Original image
step 1 of 7
Blocked in different shades of grey to define the layout (I find this useful to get the foreground/background values right)
step 2 of 7
Started adding detail to background mountains and sky.
step 3 of 7
colorized the whole image and repainted the sky on a 50% grey overlay mode layer (Lots of low opacity small brushwork here)
step 4 of 7
Intensified and darkened the image here. Also decided it looked better flipped on the horizontal axis.
step 5 of 7
Intensified the light source, and used coconut texture on foreground.
step 6 of 7
Created the trees from coconut texture using transform/warp and liquify.
step 7 of 7
Brought trees into main picture and shaded by painting low opacity black. Added any relevant highlights.
Final result
