Create a Devastating Tidal Wave in Photoshop
Tutorial Details
- Program: Adobe Photoshop CS5
- Difficulty: Beginner
- Estimated Completion Time: 3 Hours
Matte painting is a technique that filmmakers use to create backgrounds for scenes that can’t or don’t exist in real life. In the early days, matte paintings were actually painted onto glass. Today, modern filmmakers use digital applications such as Photoshop to produce the backdrops that they need. We have published many matte painting tutorials on this site meant for intermediate and advanced users. This tutorial is part of a series of tutorials that we will be publishing on this meant for those of you who may be relatively new to Photoshop or matte painting in general.
In today’s tutorial, Matte Painting 101: Create a Devastating Tidal Wave in Photoshop we will give New York City a break and will destroy London with a devastating tidal wave. Let’s get started!
Tutorial Assets
The following assets were used during the production of this tutorial.


WOOOOOW!!!
great tut but was this tutorial already released some time back? :~
no i don’t think so i would have remebered
No I’m sure Im not going crazy. :)
This has been shown before…I wonder if it was premium content tut which is now public
:~
I’ve seen something like this on youtube but not here ;) maybe you’ve seen that one too!
I don’t think this tutorial has been shown before, I’ve certainly not seen it. There was another tidal wave/flooded city tutorial a while back: http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/photo-effects-tutorials/flooded-city-scene/ but that was by a different author. Could be wrong but pretty sure this is new.
I really loved this tutorial. I was trying to create a apocalyptic wallpaper like this but I quit after 15 minutes.
PS: did you use a tablet?
Now this looks like a quality tutorial!
Yeeeeha
Bob Ross
This one looks fun! To create that is…not fun to actually have this happen
Great! I like tutorials of this kind.
nice tutorial, thanks a lot psdtuts.
but kina reminds me of this wallpaper http://phyzer.deviantart.com/art/Tower-Bridge-24878823
Thanks to video tutorial.
Love it. Well explained and looks great
great tut. thx a lot!
Cool efect and great concept !
how nice the creation of Allah,
Again a WOW. Looks so simple do make it. I’m going to give it a try.
Thanks
Thanks, looks nice.
Although two things.
The images for the tutorial are purchase only. (Not good).
The source files for download – do not extract. Always comes up with an error.
I have downloaded the source file on two different computers now, one MAC one PC and both times it has errors when trying to extract.
The image looks fantastic, and I want to try this technique out with your guidance, but I can’t.
What a let down :(
I was able to download all the images — got an error the first time but after confirming my email membership (no cost), and used the links from the Psdtuts email – got them all just fine.
Really? Damn….
Any chance you could email me them?
(mrxile@hotmail.com)
I would be most appreciative!
Thanks Ed for sharing! “bacanisimo”
Dumb question, but can this be done with CS4?
Diff to do this bt nice
It looks absolutely amazing!!! I will try this tut for sure!
Veryy niceeeeeeeee
Phenomenal Tutorial and Phenomenal effect. Downloaded the Source files to my Mac, with no problems – I have CS4, so can’t wait to try out the technique. Thank you again.
thank’s
l love you
nice tut, the brush stuff is good. However, I think the clouds must be change into violent ones, and the water must have some wild ripples and so the reflection of the tower must be modify, just my opinion. It is a nice concept after all.
Its really awesome. Thanks for such resource, i can wait nolonger to practise these techniques. Thanks again bye.
I continue to not understand why images like these are considered matte paintings… matte paintings are realistic paintings that are meant to be used in film, which means they can NOT have rapidly moving elements in them, like TIDAL WAVES… all that stuff should be blank and replaced with CGI… at most you could paint slow moving elements that they could warp and distort to appear moving (like smoke rising… though again more likely they’d add the smoke themselves).
This is a fantastic painting, but you’d get fired if you submitted something like this as a matte painting (or more likely will have spent dozens of hours on a useless rendering).
If you’re talking about Matte Painting in its truest sense, then yes… but the term has grown to cover more than just the film industry.
Nice result, i should think about subscribing :-D
stupid player..just change it..will you..ever heard about youtube
Very nice tutorial! I like the idea. But I think this player used above (blip) is not very good. See, I click on the full screen button and I would like to see a better resolution of the video. I don`t see any button to change that. Anyway, the goal of the tutorial was accomplished with succeed. Very nice.
That idea reminds me when I used to do effects like this: http://www.desentupidoratricolor.com.br/
see on the first slide image there… with some lights and brushes on the image…
Thanks.
Brilliant !!! Thank you ever so much for this tut !!
Muy Weno Very Very
Very nice and creative!
it,s really nice tutorial.:p
Great tutorial. I discovered your blog and am impressed with the quality of content out there. I’m pretty novice with Photoshop, but I still decided to attempt the tutorial.
I leave my humble attempt: http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/2450/tsunamis.jpg
A greeting and thanks.
Excellent work! thank you for sharing all this knowledge with us!
Very nice. I have a similar composition of that as well using similar techniques but different result. Congratulations. Ilde
Nice, but it’s not the London Bridge, it’s the Tower Bridge.
First Fergie ferg got it wrong, now psp.tuts :) sigh
gud … nt bad … actaly gud
Its actually the Tower bridge, not London Bridge
I’ve really liked the final result, how much it tooked you to create this in PS from the beginning to the final result?
Its Tower Bridge, not London Bridge!
the final result is great
Really awsome..
Great tutorial!
goes too fast so its frustrating and difficult to follow
That looks cool!
Hey everyone
I cant down load the stock images anymore the’ve gone….
Can someone email me there’s?
I’d be extremley greatful.
Cheers
Martin
Forgot my email address: m5currie@hotmail.com
Cheers
Martin
hey, do I have to buy a tablet for use the presaure pen?? :s
Yep. You will need a tablet.
Really disappointed with the tutorial. It wouldve been a great tutorial but the beginning the guy was talking way too much and on top of that the rest of the tutorial is zoomed through. I was not able to see what brush he wanted us to use he just zooms through everything just click click click…tell us the brush number or allow us to see what brush your using this couldve been better if only it was NOT a video and an actual tutorial u can look and do step by step
That’s really cool. Sadly, I only have Photoshop CS. -Embarrassed-
just wow