Leaving It Behind

Leaving It Behind
Dustin Olsen
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
Leaving It Behind
Leaving It Behind
Leaving It Behind
Leaving It Behind

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Leaving It Behind

Dustin Olsen

Mastermind behind DustinOlsen.com. When no one is telling me what to do or where to be, you'll find me outside (hopefully flying my drone) soaking up some sun.