Photoshop tutorial: How to create a matte painting in Photoshop

1. Open a new document by going to File > New and create a blank canvas of 5,700-x-3,900 pixels.
2. Use a large soft eraser to remove the photograph’s sky and then create a new layer named ‘Outlines’ above the photograph.

Adobe Photoshop is the most commonly used software for matte painting. You will have to combine still photography, rendered CG elements and digital paint to create believable virtual backgrounds.

A matte painting is often a painted glass pane that is used to show a landscape or large set piece. Matte paintings are either filmed on set, where they are framed to look like a physical set piece, or they are combined with live footage in post production.

Depending on your prior experience, starting a new skill can be daunting and often demoralizing. Matte painting as an art form is particularly difficult in this sense because there is no middle ground like there is with, say, Concept Art.

Since the early 2000s, computer generated images, aka CGI, has been the default technology for special effects, but in the 70s and 80s, hand-painting was the technique used for certain scenes, which can be seen in the original Star Wars trilogy.

The word matte in matte painting refers to the fact that the painting would matte out or block the image in the background. And as long as the camera didn’t move, the painting and the background scene were merged together on film.

Adobe Photoshop. Best Overall Drawing Software For Professionals ($20.99/Month). Adobe Photoshop is the undisputed industry standard when it comes to creating images and graphics. It’s most suitable for activities like photo editing, digital painting, graphic design, and animation.

The size should be determined by how much of a zoom effect you want. If you want a zoom out effect of 2 to 1, then you should create the matte painting which is 2 times 480 pixels tall by 854 pixels wide. (Always work in square pixels.)

Here we’ve pulled together advice from some of the profession’s leading experts on how to master matte painting….

1. Don’t rush the design process.
2. Present only your best work.
3. Sell your design.
4. Brush up your art skills.
5. Learn to love the cloning stamp.
6. Collect reference data.
7. Don’t force photographs to fit.
8. Use layers sensibly.

Mattes are the foundation of compositing, allowing you to combine multiple images together. In essence, a mat is like a cut out – it tells the computer which areas of the image should be visible and which should be transparent, allowing other images to show through.