Make trees more realistic

One of the tough things I find to do is make a realistic tree after it's been masked and moved. Who has time to clip around all those little leaves? Here's one method I've found that works. Hope it helps you, too. For this tutorial, I used the image from the Train Bridge Contest.

1. Open your Layers palette if it's not already open (Window-> Layers, or F7). Make a copy of your original image by dragging the background layer to the Create A New Layer icon, then letting go. (Most of these steps are guidelines; this is a rule: ALWAYS work on a COPY of your original image.)

2. Make your selection as close to the edge of the tree shape as possible (it will save you time later). I used the Pen tool, set to Paths. When you've closed the loop of your selection, right click on the path and choose Make Selection from the pop-up menu.

Depending on the resolution of your image, choose Feather 1-3 pixels. Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-C then Ctrl-V to copy and paste into a new layer.

3. For this tutorial, I deliberately selected part of the train that I want
to hide. Use the Clone tool to do that.

Use a medium sized brush (choose best size for your image resolution) at 35-45% hardness, 100% opacity.

The key to realistic patching of trees and bushes is to use several source points. After one or two clicks, I change my source point to minimize what I call "clone stutter." (Don't laugh, you've seen it!)

4. Now tackle that rounded blurry edge.

From the Default brushes, choose any Spatter brush (depending on tree size), set to 100% opacity. Start at size 100, but change the size as you go along, choosing larger or smaller sizes to add realistic and random edges. (Shortcut keys are [ to make tool smaller and ] to make it larger.) Experiment with different Spatter brushes to add more variety and randomness.

Once in a while, click several times in the same spot to get a very clean erasure.

As you go around, move your brush more to the edge or more into the tree, to help re-shape the roundness. DO NOT drag your brush. (Do it once and you'll know why I say that.)

5. Want some sky or other background to be seen through the tree? Take this next step. I loaded a simple sky layer behind the tree layer so you can see the effect. Still using your Eraser tool, choose #39 Dry Brush from your Dry Media Brushes. Size it to about 90, at 100% opacity. Click in one place two, three, or more times, until you're satisfied with the look. Repeat in a couple of places on the tree.

FINISHED! Now your tree is ready to be placed into another scene. Hope this helps you!