A sample from the clouds was taken and placed over the castle and layer masked for the blend
step 8 of 10
Manta rays were layer masked and an adjusment layer for levels was clipped to each. The Rider was also extruded with the layer masking technique. Sauron was desaturated and some brush wok for color was done to him. the reigns were puppet warped and some brush work added. the shadow was made with brush.
Moon added blend set to lighten and opacity lowered slightly. A layer with white was placed over the moon for lighting effect. A soft round brush was used and then the eraser was used to get rid of white color from directly over the moon.
step 10 of 10
For final image I placed two layers over the image. One with a blue color the blend of this layer is set to color dodgeand opacity lowered. Another layer of 50% gray was placed on top. To this layer I render a blue spotlight lighting filter. Set the blend to hard light and lowered opacity. The original image was duplicated the shadow/highlghts adjusted and blend mode at multiply lower opacity to this I clipped a curves adjustment layer.