Now that we have all of our elements here on our canvas, the next thing we need to do is start trying
to merge these together in a really clean way.
I could go ahead right now and just it just sort of merge these layers together as is.
But it's a bit clunky.
And I'm seeing parts of the biz back through the background.
There's a very straight line here on the corners where our picture ends, cuts of some of our trees,
and it just doesn't look very natural.
So this lesson is all about blending these two elements together and making it look as real as we can
because it's going to take the bulk of our work out for us down the line.
The first thing I want to do is clean up the edges.
So I'm going to zoom right in here and we can just clone from a tree that exists already.
We don't have to try and recreate the side of this tree from memory.
We don't have to try and draw it on or anything like that.
But before we can edit this layout, we need to rest, erase it.
So come on over to the forest layer, right.
Click and then press restaurateur's layer and that will let us use our Clun tool on this layer.
So I'm grabbing my clone tool from over here.
And if you're not seeing the outline of your brush like I just was, it was looking like that that could
be because your caps lock is on.
So if you're like me and type with your caps, look on, turn it off and you'll be able to see the outline
of your brush as a tip for you that I only learned recently.
So I'm going to grab this tree right here.
So I'm going to take my clone tool press option and click down where I want my source to come from.
And you can say I'm dragging a piece of that tree across with me.
I'm going to pretend that that is the top of our tree up here.
Just gently sketch that in.
Let the outside of that tree show up here.
And I'm happy to take a little bit of that tree next to it right there.
And we have made the corner of that tree back to where it started.
I'm going to increase the hardness and decrease the size a little bit so that we can get really particular
down here about what we want that to look like.
I'm going to take the top of that tree, line that up over here.
So don't forget, you press option to select your source area and then you start clicking over here
and the tree will be drawn in.
The reason I went over that tree was because I didn't like that.
It was half opaque.
I want it to be a really solid color.
There we go.
Now I'm going to grab my eraser tool and it is enormous right now.
So I'm going to make it a lot smaller and I'm going to make it quite hard.
But we're going to zoom in even more and we're just going to clean up the edges.
Where trees don't belong.
So I'm pretending this second tree never existed.
I've made my brush a long shape.
You can adjust that by touching these circles on either side.
You can have a quite round brush or you could have quite a skinny one.
I find this helps, especially coming in here on these kind of shapes that are trees.
We're going to pretend that the photo ends on the edge of this tree right here.
So I'm going to zoom out and I'm going to come across and do that on the other side as well.
So we're missing a whole tree here.
We could either end it right here.
We could erase this tree right there.
But I'd like to keep as many trees as we can.
So let's draw ourselves a brand new tree on the end here.
Come on over to the tree.
We're going to clone.
And on a Mac, I'm pressing an option key to select my source.
If you're on a windows, you can press the alt key.
So then I just click there.
I've defined my new source material.
I'm coming over and I'm pretending that tree lived over here the entire time, making sure you get all
those leaves, but nothing really too extra over there.
Make that look like a bit of a cliff edge, we're going to blend that in a minute.
So not too fast about that and that's much less less harsh way to end that line over there.
So I think the curve of these trees can blend with our bear a little bit.
He has a very a very shapely back up here.
And I want to make sure our trees look like they belong on his back.
So they're not just sort of propped up there like a horizon.
I'm going to do that by pressing Command T to transform my shape and I'm going to right.
Click on this free transform and select the warp key.
When we warp, we can start stretching our shape in all sorts of different, different ways.
I'm going to press undo on that and I'm going to use the corners to drag them in so that it looks like
this bear has curved out for us.
So we want to be slight.
We don't want our tree trunks bending, but we do want the shape of our image to be matching the curvature
of our bear's back a little bit higher up here.
And you can play around with this.
You can be as exact as you want.
Going to line that up right there with those trees and his ear.
And then at the back, I want to make sure we see his tail here.
So I'm just adjusting the corners like.
So in fact, I think I might drag that down.
Quite a fair way, more to straighten you up.
There we go.
I like that, I'm happy with that when I'm ready, I can press the move key to lock it into place so
you can take this time now to make sure that the trees are the exact height you want them to be, because
in a minute, we're going to lock these layers together so that we can edit them down the line.
And I want to make sure that our bear has a realistic shape.
You know, if it's too high, he looks really, really quite fat.
And if he's too skinny down here, it's not going to look very real to make sure you're comfortable
with where those trees are going.
And once you've found where you'd like them, even if a part of the bear peeks through at the back,
you can put those in place.
So I like that right there.
I'm going to take this opportunity to remove our bear a little bit.
So I've reduced the opacity here on our forest layer just so that I can come in with my razor to make
it a little bit bigger back to being around Tool.
And I'm just going to remove any of this bear that kind of comes over in front of our forest here and
we won't see this part of the bear.
All I'm focused on is these gaps in the trees that's going to make it look more realistic with the forest.
You're going to see the light coming through at the back.
So this doesn't have to be very neat.
But any part of the bear that peeks through in front of where you'd like those trees to be, you can
just get rid of those like.
So right now, I'm going to go back to my first layer, to the opacity, back up to 100 percent, and
then I'm going to blend my forest layer and my bare layer together.
We can copy this folder down here, create a new one and just merge the group as one image.
Now, when we turn off our spare layer, we're just left with our bare all together on one layer, ready
for us to blend in the next lesson.
We're going to do that together.
So I'm going to name this bear and trees and I'll see you in the next one where we can do some blending.