Guide to Equine Manipulation 2

Notes – This is the sequel to the first Guide to Equine Manipulation. It contains new sections, more advice and redone tutorial links. As previously, you can find links to tutorials in the artist's comment.
I. Step One - Cutting
I have found the best tool to use for cutting the pen tool (or paths if you're in Gimp). It is superior to the eraser in that you don't have to worry about clear lines and jagged cuts. It takes a bit of getting used to at the start, but after that you can go faster than when you use the eraser.
II. Step Two - Smudging?
Smudging is a fad in photo manipulations. It is intended to get rid of grains. It is not meant to make your horse blurry and plastic looking! An over smudged horse is an almost a sure sign of an amateur photo manipulation artiest. You don't want people to think you're an amateur! So don't over smudge. The horse should never be blurrier than the background (unless you are purposely using something else as the focus). When you do smudge, there is a method that works best. First, duplicate the horse layer. Then smudge the top layer on about thirty percent.  Go with the flow of the muscles and do not blur markings. Then, lower the opacity of this layer so to let the un-smudged layer show. Once you are satisfied merge the layers. Remember, smudging is not always necessary and it is usually best to refrain from smudging where it is not needed.
III. Step Three - Mane and Tail
Paint the mane and tail. This will take practice – a lot of it. Painting is better than smudging the manes and tails because you can make them look however you want and they are sharper and much better looking. You can use download brushes (Arisistables Very Hairy Brushes are popular) but you should still draw in your own individual strands. Strands should be between one to four pixels although you can have your base strands a bit larger. If you have a tablet, you can use pen pressure on the size and opacity of the strand. If you do not have a tablet, you can use the fade option explained by a tutorial linked below. Start with a medium tone. Then you can paint in some darker and lighter strands. Never use pure black and white as you cannot dodge and burn them. Burn and the base and wherever should be in shadow. Dodge where the highlights should be.
IV. Step Four – Markings
If you want to give your plain horse markings, there are ways to do it. Duplicate the horse layer and change its color to whatever you want the markings to be. Then put a layer mask on it and paint in the markings. This involves enough technical terms that you would really want to see a tutorial on how to do this.
V. Step Five – Horns and Wings
It is almost impossible to find readymade unicorn horns, thus you may want to paint them yourself. Make a triangle (I'm sure all programs have a tool where you can easily create one) in the basic shape of the horn. Then get your eraser and set it to a small size and pen pressure shape if you have a tablet. Carve out bulges in decreasing size. Then put the layer on a transparency lock and paint the shadows and highlights.
Wings should be well blended. Be sure to change the color of them so that they match the horse. You can blend them on using a combination of the soft eraser and the clone brush. See the tutorials for more details.
VI. Step Six- Lighting
This should really be part of Step Seven, fitting your horse into the background, as it is crucial that the lighting in your background and on your horse must match. Lighting is very important. The first step to lighting is to pick out your light source. This is usually the sun, but it could be the moon, a fire, a lamp or anything else emitting light. The horse should be darker where the light is not hitting it and lighter were it is. Fire or any other colored lighting would be reflected onto the horse. You can also paint with black and white on a soft light layer to help with the lighting.
VII. Step Seven - Fitting Your Horse into the Background
If the horse is standing on dirt, sand or anything soft you should lightly erase the very bottom of the hooves with a soft eraser. If the horse is standing in grass, find your default grass brush and erase with that. Water is trickier. If the water is dark and you cannot see into it, simply erase where the horse hits the water. If the water is transparent, then you should be able to see the horse's legs. Taking an eraser not on full opacity usually works. There should also be ripples and a reflection. If the water or the horse is moving there should be splashes, but not otherwise.
The hue and saturation in your horse and background should also match. If the background is bright and colorful, the horse should be bright and colorful. This is easy to fix because you can simply use the tools under Image<Adjustment (in Photoshop at least).