so let’s avoid bright colors, just play with tones a little. Copy the layer with the cathedral and place it above all the layers.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 30

Apply Image > Adjustments > Color Balance with the following adjustments:

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 31
How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 32

As the color gamut is dark enough, it’s worth making this layer much darker using Image > Adjustments > Levels:

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 33
How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 34

Change blending mode to this layer to Soft Light.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 35

Step 10

We should pay attention to the fact that despite of the dark sky, there is still a source of light in the composition, so there can’t be such dark roofs on the cathedral, they should be brightened. For this purpose select the Dodge Tool and brighten the roofs of the cathedral on the top layer.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 36

Step 11

For the cathedral to harmonize with the sky, we should process it’s edges partially. Go to the original layer with the cathedral and erase its edges a bit by using the Eraser Tool (Opacity 100%) and a soft-edged brush, in this case the edges of the cathedral will visually partially acquire the background color adding perspective. After that, set brush opacity to 30%, choose a small-scale diameter and go thoroughly along the edge of the cathedral on the three remaining upper layers in order to intensify the effect of perspective.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 37

Step 12

At the moment the cathedral doesn’t seem to be separated from the sky, but it’s still missing the reflections. We should just select the Eyedropper Tool and move the colors from the sky to the cathedral, thus adding reflection. Create a new layer. As we’ve already mentioned before, the cathedral shouldn’t be the same colored as the sky, therefore it’s worth selecting all the colors slightly more gray than the original ones and using the Brush Tool (opacity 30%, soft-edged) to impose them to the cathedral.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 38

Assign Color blending mode to this layer.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 39

Step 13

Now the cathedral and the sky is a united composition. In order to make any picture look bright, we need contrast. For that purpose use warm and cold color, we have already performed this method while adding contrast of the sky, now we should do the same with the cathedral; let’s choose less bright colors again. Create a new layer, assign Overlay blending mode to it. Select the Brush Tool (Opacity: 30%) and soft-edged brush again, then paint out prominent parts of the cathedral using cold color (#8d8fd3), for other parts of the cathedral we choose warm color (#753d3d).

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 40

If we assign Normal blending mode to this layer, the result should be approximately the following:

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 41

Step 14

There is only one detail left. If we look on the edges of the cathedral, we can notice that the main source of light is situated behind the cathedral, so the rays that come through the clouds should light the walls of the cathedral partially.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 42

Create a new layer, select the Brush Tool (Opacity: 100%) and soft-edged brush again and light the corner of the castle partially, select color using the Eyedropper Tool.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 43

The general picture should approximately look like my screenshot below:

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 44

Step 15

In order to make the picture look better, it’s worth making the edges dark, it will draw attention to the centre and will give the feeling of depth and volume. Create a new layer, select the Brush Tool (Opacity: 100%) with soft-edged brush again and darken the edges with black color.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop 45

Final Image

Now change blending mode for this layer to Soft Light.

How to Make a Gothic Collage in Photoshop

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *