Photoshop Compositing Secrets - Matt Kloskowski [16]
STEP FOUR:
So, how do you remember all of this info? Write it all down on a piece of paper, or put it in your phone. I have an iPhone, and I use the built-in Notes app to write this stuff down. It all seems like a lot to remember, but trust me, if you’re doing a full-body composite, you’ll be thankful you did. You’ll see in this chapter that everything fits together really easily, because I took the time up front to keep the settings for the two separate shoots as close together as possible.
Prepping the Background
The background photo was taken specifically with a composite in mind—it was specifically for the shoot of Justin (the MMA fighter) I had done the day before. The sun was nearly down behind me, and was casting a warm light onto this doorway, and I remembered all of the details of Justin’s photo: how far he was from the camera, the camera angle, and the focal length that I used. So, I set myself up at the same perspective here and grabbed a couple of frames of this doorway.
STEP ONE:
Open the background image for this example. First, let’s add a really grungy feel to it. It’s not an HDR photo, but we can fake it with a Photoshop adjustment, so go to Image>Adjustments>HDR Toning.
STEP TWO:
The adjustment comes with some presets at the top of its dialog. Choose Photorealistic High Contrast from the Preset pop-up menu to give us a starting place. Yep, I know it does crazy things to the photo, but we’ll tone it down a bit next.
STEP THREE:
Bring the Exposure setting down to −3.00, which will darken the entire image. Then, increase the Highlight Detail amount to +110%. This should give us a really detailed and grungy look for our image. Click OK when you’re done.
STEP FOUR:
Now is a good time to clean up any distractions. I like most of the graffiti here, but there is one word on the wall on the left side of the door that I think I’ll remove. I’m not assuming the word means anything derogatory, mind you. Let’s assume it simply means that inside this door is an indoor sports facility where people play with various footballs, basketballs, baseballs, etc. Either way, it’s easy to remove. Press J to select the Spot Healing Brush (or press Shift-J until you get to it if you last used one of the other tools in the group), make sure the Content-Aware radio button in the Options Bar is turned on, and then paint over the graffiti on the left wall next to the door.
STEP FIVE:
It should disappear pretty quickly. If you see a repeating pattern left behind, try painting one more time on the wall and that should do it.
STEP SIX:
To really finish this background off, we’ll add an edge darkening effect to it. Press Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to duplicate the Background layer and then change the blend mode to Multiply (as shown here), which will darken the entire image. Use the Rectangular Marquee tool (M) to make a rectangular selection around the area where we’ll place our subject.
STEP SEVEN:
Go to the Select menu and choose Modify>Feather. Enter 200 pixels and click OK to soften the edges of the selection. You’ll see the edge of the selection gets rounder, but that’s about it. It doesn’t visibly get soft yet.
STEP EIGHT:
Head up to the Select menu one more time and go to Select>Inverse (or press Command-Shift-I [PC: Ctrl-Shift-I ]). This flips the selection because we really want the darkening effect applied on the edges, not the middle, right? Then, click on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and you’ll see the Multiply blend mode layer gets hidden in the middle (where our subject will be), but stays around the edges. We’re pretty much done with our background image, so go to File>Save and save it as a PSD file, and we’ll move on to the next step of the composite.
Prepping the Portrait
Like I mentioned, I took this portrait with the intention of placing Justin on a new a background. I took the portrait in the studio, and a few days later, while walking around an old bar district in Tampa, I shot the background that we just worked