Photoshop Compositing Secrets - Matt Kloskowski [54]
©ISTOCKPHOTO/PEI LIN SHANG
CLOUDS:
Here’s a photo of some dramatic clouds. I carry my camera around with me all the time (even on cloudy days), just to take photos to add to my background collection. Clouds and skies play a huge role in some composites, so I’ve got a big library of them.
SAMURAI:
Here’s a photo I took of a samurai. Now, he’s not a real samurai. The photo was taken at the Westcott lighting booth on the tradeshow floor at the Photoshop World Conference & Expo.
LOVE INTEREST:
We’ve got to have a love interest in the movie, so here’s another photo we’ll use in the background. But, we’ll only be using part of the woman here.
SAMURAIS FIGHTING:
To help add to the “action” feel of the movie poster, we’ll use a photo of two samurais fighting. Like the previous photo, it’s more of a secondary photo, though. We won’t see much of it.
©FOTOLIA/DIMITAR MARINOV
MOVIE TITLE AND CREDIT BLOCK:
And, of course, what movie poster is complete without the movie’s title and text at the bottom (also called a credit block)? We’ll take a look at how to create the text and what fonts work best.
Prepping the Background
The background is nowhere near as dramatic as we need yet. Movie posters like this always have something dark and stormy as the background setting. If you haven’t realized it yet, I love dramatic clouds, so we’ll definitely add some of those. Then we need to darken it (we have a couple of tricks to do this), so everything looks a little more ominous. Let’s get started.
STEP ONE:
First, open the two photos we’ll need for the background—we’ll need the castle and we’ll need the clouds to put behind it. By the way, I already resized the castle photo to the dimensions needed for a movie poster. Just in case you’re wondering, most posters are generally 27×40″. Now that’s huge for what we’re creating here, so I’ve sized it down a bit. But, the actual aspect ratio here is still 27×40.
STEP TWO:
Grab the Quick Selection tool from the Toolbox (or just press W) and make a very quick selection of the castle image’s sky. Then, click on the Refine Edge button in the Options Bar. When the Refine Edge dialog opens, turn on the Smart Radius checkbox and set the Radius to around 40 pixels, so we pick up any little details on the castle. From the Output To pop-up menu, choose Selection and click OK.
STEP THREE:
Switch over to the cloud photo, go to Select>All to select the entire photo, and then go to Edit>Copy to copy it. Switch back over to the castle photo (where you already have a selection active) and choose Edit>Paste Special>Paste Into. This pastes the clouds into the sky, but automatically creates a layer mask, so the rest of the cloud photo is hidden.
STEP FOUR:
Now, we need to grunge it all up to get a more dramatic look. It’s a movie poster, after all, and they usually have a very dramatic feel to them. I’m going to show you a way to do it in Photoshop first, but then I’ll show you what I think is a much better way. Photoshop’s HDR Toning adjustment is a good way to get an instant grunge look, so go to Image>Adjustments>HDR Toning. Photoshop will ask if it’s okay to flatten your document, so just click Yes to continue.
STEP FIVE:
When the HDR Toning dialog opens, enter settings similar to what I have here. By really cranking up the Radius, Strength, and Detail settings, you’ll get a very detailed and dramatic look. Click OK when you’re done.
STEP SIX:
The HDR Toning adjustment looks pretty good for creating that dramatic look. But if you want to step it up a notch and want to learn the real secret, it’s from a plug-in called Topaz Adjust. First, though, you’ll need to undo the HDR toning (press Command-Z [PC: Ctrl-Z]). Then, create a new merged layer to apply the filter to by pressing Command-Option-Shift-E (PC: Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E) to create a new merged layer at the top of the layer stack. If you’ve installed the plug-in (you can find it at www.topazlabs.com/adjust, and they do have a free trial), you’ll find it under Filter>Topaz Labs>Topaz