Photoshop Compositing Secrets - Matt Kloskowski [69]
STEP TWO:
Or, you can click on the color swatch and change the color from yellow to black, change the Blend Mode to Multiply, increase the Size, and decrease the Opacity. This puts a dark shadowy outline behind him. I kinda like the dark one better here, but both will work, depending on the background. For a darker background, I’d go with the brighter glow. For a brighter background like this one, I’d stick with something darker.
STEP THREE:
If you zoom in, though, you’ll see there is a bright fringe around the football player that we didn’t see earlier, because he’s on a brighter colored background. But when you put the dark outer glow around him, it stands out a little more. I showed you how to get rid of this in Chapter 1. First, we need to copy him from the layer with the layer mask, so Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) on the layer mask to put a selection around him. Then, click on the layer’s image thumbnail to target it and press Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to copy the selected area (the football player) onto his own layer.
STEP FOUR:
Click on the little Eye icon to the left of the original layer with the layer mask to hide it. Then go to Layer>Matting>Defringe, enter 1 pixel, and click OK to remove the bright fringe. Then Option-click (PC: Alt-click) on the Outer Glow layer style icon on the hidden layer below and drag it onto the newly defringed layer of the football player.
Single-Photo Composite Optional Trick #2
One more optional trick for this type of composite is to add another texture or pattern over the background. Especially when you selectively include it in just parts of the photo, it’s a really nice way to finish things off.
STEP ONE:
Open the hexagon pattern image. You’ll see the pattern is on its own layer, so using the Move tool (V), drag it into the composite and position it in between the top copy of the football player and the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer that’s on top of the larger versions of him for the background.
STEP TWO:
The pattern is black right now, so let’s flip it to white, which will work better here. Press Command-I (PC: Ctrl-I) to Invert the layer from black to white. Then, change the layer’s blend mode to Overlay to fade the texture into the background some more.
STEP THREE:
It also helps to randomize where the hexagon texture appears, so it’s not over the entire background. Click on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel, press B to select the Brush tool from the Toolbox, and then make sure your Foreground color is set to black. Use a pretty large, soft-edged brush to paint the hexagon texture away from the upper- and lower-right parts of the photo, so it only appears over the larger version of the football player in the background.
Final Image
14. One Person, Multiple Poses
RAFAEL CONCEPCION
I was in my office one day, working on this book, and my good friend RC Concepcion had a photo shoot going on in the studio right down the hall. As fate would have it, I was in the process of working on some ideas for this very chapter, when I decided to stop in on his shoot (and procrastinate). RC was shooting a very talented dancer, Ricky Jaime, and as soon as I walked in, he showed me some photos on his computer. Wow! This guy was incredible. He seemed to float in the air. As I saw more photos, I realized they would work perfectly for this chapter, so I asked (okay, begged) RC to let me use the photos here. Thankfully, he was cool with it. The idea here is that you’re taking photos of just one person, but you’re compositing them together in different poses. The final image has a strong impact, and is a perfect way to show off those times when you have several great photos of someone and you just can’t decide which one to use.
The Setup
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