Natural Grass - Day or Night!
(Adobe Photoshop 7 Effect Tutorial)
The real trick to making making your grass look real is to understand how the brushes work. You're gonna kick yourself when you see how easy it really is!
Grass for nighttime scenes
1: Create a new black (or dark colored) 1024x768 image. Create a new layer. I'd advise you name it something like "Grass foreground" so you can keep your stuff in order. Now select the single-blade grass brush 
. The look of the grass is completely dependent on what you have your foreground and background color palette set to, so choose wisely. For nighttime, I chose black as my background color and a dark green for my foreground 
. Using these settings, run the grass blade over the very bottom of the canvas. With same settings and on the same layer, go over the single-blade grass with the triple-blade grass brush 
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2: More than likely, you're already satisfied with how that looks. Notice how the different color variances that are preset to the brush give it depth! However, if you're looking to make a field-type look, continue on. With the "grass foreground" layer as you topmost layer, create a new layer underneath. On this layer, repeat the step above, only make sure that your grass brush sizes are slightly smaller and that you move up on the canvas, usually 3/4 of the height of the previous grass layer. You know, things look smaller when they're farther away. Repeat as necessary (image to the left has 4 layers), depending on the distance you'd like to achieve, making sure that each new layer is added below the previous layer. 
3: Now, so it won't look so bright in the middle of the night and so the blending will look better, I suggest you lower the opacity of some of the layers to around 75%-85%. As another finishing touch, using a small, scattered brush (I used the leaves) and a lighter color like yellow, run it over a few of the lower layers to make the grass look full of life (you know, like bugs). I'd also suggest that you run the dodge brush through the different layers before you finish to highlight individual grass blades. 
4: From here, it's up to your artistic discretion. But remember, if you're adding a character, make sure you take the perspective into account and don't position it directly in front of the grass, or directly behind if the character has feet! This will make it look very unrealistic! Instead, position the character amongst the layers, giving it a more natural, blended look like I have to the left.
Go to the next page for the daytime grass tutorial! 
