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Create a Distant Desert City Scene with Energy Ray Blast in Photoshop

In this tutorial, I will show you the processes I use to create this fantasy style, really cool distant desert city scene with an awesome energy ray blasting through the sky in Photoshop.
Along the way, we will be using tons of layer blending techniques, and I will show you how to merge the images together effectively and efficiently. We will also explore skills such as masking, filter effects and various custom brushsets.
This is an intermediate-level tutorial, have a try!
Here is a preview of my final effect for this tutorial: (Click to enlarge)
desert-city-blast
Alternative version
desert-city-blast-alt
OK Let’s get started!
To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stocks:
Desert
Mist Brushset
Misty Rock
Sunset Sky
Distant City
Star Brushset
Lightning

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1280px * 800px, leave the background colour as White. Load the “Desert” stock image into Photoshop, copy and paste the entire image onto our document, position it as shown below:
1 resize
Name the new layer as “Desert”, add a layer mask onto it. On the layer mask, use the “Mist Brushset” we have just download (any brush in the set), erase the top part of the image as shown below:
1 eraser 2
This will form a nice misty effect for the image and make it easier for the layer blending later on:
1 effect
Now duplicate this “Desert” layer once and on the duplicated layer, go to filter > blur > gaussian blur and apply the following settings:
1 gau blur
Change the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “Screen” and drop its opacity to 70%, you will have the following effect:
1 effect 2
Now we have a very nice, dusty and misty desert scene with a lot of room to expand our imagination.

Step 2

To further adjust the colour balance and contrast of the desert, I add the following three adjustment layers on top of the previous two layers: (from bottom to top)
Color Balance
2 col bal
Curves
2 curves
Levels
2 levels
and you will have the following effect:
2 effect

Step 3

Now I feel that only the desert is a bit boring, so I decided to add some object into it so to create some depth for the image. So let’s load the “misty rock” image into Photoshop, copy and paste the entire image onto our document and name the new layer as “rock”, apply the following mask on the rock layer:
3 mask
Change the layer blending mode of this layer to “Hard light”, you will have the following effect:
3 effect
Add a Black and White adjustment layer on top of this rock layer, make sure to tick “use previous layer as clipping mask” option:
3 bw
Then duplicate the “rock” layer once and drag it to the top, change the blending option of the duplicate layer to “overlay”, you will have the following effect so far:
3 effect 2

Step 4

Load the “Sunset Sky” image into Photoshop, copy and paste it onto our document and name this new layer as “sky”, resize and position it as shown below:
4 sky drag
Add a layer mask to this sky layer, on the mask, use a soft round brush to gently erase the bottom part of the sky layer, as shown below:
4 mask
and you will have the following effect:
4 effect
Add the following two adjustment layers to the sky layer, make sure to tick “use previous layer as clipping mask” option:
Color Balance
4 col bal
Curves
4 curves
Then duplicate the original Sky layer once and drag it to the top. On the first duplicated sky layer, apply the following motion blur setting to it:
4 motion blur
After applying the motion blur filter, duplicate this layer once and change the duplicate layer’s blending mode to “Hard light”, you will have the following effect:
4 effect 3
You can see now we have a very nice sky on top of the desert, which makes the image more vibrant.

Step 5

Load the Distant City stock into Photoshop, cut out the city bit with any selection tool you like to use, copy and paste the selection on our document, name the new layer as “city” and use a big, soft brush to erase the surrounding, and leave only the centre of the city selection as shown below:
5 erase
Duplicate this city layer twice, change the first duplicated layer’s blending mode to “Soft light”, and leave the second layer’s blending mode as “Normal”, but drop the opacity to 45%.
You will have the following effect:
5 duplicate

Step 6

Now we’re onto creating the energy blast. Firsty we can make some background highlight for the blast. To do this, create a new layer called “highlight” and grab a soft round brush with white colour, gently paint over the centre area above the city.
Make sure to set the blending mode of this layer to “Hard Light” with an opacity of around 35%:
6 highlight
Now on top of this layer, create a new layer called “laser”, grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool with a 10px feather, make a selection and fill it with white colour as shown below:
6 rect
Apply the following layer blending option to this layer:
Outer glow
6 out glow
Inner glow
6 inner glow
and you will now have this effect:
6 effect

Step 7

Create a new layer called “Sparkle” on top of all previous layers, set its blending mode to “overlay”. Load the “Star Brushset” we download in and use it to paint around the laser line to create some sparkling effect:
7 sparkle
Duplicate the “Sparkle” layer once, and apply the following Radial Blur setting to the duplicated layer:
7 radial blur
Name this layer “Radial” and maintain its blending mode to “overlay” and duplicate it twice more, you will have the following effect:
7 effect
Then duplicate those three layers together once, use the Free Transform Tool to transfrom them to the left side, as shown below:
7 effect 2

Step 8

Now we want to work on to the top part (sky) of the laser energy ray. Create a new layer named “sky highlight” and again use a soft brush with white colour to paint over the top centre of the sky, and set the layer blending mode to “overlay”, with opacity around 40%:
8 sky hi
Then create a new layer on top of all previous layer and name it as “light top”, fill the layer with black colour and go to Filter > Render > Lens Flare and apply the following settings:
8 lens fla
Change this blending mode of this layer to “Screen”, use a soft brush to erase all areas expect the centre portion, as shown below:
8 erase
Duplicate this layer once, and move it the bottom of the city and change the blending mode to “overlay”, you will have the following effect:
8 dupl

Step 9

Now we can add some lightning effec to the top for further effect. Load the “Lightning” stock image into Photoshop, copy and paste the entire image onto our document and use a soft brush to erase the outer portion of the image.
Change the blending mode of the new layer to “screen” and you will have the following effect:
9 effect
Duplicate this layer once and free transform (Ctrl + T)  the duplicated layer as shown below:
9 effect 2
To futher touchup the image, we can add the following adjustment layers:
Curves
9 curves
Color Balance
9 col
and here is the final effect for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)desert-city-blast
That’s it for this tutorial! Of course you can further enhance the image effect by mixing lighting effect, change hue/saturation settings, etc.
Here is an alternative version I have after I change a few things: (click to enlarge)
desert-city-blast-alt
Hope you enjoy it! Drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

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