Monday 18 November 2013

Superstitions - Surreal Composite Imagery

After weeks of research on digital photography techniques and researching the month of December for the year 2013 I have decided that my theme for my final image, to be featured in the Oh Comely magazine will be Superstitions.

 Seeing as though there is a Friday the 13th this year which is also 2013 I thought it would be a cool theme to go with for my final image for my unit 32 Experimental Imagery in Photography. I have found at times to have fallen into the trap of some of the more common superstition such as saluting a single magpie, avoiding walking under ladders avoiding putting up umbrellas indoors (much to my 3yr olds dismay during playtime!)

Most of the objects in the image are stock photos found on one of my favourite stock sites deviant art. The main image was a beautiful daguerreotype of a circus lady that I found again on deviant art, I now see the fascination that Maggie Taylor has for these!

I will now go through a step by step tutorial, guiding you from start to finish on the full process of my surreal manipulated image.


Step One

I first open the background image ensuring that the image size is around the 4000x2000 mark and dpi is 250.

4267 x 2845 and 250dpi
Step Two:

I then opened my next image, the ladders and using the pen tool selected the ladders and created a new layer with the refine edge tool, when using the refine edge I always find it useful to feather 1.5 pixels or so and to decontaminate colours. Using the move tool drag the new layer across to your background image and place. Rename layer Ladder and convert to smart layer then use to free transform tool (ctrl + T) to decrease the size of the ladder and angle until it leans nicely on the wall to the left of the image. (remember to maintain aspect ratio)

I used the clone tool to patch up the missing part on the ladder after rastering the ladder layer. To adjust the tones and contrast of the ladder to match the room i first added a curves adjustment layer. To link it to the ladder I added a clipping mask to the curves layer, this allows you to adjust the curves of the ladder without it altering any other layers. I then added a gradient overlay effect with the following settings to create a shadow on the left hand side of the ladder.

I also burned the mid-tones and shadows on the areas selected in the below image to add a bit more depth in the shadows. The shadow settings shown below, the mid-tones were set at 22%
Step Three:
I thought the ladder and cat looked too blue and didn't sit naturally in the warm tones of the room so I added a colour balance layer again adding a clipping mask so it only adjust the ladder layer

 I them added a colour filter with the following settings:


To clean the layers up a hide the background layer and merge all viable layers so the ladder layer becomes one again.

Step Four:

I now have to create a shadow for the ladder so it sits in the room more realistically. I first select the ladder layer and duplicate, naming this layer Ladder Shadow. Using a soft black brush paint over ALL of the ladder and cat.Then drag the ladder shadow layer so its under the Ladder layer. Now with the shadow layer selected use the Transform>Distort tool and move around until you are satisfied with the result, taking care to remember which direction the light source is coming from. Remember to reduce the opacity of this layer, I found 37% to be perfect. Please note that the light source will be altered in the final steps with some dodging and burning on the final layer so don't worry if it still looks a little fake.


Step Five:

Now to add the table. Using the same method as we did for the ladder drag and drop the image onto the background making it the top layer. Smart layer and rasterize to make it a single layer again and select the layer style drop shadow with the following settings. This allows the table to sit in the image better. I also added a gradient fill layer (see below) similar to what I did with the ladder layer. Hide all other layers and merge the table with its adjustment layers and name as Table.


Now follow the same steps to create a shadow for the table as we did for the ladder.


Step Six:
Now if you're a real perfectionist you will want to alter the reflection on the table. Using the the rectangular marquee tool select a large area of the window wall ensuring that the background layer is selected, his CTRL + J and this will have created a new layer with the selected area. Rename the layer reflection and drag it to sit above the table layer, reduce the layers opacity to around 22% and using the distort & warp transform tool shape it to fit on the table top like below:


Step Seven:

Now to place the new shoes on the table, using the same technique as earlier open shoe stock image, extract from background and drag and drop onto table using the free transform tool to position and resize. Again using the same techniques for the other objects make necessary adjustments using colour balance, filters and curves adjustment layers remembering to add a clipping mask to only adjust the shoe layer. (remember to maintain aspect ratio)

 Highlight the shoe layer along with its adjustment layers and right click and merge them into a single shoe layer again.
As a finishing touch to the shoes remove the highlighted areas with the clone tool. I also added a bevel and emboss effect to the shoes to add a highlight created by the windows.

 Step Eight:

At this stage I want to add the main subject which is the model. I found a beautiful daguerreotype image from the Deviant Art site. Once again I used the quick selection tool and then refined the edge. With original background layer hidden I wanted to add colour to the model. The following step shows you how:
Main image
After using the quick select and refine edge tool

 Step Nine:

I had researched colourising black & white photographs in this other post of mine here , so I thought I would stick with this technique for the time being although I will be experimenting in the future with alternative colouring techniques.
I first reduced the noise in the image by Filter>Noise>Reduce Noise
  • Make sure the photo is in RGB mode.
  • Go to Image>Mode>RGB Colour. If your photo is in any other mode, you won’t be able to colour it.
  • Create a new layer in Color blend mode.
  • Go to Layer>New>Layer and, in the New Layer dialog box that appears, select Colour from the Mode menu. With the layer in Colour mode, you can paint on the layer and the image’s details will still show through.
  • Paint on the layer.
  • Create a new colour layer for each item (see image below) 
Tip: to create a more realistic skin tone I colour pick from another image with a subject that has a skin tone similar to the one I wish to achieve.


 Use the Brush tool (Picking and Using a Basic Brush) and choose a color for the Tools panel’s Foreground color square. Keep changing the Foreground color as needed. If the color goes on too heavy, reduce the brush’s opacity in the Options bar.

 Now the image needs to be flattened, then use the magic eraser and click on the white background to make transparent again then drag and drop the model onto the main image. Neaten the edges of the model layer with a soft eraser brush with opacity of 85%

 Step Ten:

You probably noticed that I didn't colour the umbrella that the lady is holding, this is because she will eventually be holding a Smith umbrella instead. This is our next step. Open the stock image of the umbrella and erase the white background with the magic eraser tool. Drag and drop onto the main image and use to free transform tool to downsize locking the ratio to keep in perspective.
There is a little fine editing that takes place now. We need the umbrella to sit in the ladys hand so we have to carefully erase that part of the umbrella layer. A good tip is to temporarily reduce the opacity of the umbrella layer so you can see the image underneath.
Once complete increase the opacity back to 100% and select the lady layer and clone out any remaining umbrella handle.

To the umbrella layer I the added a colour filter layer #6c4f3f at 68% to allow it to blend into the background tones. I also created a drop shadow and gradient overlay effect to help blend too. Layer>Layer style>Drop Shadow or Gradient map

The whole image still looks odd but dont worry, towards the end we will be adding filters and textures and dodging and burning the complete flattened image :-)

MY APOLOGIES BUT IT APPEARS MY 13 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER DECIDED TO PULL THE PLUG ON MY TUTORIAL! (LITERALLY) ALL WORK FROM THIS POINT ONWARDS HAS BEEN LOST, FORTUNATELY I HAVE THE FINISHED PIECE TO AT LEAST DISPLAY. AT SOME POINT I WILL SPEND ANOTHER FIVE HOURS DUPLICATING MY WORK AND WILL COMPLETE THIS TUTORIAL.







The stock images I have used to complete my final images can be found at the links below:

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