14 photo editing tips and tricks every landscape photographer must know

Essential photo editing tricks for landscapes: 11 Make a surreal scene

If you're into Photoshop montage, then a simple landscape base image can prove useful as a backdrop for a huge range of surreal subjects.

This is something we see time and time again: a plain shot of grass, concrete or any other textured surface that recedes into the distance, eventually meeting a hazy horizon and moody sky. It's an effective mood-setter, and they are surprisingly easy to make.

To make it, we opened the three 'surreal' images (sky, carpark, and tree) then made a rectangular selection of the car park. Next, copy and paste it onto the sky image and position it over the bottom.

Add a Layer Mask and plot a black to white gradient on it to blend the land and sky together.

Next, make a new layer then plot a white to transparent reflected gradient over the horizon to add a misty effect.

Lower the layer opacity to suit, then cut out and drop in any other image elements you like, such as our tree here.

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