Setting the stage

The starship takes centre stage in my composition, so grounding it in the environment is key at this point. I focus on getting the shadows and lighting on the 3D model to fit the environment. I toggle through a few layers that I exported from SketchUp to paint in the shadows more appropriately using layer masks. I switch between painting in black and white to add and erase out what I want.

Colour layer blending modes

Once the shadows are in place, I paint a solid colour on to the starship and toggle through the layer blending modes to get it to fit in the environment. In this case I use a Hard Light layer, which I use quite often. This gives the layer a nice uniform colour glaze over the layer. To control contrast I paint a gradient set on Darken and then adjust the levels.