For this masterclass, professional matte painter Sarel Theron reveals the process and insider secrets of matte creation. Using reference images and Photoshop’s Clone Stamp tool, he focuses on the creation of a 2D digital matte painting, from beginning sketch to final work. For an image of this complexity, you should expect to spend 24 to 32 hours illustrating it. In this Photoshop masterclass we will re-create a mythical version of the ancient Inca city, Machu Picchu, also known as the Lost City. We’ve used Adobe Photoshop to complete this process, which is available separately or as part of Adobe Creative Cloud. Some students are eligible for an extended free trial of Creative Cloud, and there are also ways to get Photoshop for free. You’ll need a photo of Machu Picchu – I got mine from iStock which you can download here. Hold down Cmd (Mac) or Ctrl (Windows), and click-&-drag the photograph of Machu Picchu as it appears today into your new document. Place the photo in the centre of the canvas, then move it to the bottom right. Select a soft standard brush of about 30 pixels and start drawing in the general outlines of the new scenery that you are going to add. Add a bit more detail to the mountain by picking various shades from the original photograph and applying it to your new layer. The sky and landscape extensions are all done from my imagination, but you are welcome to use reference photographs if that makes it easier for you. Repeat what you did in step five, but add a little bit more detail this time. Use the original photograph as your colour palette in order to keep a uniform and balanced colour scheme throughout your picture. This sketch will give you an idea of what your final composition will look like, displaying elements such as colour, lighting and perspective. Ideally you shouldn’t spend more than a few hours working on this colour rough. Next we will start to render our matte in a bit more detail and try to give the painted area more of a photorealistic appearance. Make use of adjustment layers and colour overlays placed over your sky layer to view changes without affecting your working layer. Once your sky is finished go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and add a little bit of Gaussian Noise to help it match the ‘film’ grain of the original plate. Select your ‘Right mountain’ layer and set the Clone Stamp tool to ‘non-aligned’. Hold down Alt to turn your cursor into a crosshair and select the area of mountain on the original plate indicated by the red circle. Carefully start painting in the photographic textures over your sketch. For the cliffs, I used texture samples from the cliff on the original plate indicated by the blue circle. Select your topmost layer, and drag this new photograph into your main image. Press Cmd/Ctrl + B and set your colour midtone balance to cyan 30, green 25, blue 65. Next, go to Image > Adjustments > Brightness > Contrast. Set your brightness to -30 and contrast to -25. Select your ‘Left foreground mountain’ layer and the Clone Stamp tool. Use the area indicated by the red rectangle on the new photograph as your texture palette, and apply the textures over your sketch varying your pen pressure. Cover the nearer ruins with vegetation and add a few trees. Create your trees by drawing in the trunks and branches, then select an existing area of vegetation and clone it over the tree branches to create the leaves. Finally, delete ‘Layer 4’ (your new photograph layer). You’ll need to do a fair amount of retouching with the Healing Brush, Clone Stamp tool and paint brushes to get the city looking habitable again. As a final step you can add a few adjustment layers on top of the image as well as a universal layer blend mode to set the overall mood.
