nameless heroes

Hi everyone,

I’ve been working on this picture for quite a while and it’s almost finished. However, I’m stuck at creating a decent background, since I’m not really experienced with image manipulation. What I would like to do is put a picture of a forest in the background of my rendered image and match the colors with the rendered image (using gimp).



This is my closest attempt, but the foreground still kind of jumps off the background and it’s too blue… Also this is the feeling I’m trying to recreate. I haven’t done anything similar before so I’m not sure what I am looking for but it’s certainly not all right, so could you suggest some things to look into? (maybe tutorials, plugins or tools I should use, etc.)

If I were you, I’d do the following:

  1. clone the foreground for backup.
  2. hide the clone and add contrast, maybe also change the gamma (darken it a little bit).
  3. do the same with the background, except that I’d decrease contrast and gamma.

The hue/saturation/value color tool is pretty powerful, though my experiences are that only very slight changes are needed in most cases. You probably also want to add some Gaussian blur to the background, as it’s much too detailed.

These steps will of course create a dark image. To have the effect you want, somewhat “dreamy”, add a transparent layer on top and paint some yellow/red/blue (color fluctuations are important) spots with different sizes and a very soft brush. It’s very important to keep the original image to compare them, and you should go away every now and then. When you come back, you will have new ideas, and get a better feeling for the composition.

Personally, I think this image is too dark and has too many color/light edges (e.g., the stone way) to create the dream-effect; if you cannot create what you want to, then either you haven’t tried enough (don’t give up!) or it simply doesn’t work (in this case, try to create a completely different feeling).

I hope this helps.

Wow, it surely helps, very interesting and useful advice… even gave me a lot of new ideas to play around with. Thank you very much :slight_smile:

You’re welcome. Don’t forget to post the result :wink:

Based on the hints you gave me… :slight_smile: I’m still playing with it, but I think it looks better


Nice atmosphere on your new composite! Much better!

wow i love the picture. Nice atmosphere!! is that duskwood? :smiley:

Awesome :smiley:
Just another hint: fog is water, and water reflects light, so I’d add some glowing effect around the bright areas. Depending on the atmosphere, the color should then be adjusted either to the blue or the red/orange/yellow spectrum. And fog also has a weight, especially if it is as contrast-rich as in your image, I’d remove some of the fog in the upper half of the picture.

And finally a (free) quote from David Revoy: “High contrast and details attract the eye.”

Yes, the fog is a bit unrealistic in the upper areas, but I really like it because it creates that dreamy feeling you talked about. So I experimented with a slight rain effect which makes it a bit more believable, and this way I could also add a little smoke around the glowing hammer, which really like :smiley: … So what are your thoughts?


And yes, it’s Duskwood :slight_smile:

The lighting draws the gaze towards the hammer, lights and the obelisque in the foreground. I don’t understand what the purpose or message of this image is, if it’s about the character I’d consider makeing more of a closeup of him instead and improve the lighting to lift him forwards more (for example his head/face).

Wow, that dudes armor almost looks as if it is from WoW.

Ars est artem celare. Congratulations for achieving that result! As long as others don’t see any mistakes or have any ideas, I’d say it’s done.