Creating composite images are an endless source of joy for me. After discovering the work of +Joel Grimes, a whole new world opened up for me. I do not pretend to possess the photography talent or Photoshop skills of Joel so my images don't compare to those that Joel creates but I try to get better with every image and with every concept I dream up.
My latest composite (above) is the product of two photo shoots several months apart. While at Photoshop World in Orlando, the Westcott booth conveniently provided me with the chance to shoot a model dressed in a period aviation outfit standing in front of a vintage aircraft backdrop (L). When I had a chance to pose her, I asked her to try a few things for me and got 60-70 images of her in various poses. The last thing I expected was to use any of the images in a composite and the image on the left was one that I never thought I would use at all, but that's one of the beauties of photography - you never know when an image that has never seen the light of day suddenly becomes the perfect image for a project.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0R5oWGslKO5l68f9N_OFhz8TvbiYppS7CcnZvI1HIO9ddgL6ktlxFgtXWTBGlEnpw7mjk4vet5uB7dH2xJqAkYGZTMXFM39CdKpX93Wgqp9XfnsAKpeUyepj3PZuE5q958tdHkbGUlcFU/s320/D3S_9727.jpg)
After running her through Photoshop with some basic processing, I used the Quick Selection tool to roughly create a selection of just her followed by some fine tuning with the Refine Edge feature (Right). I saved the image as a New Layer With Mask so I could further refine the edges and bring back any bits of detail inadvertently omitted and take out any bits of detail that didn't belong by using the brush on the mask. I couldn't resist following this up by running her through Perfect Portrait to smooth her skin a bit.
Next came the background. While at the Warbird Museum, the owner of the Stearman towed the plane out onto the tarmac for some engine maintenance and while I was setting up to shoot a B-25J Mitchell, I heard the Stearman's engine fire up. I grabbed my tripod mounted camera and ran outside the hangar, set up the camera (which fortunately already had a 17-35mm lens attached), composed the image quickly, and fired the shutter. When I realized the engine was going to run for a bit, I took multiple exposures at 3-stop intervals under and over the metered exposure. The mechanic working on the engine was leaning on the right wing of the plane the whole time but I remembered +Moose Peterson's words of wisdom - don't sweat people getting in your frame as Photoshop's "Fill - Content Aware" will remove them. It did - sort of. I had to also spend some time with the clone tool to clean up what Fill didn't get or didn't get right but no big deal. But I'm getting ahead of myself because first I had to open the series of images in Photomatix Pro and create an HDR image from the various exposures. Opening up five of the exposures in Photomatix Pro and using the "Creative" preset yielded the image above. I removed the mechanic and moved on to the next step - removing the hangar and nose of a jet on the right side of the background and then resizing/cropping the background for insertion of Camelia.
In order to make it as easy as possible to eliminate the unwanted portions of the background, I enlarged the canvas (above) and selected the right part of the image (starting with a full height vertical line halfway between the hangar and the spinning prop and then drawing the rectangle box to the right just beyond the vertical edge of the image). Using the Transform tool's "Scale" adjustment, I stretched the image to the right until the hangar was outside the canvas. I then used the Rectangle Marquee tool to do the same thing on the left side of the image as I needed room to drop Camelia in. I started the vertical edge of the left side selection to the left of the left wingtip and extended the rectangle to the left until I was just outside the left vertical edge of the background. I then repeated the stretching process I used on the right side.
Because I wanted to position the plane lower in the final image from a composition standpoint, I used the Free Transform feature to enlarge the image upward and fill the remaining part of the blank canvas. Last but not least, I cropped the image to remove some of the bottom area from the background which effectively moved the plane downward in the image.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmqfn0LirtWJMZcIArTjpj5CQgRCtGg6E-MKAAsjzgIBnYRtii-ZAi2HnyaPwKFDLWo32xHsl08p2mnO19vGYGzm6y9bWktRY82q2sN-qLDw6kKuz01ltSo6ID2wgtPA9DR0jUJLV67DUO/s320/D3S_9727_PE_PP_Sharp.jpg)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyWtbsBtb3Sn6B9PKvlQmd-rY6Gkqr3iSGPfaAT44Jf6uM_Fp1AodyiDh2lOV8LaNjvgiWtuJhTG0LWGfSNVr43XScRNw0BBI5yvK3FaxFPFYJ21VKPg93JROOdrTVUBBQcxaC8lL8a1m-/s320/D3S_9727_PE_PP.jpg)
Now that she had a sepia tone, I had to go back to the background layer and do the same to it. Sending the background to Perfect B&W and then into Perfect Effects for some minor adjustments yielded the final image which leads off this post and is re-posted below. My Camelia Dareheart composite. Not a Joel Grimes worthy image but not too shabby.
3 comments:
Very nice Mike! I like the color and the black and white.
Ik heb een vraag. De website natuursteen-werkblad.be lijkt te zijn geïnspireerd op fashion blogs. Ze verkopen alleen geen jurken maar werkbladen alsmede aanrechtbladen zoals terrazzo, graniet, composiet, keramiek. Wat vinden jullie van de website natuursteen-werkblad.be. Top of flop?
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