Quintessential Scenery

Helloooo, I just found a new hobby and that is Photomanipulation. This is my first go at it.



For this I just like the idea of a beautiful night sky and made it, I guess. I'm still a newbie in diffentiating the lights as you can see. I still haven't gotten used to what to do with the lighting

[image: img11.deviantart.net]

You can see the water isn't pretty realistic as well *sigh*. I'm still far from being "pro".

I'm shamefully asking for new ideas as my brain has run out of creative juice. I'm also open minded so please, FIRE AWAY

Is this an actual photo that you are imposing a background onto, or is this whole thing put together, or what? The picture looks dark but otherwise it looks pretty cool.

changing the background usually leads to the textures looking a little stiff,
thus they do not fit right in as easily, so here's two tips i wish i found out much sooner:
1. cartoon effects are god. (effects that add a black outlining to contures, on gimp it's called 'cartoon')
it can really help making the whole thing fit together much better, providing a more natural look.

2. if the black outlining isn't you pair of shoes: contrast. contrast can cast miracles. your picture would look much more natural, if you dialed up brightness by a small bit, and contrast by about 2 to 3 times as much, you will immediately see what i mean. (you need the brightness increase, so your picture will not be too dark, i usually keep this 1:3 brightness to contrast increase ratio.)

other than that you are on a great path, and will hopefully have a lot of fun with CG in the future, it's a great hobby.
i personally enjoy taking pictures of forests and changing the colour scheme so the forests are blue. love blue forests.

exhibit A:
[image: www.bilder-upload.eu]

I have no skills so no advice but I like this, lovely colours. Think I can make out my star.

I'm not good at photomanipulation, rather into digital painting (although I'm no pro at that either), so all I can tell you is...practice. Look at tutorials on stuff you're not sure about, and other than that...study already existing works and maybe try to do something similar.

Just experiment a bit with filters, effects and brushes. Btw may I ask, what program are you using and do you have a graphic tablet?