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Realistic Composites

Creating an image that's not meant to be completely realistic is relatively easy. Faking realism is a lot harder. The main tasks to consider in making composites are

• Keeping your backgrounds simple.

• Isolating the elements on different layers for easier editing.

• Making sure that the pieces you combine are in proper scale with each other.

• When you're done, merging the layers for a smaller file.

What You Add to the Image Makes It Better Remember also that adding shadows, reflections, or other special effects can make a big difference in the end result. Watch out for perspective, too. If it's wrong, you'll know it, although you might not know why exactly. When you're walking around town or sitting in a well-lit room, notice the shadows. See where they appear and how the light source affects the angle at which they fall from the object causing them. Look for reflections, too. See what direction they reflect. When you understand how science and nature do it, you'll be able to fake it more accurately.

In my collection, I have some photos of desert scenery in Nevadavery close to the mysterious place that the government calls Area 51. It's rumored to be a landing site for extraterrestrial beings. The photos show lots of amazing rock formations but no little green men. But they got me thinking. What's the most alien life form I could imagine out there in the middle of nothing? Probably the fashion doll. So, let's send her out there.

Let's start by choosing an interesting background. Figure 20.6 looks to me most like a good spot for an alien sighting, and Figure 20.7 shows my favorite Martian, shot on a cluttered desk. When you're doing things like this, placing a piece of plain paper behind the object you photograph makes it much easier to separate the background from the subject. It's like the big rolls of seamless paper the pros use, only in a more appropriate size.

First, let's prepare the background. The color could use some enhancement, and I think I would like some clouds in the sky. I can adjust the color either with Curves or with Variations, both on the ImageAdjustments submenu. A little more yellow and increasing the saturation helps a lot. Now, about those clouds… After I select the sky, and a pair of appropriate foreground and background colors for the sky, I can choose FilterRenderClouds, and watch the weather change. Figure 20.8 shows the resulta more interesting sky.

The next step is to extract the doll from her background and then to bring her into the new setting. She'll probably need some color adjustments, too, but we'll do those after she's in place. I can do most of the selecting with a couple of Magic Wand clicks, but there are some cutouts and highlights that will need extra work. Remember to zoom in when you have a complicated object to trace. As you can probably tell in Figure 20.9, it's much easier to pick up the details when you zoom in on the object you're tracing. Before I go on, I'll smooth the selection by one pixel's worth (SelectModifySmooth). This just helps make her look less ragged.

Now, let's put her in her place. I can either copy and paste or just drag her as a selection from one photo to the other. Either way, she'll come in on a new layer, which is exactly where I want her for now. In Figure 20.10, I've cropped her and dropped her into the desert background. But she doesn't look quite natural yet.

Trying to analyze what's wrong with this picture, I see two things. First, she's too tall. If she were standing up, she would be about 6'8". But her proportions are more suited to someone about a foot shorter. So, I'll have to scale her down a little. The other thing is that she's sitting at an awkward angle. I might be able to fix that by rotating her. Otherwise, I can move and skew her a tiny bit so she's not trying to lean on thin air. Figure 20.11 shows a close-up of this process.

Of course, in the desert everything casts shadows. You'll notice that these are very sharp edged and low angle. It's late in the day but the sun is still very bright and those factors affect the appearance of shadows. I'll add a matching one with the Drop Shadow layer style. And there she is: sunning herself against a tree (see Figure 20.12). This figure is also in the color section.