Photoshop Compositing Secrets - Matt Kloskowski [65]
STEP THREE:
Now, you’ve got the player selected from the background with a layer mask. Open the background image we created in the previous tutorial (you can download the final image if you didn’t follow along) and use the Move tool (V) to drag the football player in and place him on the left side (I’ll rename each layer as I drag it in to keep them straight). Here’s the catch: we want to make sure to position this layer above the top ellipses (so his hands and head will appear above them), but below the bottom ellipses (so his feet will be hidden). Take a look at the Layers panel here to see what I mean.
STEP FOUR:
The photo is probably too large for the background, so press Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T) to bring up Free Transform. Because it’s so much larger than the image area, you won’t be able to see the Free Transform handles. So, press Command-0 (zero; PC: Ctrl-0) to automatically resize the window, so you can reach all four handles (as seen here). Then just click on a corner handle, and drag it in to resize the photo. Don’t forget to press-and-hold the Shift key to keep it proportional.
STEP FIVE:
All right, that’s one photo. Do the same for the other four photos. Select the players and drag them into the final composite. Arrange them so all the players are facing toward the center of the image. I didn’t have much of a fringe problem on these, but if you do, make sure you refer back to Chapter 1 to see how to get rid of it. You’ll tend to have fringed edges if you have a dark uniform with a bright sky or grass behind it. One more thing: try to mix it up a little. Notice how some of the hands and heads appear over the top ellipses. That helps give some depth and an almost 3D quality to the image. Also, the photo in the middle is above everything else (I had to move the text at the top below his layer in the Layers panel, so he would appear over the text). The photos on the far right and far left come next, and all the football players are in front of the two soccer players. This helps the soccer players look like they could be the same size as the football players, but they’re just farther away from them. It’s important to think about those little details, because they help make the final composite look more dynamic. You can just drag the layers up and down in the layer stack once they are all in the image to see what looks best.
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Tip: Download Files Have Selections
Oh yeah, all of the download images have a hidden layer with the layer mask on it already. So they’re selected for you, if you want to save time and follow along. See, I care.
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STEP SIX:
Now, if you look at the soccer player on the left, his face is in shadow. We need to fix that, so click on his layer, then click on the Create New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and choose Levels. In the Adjustments panel, drag the shadows (left) slider under the histogram to the right a little to 12, drag the midtones (center) slider to the left to 1.19, and drag the highlights (right) slider to the left to 209. You’ll see that this also lightens everything below him, so Right-click on the layer and choose Create Clipping Mask to clip this adjustment to just the soccer player.
STEP SEVEN:
The only problem now is that the left side of him is too bright. So, click on the layer mask to make it active, then press Command-I (PC: Ctrl-I) to Invert it and hide the adjustment. Press B to get the Brush tool, make sure your Foreground color is set to white, and with a medium-sized, soft-edged brush, paint across the right side to bring the lightening back, until both sides match.
STEP EIGHT:
Okay, since the three football players are in front of the soccer players, they should be throwing a shadow on the soccer players. The way the football players