Photoshop Compositing Secrets - Matt Kloskowski [27]
STEP SIX:
Now, let’s add some clouds. Go ahead and open the photo of the clouds for this example. I took this photo on a rooftop on a really cloudy day. Overcast days work well for this, too, but shadowed, puffy clouds work best, since they give a lot more detail.
STEP SEVEN:
Let’s add to the drama by adding an HDR effect to the clouds. Even though it’s not a bracketed photo with several different exposures, we can fake it with Photoshop. Go to Image>Adjustments>HDR Toning. The main thing here is to bring the Radius and Strength sliders way up. Take Radius to 230 px and Strength to 3.25. I brought the Exposure down to −0.50, Detail to +60%, and both Shadow and Highlight to −80%.
STEP EIGHT:
Click on Toning Curve and Histogram at the very bottom of the dialog to open the Curve for the photo. Click on the Curve to add two points, drag the bottom one down, and then drag the top one up, like you see here. This will add some nice contrast to the clouds. When you’re done, click OK.
STEP NINE:
Okay, now our clouds are nice and dramatic. Let’s add them to the basketball court image. Go to Select>All (or press Command-A [PC: Ctrl-A]) to select the entire cloud image. Then go to Edit>Copy (or press Command-C [PC: Ctrl-C]) to copy it. Switch over to the basketball court photo (where we should still have a live selection from Step Five) and go to Edit>Paste Special>Paste Into. This pastes the clouds into the selection that we created earlier. The best part about doing it this way is that Photoshop automatically creates a mask for us, so we can adjust where the clouds appear if we need to.
STEP 10:
Press Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T) to go into Free Transform mode. Notice how you can’t see all of the handles around the Free Transform box? Here’s a little tip: Press Command-0 (zero; PC: Ctrl-0) and Photoshop will zoom your image out, so that all of the handles fit in view. Then, press-and-hold the Shift key and drag the bottom-right corner handle inward until the transform box is closer to the size of the basketball court image. Press Return (PC: Enter) when you’re done to lock in the transformation.
STEP 11:
Grab the Move tool from the Toolbox (or just press the V key) and move the clouds up so the horizon line from the clouds image falls just behind the buildings in the city skyline.
STEP 12:
There’s one last thing we’ll do to the background. See, compositing has a lot to do with the background, but at the same time, you don’t want the background to overpower the photo. In this example, there’s a lot going on with the background, so we’ll use a little trick to help tone it down a bit. Press G to select the Gradient tool from the Toolbox. Click on the gradient thumbnail in the Options Bar to open the Gradient Picker, and choose the second gradient from the top left (circled here), which is Foreground to Transparent. Immediately to the right of the gradient thumbnail are the gradient type icons. Click on the Reflected one (the second from the right) and then set your Foreground color to white by pressing D, then X.
STEP 13:
Click on the Create a New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel to create a new blank layer. Then, position your cursor in the middle of the image and drag downward to the bottom to add the gradient on this layer. It creates a white gradient in the middle, and the gradient appears to fall off as it gets further away from the middle. What we’ve done here is give the appearance of adding a lot of light to the background. It’s this light wash that lets us pull off the composite more easily and keep focus on the subject that we’ll eventually be adding. When you’re done, go to File>Save (or press Command-S [PC: Ctrl-S]) and save this as a PSD file.
Prepping the Basketball Player
This one breaks