Step 4. Add a colour palette
Create a new layer and use either your reference or an image that you like and set up the basic colour palette for the image.
Creating a palette in this way keeps the colours within the range you want to use, and prevents the image from becoming too “muddy”.
Now we are going to work on a larger image to include more detail so change the image size to about 2500 pixels wide.
I have chosen colours here to represent the late afternoon feel I want to achieve. On another new layer, start to block in the colours with a soft transparent brush, building up the shapes and the shadows. With digital painting you have the advantage of being able to erase your mistakes with ease so feel free to experiment with what works!
Step 6
Here I have painted in the sky first as a graduated wash on it’s own layer. It is true that I use a lot of layers when painting, this enables me to add effects to them or delete parts that are not working easily. Now we are going to add a sunray effect to the sky. Copy your layer with the colours of the sky and go to Render > Lighting Effects > Omni.
Position the light source where you want it to be, and don’t forget to adjust the colour of the light..make it a little soft, as pure white light will look too stark.
Click ok, and then with the same layer still selected go to Blur > Gaussian Blur.
As you can see I have positioned the center of the blur in the upper right hand corner, and adjusted it until I like the look of it. You can play around with the settings until you have a look you like.
Step 7
Now if you have not yet, paint the water colours on their own layer. I just used a large transparent bristle brush set to about 40% opacity. Use a few layers of colour here and don’t forget to put the shadows of the landscape in. Water is blue, but it also reflects all the colours and light around it.
For the water surface, I used a texture downloaded from here.
Copy and paste the water image into your document and position it over the water area.
Select the texture layer and go to Transform>Warp and stretch it so that the texture is bigger in the foreground, and smaller in the background.
Set the layer to overlay, or soft light..or experiment with which layer option suits the best. Select the eraser tool, and using a soft brush delete the areas of the texture outside of the water surface area.
Step 8
Now, using the cloud brushes you downloaded and installed, create another layer and just experiment with putting the clouds into the image. I have stretched mine a little horizontally toward the horizon.
