Design a Dark and Misty Mountain with Distant City Scene in Photoshop

Step 1

Download the following two stock photos from stockvault.net:

Mountain Image
New York City Stock Photo

Load the "Moutain Image" into Photoshop, duplicate the background layer once. The reason we duplicate the background layer is in case we mess up this duplicated layer, we can always delete it and go back to the original background layer.

We can firstly give this photo a nice and cool gradient effect. So after duplicating, go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Fill, apply the following gradient settings:

Then set the layer blending mode of this adjustment layer to "soft light" and you will have the following effect:

Step 2

Duplicate the background layer once more and drag it to the top. Set the blending mode of this to "Screen" and go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer >Color Balance and apply the following settings:

Keep the blending mode of the adjustment layer as "normal" and you will see the following effect:

Step 3

Now we will add some more colour depth and make the image a bit darker. Firstly, we go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer >Channel Mixer and apply the following settings:

Then go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves and apply the following settings:

Lastly we go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels and apply the following settings:

And you will have the following effect so far:

Step 4

Load the "New York City Stock Photo" into Photoshop, use the Rectangular Marquee (M) tool to select a portion of the image as shown below:

Copy and paste the selection onto our document and name the layer as "city". Resize the image until it fits the width of our canvas and position it as shown below:

Set the blending mode of  "city" layer to "multiply" and erase (using a big soft brush, I used 1,000px with 0% hardness) the the bottom portion of the layer (use a layer mask if you would like to be safe)

Duplicate the "city" layer once and apply the following Gaussian Blur settings:

Set the blending mode of the duplicated layer to "screen" and you will add a glowing effect for the city far-away:

Step 5

Now we can render some mist/cloud for the forest and also add some uneven lighting effect. To do this, create a new layer called "lighting effect", use the Lasso Tool with 80px feather to make a selection for the mountain forest, and render some cloud inside it (Filter > Render > Cloud):

Change layer blending option to "overlay" and you will see the following effect:

Duplicate the "lighting effect" layer and hit Ctrl + L, apply the following Curves Adjustments to the duplicated layer:

Change the blending mode of the duplicated layer to "color dodge" and you will see the following effect: (lighting effect towards certain area has been enhanced)

Duplicate this layer a few more times, drag each of the duplicated layers around the image to produce more dynamic lighting effect and misty environment: (keep the blending mode to "color dodge" for each layer).

Here is the effect after duplication:

Ok that's it for this tutorial! As for my final image, I slightly adjusted the hue/saturation:

Alternative colour scheme:

Hope you enjoy this tutorial. Cheers and have a nice day!