Preparations:
We will be using 3 images here. Lady in white dress, snowy mountains and clouds.
You need to install these brushes:
Falln_BrushesFeathersSet1 (download)
FallnBrushesAngelWings (download)
All rights of these resources belong to their respective owners.
Step 1 - Setting Up Environment:
Create a new document of 750x550 pixels.
Open up the snowy mountains and remove the sky along the rocky edges with a Soft Brush tool (size around 20pts).
Step 2 - Adding Clouds:
Insert the image of clouds below the layer of mountains.
Go to Edit > Free Transform and scale the clouds proportionally till it fits the document nicely.
Step 3 - Adjusting Levels:
Create a new Levels Adjustment Layer.
Insert the values: 7,1.38,255. This will brighten the environment and more details are shown.
Step 4 - Placing the Subject:
Crop the lady out using Pen tool. Place her at the position shown in the diagram.
Use the Soft Brush tool with color #000000, paint some shadow around bottom of the dress.
I will provide more methods to extract a subject away from its background in my next post.
Step 5 - Adding the Wings:
Load Brushes > FallnBrushesAngelWings and select FallnBrushesAngelWings12 with 400pts.
Create a new layer and name it as wings. Choose #FFFFFF as your foreground color and paint in the angel wings.
Go to Edit > Free Transform to distort the left side of the wings upwards slightly.
Step 6 - Enhancing the Details:
As the wings seem to be transparent, I duplicated another layer of wings and set its mode to Hard Light.
Use the Soft Brush tool with color #000000 and opacity 50%, paint some shadow around the sides of lady's arms.
Step 7 - Rays of Light:
Create a new layer and call it as light rays. Select Soft Brush tool with size 100pt and color #FFFFFF. Set its opacity to 40% and start drawing vertical lines across the layer.
Edit > Free Transform to distort the rays in a way that the light source comes from the top-left.
Step 8 - Adding the Feathers:
Load Brushes > Falln_BrushesFeathersSet1 and select Falln-BrushesFeather4.
With several different sizes, paint some feathers around the document. Right-click on the feathers layer and select Blending Options. Check on Outer Glow and set Blend Mode: Linear Dodge (Add), Opacity: 100%, Color: #FFFFFF, Size: 10px.
Step 9 - Magical Dust:
Select the Soft Brush tool with size 3pt and color #FFFFFF. Go to Brush Properties and check on Scattering. Set Scatter to 1000%.
Create a new layer and call it as glowing dust. Start drawing several lines of scattered dots around the lady subject. Right-click the layer and select Blending Options. Check on Outer Glow and set Blend Mode: Linear Dodge (Add), Opacity: 100%, Color: #FFFFFF, Size: 10px.
Step 10 - Adjusting the Colors:
Create a new Hue/Saturation adjustment layer at the topmost. Set Hue:-17, Saturation: -38, Lightness: 0.
On top of Hue/Saturation, create another Curves adjustment layer. Select the Blue channel and pull the center of the curve upwards. This is to add a blue tone effect seen in most fantasy scenes.
