Photoshop Compositing Secrets - Matt Kloskowski [44]
©ISTOCKPHOTO/MICHAELA FEHLKER
STEP 11:
Of course, it doesn’t fit yet, so we’ll have to transform it. Press Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T) to go into Free Transform mode. Press-and-hold the Command (PC: Ctrl) key, click on the top-left corner handle, and drag in toward the center. Then Command-click on the top-right corner handle and do the same. Drag the top-middle handle down a little to make it seem like the cracks have the same perspective as the road. Also, you’ll want to position the cracks in the ground so that the hole appears as if it’s under the basketball. When you’re done, press Return (PC: Enter) to lock in the transformation.
STEP 12:
Change the blend mode of the concrete layer to Hard Light. This fades the actual concrete portion of the layer into the original road, and just leaves the cracks. Sometimes, the Multiply blend mode works, too, and sometimes it may be Soft Light or Overlay. Depending on the color, you’ll have to experiment with which one works best.
STEP 13:
Click on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel to create a layer mask for this layer. Press B to get the Brush tool, make sure your Foreground color is set to black, and paint with a small, soft-edged brush set to a low Opacity to fade away the edges of the cracked concrete image, so it blends better with the road around it.
STEP 14:
Remember how I asked you not to close the concrete image yet? Well, go back to the original cracked concrete photo and go to Image>Image Rotation>Flip Canvas Horizontal. This way, the cracks will go out in another direction. Then, drag it into the composite and repeat Steps 11–13. Also, rename these layers, so you know which one is which.
STEP 15:
If we want the ball to look like it’s sunk into the ground, then we have to hide part of it. Create a new blank layer at the very top of the layer stack. Press S to get the Clone Stamp tool and make sure that the Sample pop-up menu is set to All Layers in the Options Bar up top. Option-click (PC: Alt-click) on an area of concrete with cracks on it to sample the texture. Then, start brushing upward with a small, hard-edged brush to cover the bottom of the basketball. You may have to Option-click a few more times as you’re painting to continue to pull in the right texture from the ground.
STEP 16:
Press O to get the Dodge tool. Up in the Options Bar, set the Range to Midtones and the Exposure to 20%, and use a small brush to paint along the very top edge of the concrete you just created to add a highlight. Then press Shift-O to get the Burn tool. Use the same settings, and paint to darken the concrete, so it appears the ball is casting a slight shadow on the ground.
STEP 17:
Next, we’ll add some light from behind him. As you can see, the sky is pretty bright on the middle left of the photo, so we’ll work with that. Create another new blank layer at the top of the layer stack and go to Edit>Fill. Set the Use setting to Black and click OK to fill the layer with black. Then go to Filter>Render>Lens Flare. Set the Brightness to 140%, the Lens Type to 105mm Prime, then position the lens flare on the middle left, and click OK. Change the layer’s blend mode to Screen to hide the black and reduce the Opacity setting to around 50%–60% to make the effect more subtle.
STEP 18:
All right, we’re almost done. Just a couple of finishing touches left. Press Command-Option-Shift-E (PC: Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E) to merge everything together into one new layer on top. I mentioned a way to add an edgy sharpening effect in Photoshop at the end of Chapter 2. But my favorite way to do this is to use the Tonal Contrast filter in Nik Color Efex Pro, so that’s what I’ll use here at its default settings. If it gets too textured in the cloud or skin areas, just add a layer mask and paint them away with a low-opacity black brush, as I did here.
STEP 19:
There’s one more finishing touch