pigpen

I've been watching some tutorials about composite photography (people such as Joel Grimes). These videos are informative when it comes to lighting, merging the images, etc. However, I haven't seen any info (yet) on how they process the 2 images before the merge. I'm just curious as to how they make the images match. Do you "batch" process the two, or do you do them seperately & eyeball 'em?

Thank you.

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

Pigpen, a lot of that has been processed to look grunge. It's been desaturated and super sharpened to get certain effects. Joey L does that a lot also.
If you have Canon DPP or photoshop, you can do composites.
If you belong to NAPP(national association of photoshop professionals) they have a lot of tutorials on the exact process. Good luck. SS

pigpen

Thank you for your response. I know most of the images I've seen do have the HDR look and Joel Grimes discusses it, or possibly Topaz. I'm more curious as to the workflow, how they get the 2 images to look as though they were processed together.

PalePictures Loc: Traveling

Compositing done right is one of the most difficult things to do. It's even more difficult when you use natural light shots. The images not only have to be light matched but color matched. Joel grimes uses edge lighting in studio for most of his composites. He then inserts the studio shot(OF people) into and HDR background. HDR is more of a flat light so the edge lighting works. He still will use light sources often from behind the subject to sell the scene.
Joel Grimes is color blind so most of his images have a desaturated feel. You can be color blind and still do compositing by using color overlays.

I have taken all of Joel grimes courses that he offers and my stuff still does not look like his. That's the way compositing and art in general is. We find something we love and want to do it.. In the process we end up finding our on way and style.

I highly recommend his course work from his website. It is expensive.

I have done compositing for years and just now am able to light match and color match. It don't come in a bottle.

To do compositing well it is far beyond the "Green Screeners" on this site. I have only run across one person that has done compositing even remotely well here and he used stock images I believe. His name is Ian Barber. He has only posted a few.
I shoot my own stock for compositing. Here is an example of one of my composites.. Light matched and color matched....]
Composited from four natural light images.

One other note.

Cliff Lawson(CaptainC) has done some Senior portraits where the backgrounds are digital. He does this well. The practice is pretty common around the country. Typically you will have one or two portrait photographers that do this in a city.

When you start showing feet in a photo and start compositing full body shots images get a little more difficult to sell as real.
When you merge multiple natural light shots to form a fluid image you are an artist.

Here is the link to a HS shoot where Cliff demonstrates some excellent skill in headshot compositing.

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-129743-1.html

CaptainC Loc: Colorado, south of Denver

Pigpen-

Ooops - I was typing this as Russ was posting his!

I do some of those for some of my high school senior athletes and it IS time-consuming to get the "look" of the subject consistent with the background as I shot the background months or years ago and shot the subject recently. I did attend a full-day Joel Grimes class where he pretty much taught us exactly how to do it. You do have to be VERY proficient with Photoshop and understand layer masks.

A BIG part of making it look halfway realistic is the lighting of the subject. I would say that was 75% of it.

NO, I am not going to type up page after page of notes. :-) You just need to attend one of his workshops.

Here is one I will be showing the parents in a few days.

hlmichel Loc: New Hope, Minnesota

I am far from being qualified to even hold Joel Grimes or Captain C's reflectors. But I've recently started playing with composite shots. So far, just in the house.
I am ensuring that the lighting/exposure is consistent from shot to shot. As for pre-merge PP, I am working one of the RAW shots and copying the changes to the other RAW's before converting all to TIF.

georgevedwards Loc: Essex, Maryland.

I would just ask one simple question: how do you select the outline of the football player? One obvious way is the magnetic lasso and then fine tune it after wards by zooming in on the edges and using the +/_ lasso option to fine tune it. But sometimes I suspect there is some secret only the high priests can divulge...

GC-FineArt Loc: WDC

Off topic, I know, but surely you meant to say “believable.” The kitschy, HDR, composite pseudo-paintings of the type being discussed here never look “realistic.” :)

CaptainC Loc: Colorado, south of Denver

Yes, I agree. These things are never meant to make anyone believe they are anything but a fantasy image. Some of them do approach a degree of realism, but for the most part...that is not the goal for this type of composite.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

There are many ways to composite. The hardest part of compositing is making a good selection. The second hardest part is getting the lighting shadows correct.

The part you are asking about is best done after you put the two images together on separate layers and then adjust the color, white balance, and exposures of the subject and backgrounds.

CaptainC Loc: Colorado, south of Denver

Actually George, I never use the magnetic lasso.The new Quick Selection Tool in CS6 ( I think it showed up int CS5 and I believe is also in Elements) does the bulk of the work. Then the use of the Refine Edge Tool finishes the job. One can also use one of the masking plug-ins from Topaz or On-One.

However, the real time-saver is to shoot with the end in mind, so I always shoot these against a medium gray background and extraction is pretty simple. IMO, gray is far superior to white, black, or the awful green as it lighter than dark hair/clothing, darker than light hair/clothing, and does not contaminate the edges with that green.

photoshopmikey Loc: Boston Ma.

I use channels in photoshop to make selections
cory barker from napp has some good tutorials also, just google him

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=photoshop+selection+using+channels&oq=using+channels&gs_l=youtube.1.1.0j0i5.7042.16262.0.22296.14.12.0.2.2.0.83.830.12.12.0...0.0...1ac.1.11.youtube.84YC_3YElXo

georgevedwards Loc: Essex, Maryland.

Thanks! Looks like some good info on selecting a figure using channels which I wasn't aware of, it should keep me busy for a while! Most of what I know about Photoshop is self taught, just clicking on things and seeing what it does. But I see there is another side where you have to know first what to do to get an effect.

PalePictures Loc: Traveling

IT depends on whether channels are better or not. I must say that I do use channels a lot. Mainly because I have been natural light composting. I use the pen tool equally as much.
I used to use ONOne mask pro for tough extractions but now use channels to handle transparencies. With a little practice its as easy as Perfect Mask...

Channels is the about the only way(without a plugin) to extract things that have opacity to it.

i.e. fire...water.. see though dress/blouse...Sprayed snow/sand...

Like everything it just depends. As Cliff eluded to earlier you could write a book on extraction and refining mask methods.

CaptainC Loc: Colorado, south of Denver

Channels is definitely a great way to go. But For my purposes, I have found that shooting on gray and using the NEW extraction tools in Photoshop CS5/6/CC are pretty fast and I stopped using the channels method.

I have to say, though, I think I need to re-visit the channels method for some of the more difficult extractions. Thanks for the reminder!