Leaving It Behind
— Photoshop —
Doing photo composites in Photoshop can be a lot of fun! The image below has taken me about 15 hours to complete – plus the time to take each of these photos used in the composite. It’s a lot of time for one photo, and I’m grateful I had the time to do it, but it really pushed my Photoshop skills to a new level in attempting to complete the composite.
The easy part was getting all of the photos together into one and to get a basic idea of what it could look like. The hard part was thinking of all the little details to add to the realism of the final product. The things that I paid attention to were:
- The rain showing only in areas where there is light.
- The rain puddles on the road.
- Painstakingly selecting the powerline poles.
- Keeping the Shadows on the cars and people.
- Making the road look wet.
- Lighting on everything to match.
- Adding storm clouds to the sky for the rain.
There are several techniques that could have been used to incorporate all these effects, but I used basic Photoshop skills of masking, selecting, and using adjustment layers. Lots of layers. However – the longest part of the whole process was refinement of everything I was doing. Taking a step back and making sure everything was still working together. I would take a break and come back to it and I would have other people tell me what they think and see if there is anything that bothers them. Then I would go back to work.
Without further ado – allow me to introduce to you: Leaving It Behind
Check Out The Photos
“Hey! This looks GREAT! I like it!” I didn’t figure you really wanted me to spell out exactly what I like. So let’s just leave this a bit generic. Nicely Done Dustin! 😉
Dustin:
Awesome work! The image draws me in and makes me want to know more about what led up to the scene and more about the characters. Like a good movie, maybe it needs a sequel…
Mark! Thanks for your comment and thoughts on what the story might be… And the desire to know the rest. 🙂 I do like the cliff hanger feeling the composite gives!
Lots of care taken for striking results. I am curious why you included the power poles
You and Jim have nice banter and GREAT info. Thanks for all the work
Thanks for the comment, Jana! To answer your question – I included the power poles for a couple of reasons. First, because I wanted leading lines… something extra to pull you through the photo. Second, I needed a reason to have a light source on the road and explain the direction of light on the cars.
Thanks for following us at Improve Photography – we have some good fun!