Photoshop Compositing Secrets - Matt Kloskowski [20]
STEP 19:
For the last step, let’s go ahead and sharpen the overall image. Click on the topmost layer and then press Command-Option-Shift-E (PC: Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E) to merge everything below it into one new layer at the top of the layer stack. Go to Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask, use an Amount setting of 134, a Radius setting of 1, and a Threshold setting of 4, and then click OK.
Hopefully, you can see how this composite is pretty much all just finishing touches. We spent most of the time on shadows and color. But, when it came to perspective and angles, fitting Justin into this new background was simple because some extra time was taken up front to make sure the camera settings, distance, and height matched.
Final Image
3. Creating Motion
I first came up with this composite idea when I saw some photos of an actual motorcycle photo shoot. The photographer was tethered into the back of a pickup truck driving down a road, with an assistant holding a light (also tethered into the truck). Now, the photos were great, but it got me thinking, “What about shooting the motorcyclist in the studio, where I could control the exact lighting that I wanted, and then placing him onto the background I wanted?” To me, a project like this really shows the power of compositing, because the alternative can be costly, requires a lot of setup, and is pretty much just a pain in the neck to pull off.
Prepping the Background Image
My idea for this shoot was a motorcycle speeding through a tunnel, but I live in Tampa, FL, and there are not many tunnels around here. Luckily, I was in Los Angeles recently attending a workshop by a friend of mine, Joel Grimes (an awesome photographer and compositor), and we stumbled across the 2nd Street Tunnel. So, I grabbed my tripod, went into the middle of the tunnel, and snapped off a few frames (with Joel looking out for cars).
STEP ONE:
Open the photo of the tunnel. The first thing we need to do is change the perspective a little. To me, the sidewalk on the left doesn’t add anything of interest to the background and I envision only seeing the road the motorcycle will be on (plus, we need to remove the tripod leg on the far left). So, let’s make a copy of the image layer to work on by pressing Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J).
STEP TWO:
Instead of cloning away the sidewalk, let’s just stretch the photo a little. Since the background will eventually have some motion blur to it anyway (because the motorcycle is speeding), we can get away with quite a bit here. Go to Edit>Free Transform, click on the bottom-right corner of your image window and drag it out, then click on the middle-left handle and drag it to the left until you bring the vanishing point of the tunnel to the far-left edge (as shown here).
STEP THREE:
Then, instead of just dragging the bottom-right corner handle downward (which will simply enlarge the entire image), press-and-hold Command-Shift (PC: Ctrl-Shift) and drag it downward to change the perspective a little, so it really looks like whatever is in the tunnel is coming at us. When you’ve got the transformation in place, press Return (PC: Enter) to lock it in.
STEP FOUR:
If we push and pull the background any more, we’re going to distort it too much, but we still want to get rid of the sidewalk, right? So, grab the Rectangular Marquee tool (M) and make a rectangular selection on the bottom third of the photo (as shown here). Then, press Command-J to copy that selected area up onto its own layer.
STEP FIVE:
Next, get the Move tool (V) and move the duplicated portion of the road over to the left side of the image. I know it doesn’t look quite right yet, but we do have some erasing to do, which we’ll do with a layer mask in the next step.
STEP SIX:
Click on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel (shown circled here) to add a white layer