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Today you will learn how to create an isometric perspective grid in Adobe Photoshop. To make a nice isometric view illustration, we will add some photo textures.
Create an isometric icon or illustration in Photoshop from a flat image in seconds with this 3D generator from Envato Elements.
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If you're in a hurry and looking for some ready-made isometric icons to use in your projects (along with many other awesome types of isometric vectors), read this article:
Tutorial Assets
To complete the tutorial, you will need the following assets:
- Dirt and roots
- Landscape 1
- Landscape 2
- Sea
- Soil texture (personal photo, available inside the zip file)
1. How to Make an Isometric Grid
Step 1
First of all, we need to add an isometric grid to our canvas. You can find instructions for this in the isometric tutorial we published earlier.
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Step 2
Based on the grid, draw a rectangle vector shape on the isometric surface. You can use any color, because this is just a guide for our next photo manipulation process.
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Step 3
Duplicate the vector shape by clicking Control-J, and move it upward.
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Step 4
From now on, you can turn off the grid, because we won't be needing it anymore.
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2. How to Build the Soil
Step 1
Draw the left side of the 3D map using the Pen Tool. Double-click its layer shape and then add a Gradient Overlay.
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Step 2
Set its Fill to 0%.
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Step 3
Repeat the same step on the other side.
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Step 4
Draw a new shape using the Pen Tool, covering the whole map. Add a Gradient Overlay to the shape and then set its Fill to 0%.
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Step 5
Grab the soil texture and place it on top of the map.
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Step 6
Control-click the left side of the map to make a new selection based on its shape. Click the Add layer mask icon in the lower part of the Layers panel to cut off the rock texture outside the shape.
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Step 7
Repeat the same process on the other side of the map.
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3. How to Build the Hill
Step 1
Grab the hill landscape and overlay it on the map with low Opacity. Position it until you get a nice perspective.
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Step 2
Add a layer mask to the landscape photo and then paint with black to hide unwanted areas. In this case, I want to retain the street, the hill next to it, and the tree in the corner. Try to get a natural shape using your brush stroke. We don't want this to be a flat, box-like shape.
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Step 3
Let's go back to the soil. We need to make it darker and more believable. Start by painting shadow on its corner. Add a new layer and simply paint black using the Brush Tool with low Opacity.
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Step 4
The result is already much better. Keep on adding black shadow to the soil to make it a lot darker.
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Step 5
Next, grab another dirt or soil texture. Paste it on top of the previous soil and set its mode to Overlay. Take your time, add a layer mask, and carefully insert any dirt, rocks, and roots into the soil to make it as realistic as possible.
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Step 6
Let's add another landscape image to the map. Place the landscape behind the current hill landscape. Add a layer mask to the landscape image and then paint black to remove most of its content while leaving part of its valley.
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Step 7
Add a new layer and then paint shadow on areas of the new landscape as indicated below.
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4. How to Add the Sea to the Isometric View
Step 1
Now, add the sea image behind the map. Position it where you like it most.
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Step 2
Control-click the base of the map to create a new selection based on its shape. Click the Add layer mask icon to hide unselected pixels.
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Step 3
Manually fix broken elements in the landscape, if there are any, by painting them with white using a soft brush. In this case, do this with the rock.
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Step 4
To add more waves to the sea, we can simply duplicate the sea image and move it to a different position. Apply the same layer mask as the first one and then hide some of the areas until it blends with the first image.
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Step 5
Select the ocean by Control-clicking on its layer shape. Add a Photo Filter Adjustment Layer with Cooling Filter to increase the contrast of its blue sea surface.
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5. How to Add Details
Step 1
Let's add more contrast to the scene manually. Start by selecting the main hill. Make a new layer on top of it and then click Edit > Stroke to add a stroke line.
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Step 2
Apply a Gaussian Blur filter to soften the line, and then reduce its Opacity setting in the Layers panel. If necessary, you can also delete a segment of the blurred line using the Eraser Tool.
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Step 3
Repeat this process, and add another shadow by painting with black on a new layer.
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Step 4
Let's make the road more realistic by adding an unfinished street at the end. Activate the hill landscape layer and then paint with white to reveal a chunk of street hanging outside the map. Right underneath the street, paint black to add thickness to the street and then paint a big soft shadow on the soil.
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Step 5
To make it appear more realistic, add a new layer and scribble some short black lines using the Pencil Tool with 1 px brush size on the street. Duplicate the layer, and invert its color to white by pressing Control-I. Move the white scribbles down 1 pixel. Reduce their Opacity setting in the Layers panel.
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Step 6
Add another shadow and highlight onto the scene by painting with black and white using a soft big brush with low Opacity.
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Step 7
Here's the fun part. The map will not be complete until we have a small car on the empty street. You might notice that in our main landscape there's a parked car. Select and then copy it to a new layer (Control-J). Place it on the street, add a layer mask, and then hide unneeded pixels by painting them with black.
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6. How to Add the Background
Step 1
We will use a simple background for this map. Activate the Gradient Tool with a standard white to black gradient. Drag from top to bottom until we have this background.
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Step 2
Let's add a shadow underneath the map. Control-click the base to make a new selection. Fill it with black, deselect (Control-D), and then apply a Gaussian Blur filter (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) to soften it. Repeat this process a few times with different Radius settings and layer Opacity until we have a realistic floor.
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Step 3
We may need to draw shadow manually by painting black on the canvas using a big soft Brush Tool with low Opacity.
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Step 4
This grey background is just too dull. Let's make it more interesting by changing its color to blue. Add a Photo Filter Adjustment Layer above the background and select Cooling Filter.
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Conclusion
Now, we have reached the final result. As you can see, there are no complicated tricks in this tutorial. We only used a simple layer mask and a bit of manual drawing. We made a cool isometric perspective illustration in Adobe Photoshop.
I believe that it is important to select the best landscape photos—by doing this, we save ourselves from time-consuming photo editing and can focus on working with the map shape. I hope you understand this tutorial and can follow it easily. If you do follow along, let me know your result. I'd love to see it. Thanks.
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Check out some other awesome tutorials with step-by-step cool isometric view illustrations and our articles about this type of design!
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