Digital Matte Painting: 1 Concept

Learn to create new worlds, both fanciful and totally realistic, in our series on digital matte painting in Adobe Photoshop with David Mattingly, a matte artist for many groundbreaking motion pictures such as Tron and I, Robot. In this installment, he shows you how to set up your palettes and workspace, tone the underlying plate, create silhouettes in your background, and paint in light and other details. Plus, learn to paint waterfalls, smoke, and other elements that make for fascinating movie backdrops.

Topics include:

• Setting up your Photoshop workspace
• Toning the plate with adjustment layers
• Examining transfer modes
• Finding the silhouette
• Drawing internal forms
• Creating a custom brush for clouds
• Painting the sky