I started this project with the above portrait and a metropolitan vibe in mind. I knew that I wanted a picture of the skyline of New York City to take up the vast majority of the images, with the flock of birds and clouds enhancing the composition.

I started by embedding the portrait into an 8.5 x 11 Photoshop document. Once the image was placed correctly, I went into Image -> Adjustments -> Black and White to turn the image black and white. Then, in Properties, I used the quick action tool "Select Subject" to get an automatic selection of the subject and mask him out of the background. I then used the clone stamp tool to get rid of the logo on the top right of his shirt because I knew that it could interfere with the effectiveness of the multiple exposure. Once all of this was complete, I copied this layer and renamed it "PORTRAIT copy" so that I could use it later.

I began the multiple exposure process by pasting in the image of NYC and scaling it to fit the portrait. I then clipped it to the original portrait layer and set the blend mode to Screen. I had to readjust and nudge this image around in order to make sure that it didn't look like the Empire State Building was poking him in the neck. I also had to use a low-opacity soft round eraser to brush away the hard edges of the image near his chin so that it would seamlessly blend into his neck. I then dropped the opacity on this layer so that it seemed to be more ingrained in the image. Once I was satisfied with the city layer, I then pasted in the image of the flock of birds. Under the "quick actions," I used the Remove Background option to separate the birds from the blue sky background and then clipped them to the layer of the city (which is clipped to the portrait). Then I positioned them in a way that created an interesting movement throughout the piece and a three-dimensional feel. When I was happy with the placement, I experimented with the blend modes and eventually settled on Soft Light. Finally, I pasted in the cloud image and scaled it to seem like it fit within the image correctly, as well as clipped it to the bird flock image (which is clipped to the city, which is clipped to the portrait). The original image was bright blue, but I wanted it to be monochrome, so I used the blend mode Luminosity to only focus on the values of the image. I again used a low-opacity soft round eraser to brush away the hard edges of the image and then finally adjusted the position to make it fit meaningfully into the face.

Finally, on the "PORTRAIT copy" layer that I created earlier (which is at the top of the layer hierarchy), I edited the masking layer to better show the values of the subject's form. I did this using white and black soft round low-opacity brushes to brush in where I wanted the image to shine through the most and cover up parts that I didn't want to be as visible. The main difference between the above image and the previous image is that there are darker values on the left side of the subject's body and under the subject's chin, due to the adjustments made on the masking layer. I also added a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer to further these darker and lighter values and make the image moodier. This is the final result.