Image Manipulation & Compositing
Faith, Trust and a Little bit of Photoshop
Week 8 | #oneperday
Image Manipulation & Compositing
Faith, Trust and a Little bit of Photoshop
Technique: Canon EOS 500D, Photoshop
Pre-production: I originally had a hard time of coming up with an image to composite with all the resources I had at home. I knew I wanted to challenge myself but felt lost not having any cool sceneries to work with like ocean or beaches. But then I remembered my grandma's garden which is only 2 houses away. I then sketched an idea that I could create with resources I had around me; bracelet, ribbon, fake butterflies and my whole wardrobe with endless outfit possibilities. So I walked over to take photos of the flowers in her front and backyard. I loved her cherry blossom tree so I took many images from different angles, some background focussed to fit the swing and others with ultra focus on the flowers so I could edit them in Photoshop.
Process: After photographing all the elements needed for this composite, I then began to mask and isolate the objects from their background using the tips and tricks taught by Sean Duggen's lesson on LinkedIn.
After isolating all the elements, then I began to composite the whole image. First I needed to make the background. The image I originally took; the first in the grid above; was too big in comparison to how I would position the swing and fairy, so I zoomed into the blurred background that was wide and empty, creating a good base to add depth to the overall composite.
Next was adding in some more flowers to the background since so much was cut out. I selected some flowers in another image, not worrying about being too fussy since they would not need to be super focussed in the background. I then lowered the opacity, added some highlights or lowlights and matched the hue with the layer before.
Afterwards was inserting the swing. Unfortunately, the image was slightly blurry, making it difficult to select so I did the best I could and then manually erased all the fuzziness to create a cleaner edge. Next was inserting the 'fairy.' With this tips learnt from Duggen, I was able to create a good selection around the hair, making it more realistic. Afterwards was adding the wings. Mentioned before, the angle I took the images weren't perfect but I was able to create a convincing pair of wings by duplicating and stretching the other half. I then used the Luminosity filter to make the wings transparent and played with the saturation that made the wings look sparkly, rather than a screen of white.
Lastly, I added a few extra elements such as a definite light source and dust particles. I used a soft orange brush and drew in the corner, turning the opacity down so that there was a warm subtle source of light to the image. I took an image from google for the dust particles, selecting the black background by colour and deleting it and playing with the adjustment layers to make the particles white before reducing the opacity.
To complete the composite, I then added a curves layer to create an overall filter to tie the image together.
Reflection: Overall, I am very pleasantly surprised at the outcome of this composite. I originally had no idea what I wanted to create with all the materials I had at home, but after making a sketch, it helped to realize the different elements that I COULD photograph for the composite. The lessons learnt from Lighting and Photography and Sean Duggen tutorials definitely helped to create an effective and semi-realistic image that doesn't look too tacky.
