Tutorial: Bushes/vegetation

Decided to write in English as it's a very pretty language and my Photoshop version is in english, so I know what all the things are named in english. Also, hopefully it will make my English better...

Vegetation, such as bushes and trees are oftan essential to the outcome of a picture. It doesn't have to be so detailed that it'll blow everyone away, you mainly have something else to do that.
However, that doesn't mean the vegetation has to be blurry or 'random'.
This of course depends much on style and feeling.
This is a pretty simple tutorial for some unidentified, 'basic' vegetation.
I use a tablet, with settings so that the flow is controlled by pressure. I believe the setting is called transfer.
If you use a mouse or the touchpad, i think it'll make your life a bit easier if you set the opacity to about 50% when adding the leaves and such.




Start off with an unevenly shaped base using some kind of green. Or pink. Or blue. Just a color will be fine :)
I usually use a hard-edged brush with some 70-or-so percent scattering.



Turns out that my shade of green was to bright for the rest of my picture, whyfor I randomly attack it with the burn tool to make it look less out of place.



Now begin to define the actual shape and depth of the bush and its leaves. Using a hard-edged brush, gently add streaks of a brighter color, on a new layer.

If you have a tablet, I deeply recommend you to use the 'transfer'- setting, so that the opacity will depend on pressure (I actually don't know what the name of that particular setting is named, but if you have a tablet you'll know which one I'm talking about...)

Use slightly different shades so that you get more dimension and depth.
Try to imagine how the light will fall over the vegetation and adjust the colors using burn and dodge, or shades of color. I rather like both burn and dodge, but usually it isn't enough to use only those two. The other colors can be added later though.



Now to the leaves. If you drew the brighter streaks with some afterthought, you will probably find that the shape of the leaves will come to you effortlessly.
I found it a bit tricky to get the hang of the contours at first (it looked wierd), ie when I tried to think way to much.
Just let it flow, follow your streaks. It doesn't need to be perfect.
I recommend you to have a new layer for this, a brighter shade of green and a 1px brush.



That's all leaves done. It'll probably take about the hour and you'll get so sick of doing this you don't really know what hit you...

Now, this could be considered 'done', but as I always have to complicate life (and as it has to harmonize with the general picture, let's take it further.



Going beneath the last layer, the 'detaillayer' add one above the layer with general streaks.
Using a large, feathery brush and a very low opacity indeed, add some of the other colors you have in the picture. Here, I took some browns and blues, as they're in the waterfall behind the bush. I might have overdone this here. Advice: Don't.
That's why it's on a separate layer.




I like sharp lines, but it does look pretty out of place.
This is where you use the smudge tool, gently and ever so carefully smudge out the sharpest lines.
You'll see where it needs smudging and if it needs it at all. I usually find it pretty if the sharp lines are mixed with the softer parts.

Please don't mutilate the lines (it's admittedly easily done). The idea is for them to fit in better, not to look as though someone sneezed green color all over the picture.

I used about 12% strenght, but with pressure sensitivity, so probably about 6 %.

Once again, this would be considered done...



...However, this stands out to much for the picture I'm working on, so I add an adjustment layer with curves, so that it comes out a bit darker.

Summoning it up:

Time: for me, maybe 2 hours. I'm pretty slow though
Amount of rage: Less the second time you try
Level: Not so advanced


The whole picture, still in progress.