Hi, welcome back to the photoshoptrainingchannel.com.
I'm Jesus Ramirez.
In this video I'm going to show you the replay
of an online presentation that I do for the
Photoshop and Photography group on Facebook.
This presentation is all about compositing,
putting images together, and it's a presentation
that I think you're really going to enjoy
because I'm going to reveal a lot of tips
and tricks that I'm sure are going to be beneficial
to your compositing work.
So watch the video all the way to the end.
There's a lot to learn.
Okay, let's get started.
Hey everybody, how's it going?
This is Jesus Ramirez from the Photoshop Training
Channel and in this live stream for the Photoshop
and Photograph group, we're going to be talking
about compositing.
I'm going to start by just giving you a little
tour of my Behance page, so you guys can see
what type of compositing work that I do, and
one of the pieces that I wanted to show you
is this one here.
And by the way, if you want to check out my
Behance page, you can go to JRfromPTC.
So it's behance.net/JRfromPTC.
And the piece that I was to show you is the
Adobe Stock Masterpiece.
This is a project that I work with Adobe.
I was one of five different artists that got
hired to recreate a painting that has been
lost through history either by damage or theft
and this particular piece has 1500 layers.
It's 4.7 gigabytes and it took me about 80
hours to complete.
It's made up of nothing but Adobe Stock images
and it was composited together using Photoshop,
of course.
And if I scroll down, you'll see all the different
images that I used to create the final image.
So the original one is on the right, the recreation
is on the left.
And I'm going to scroll down so you can see
some of the close ups, and you can see all
the detail that was added.
Including the canvas and these cracks on the
paint, much like the original painting would
have.
And this is the real reason why I wanted to
show you this particular piece, because it
shows you the power of compositing and Photoshop.
On the left you'll see the Adobe Stock images
that I used and on the right you'll see what
I did with them.
So you can see there's a lot of compositing
work, a lot of color matching, color swapping,
um, matching lighting, all kinds of things
to make this composite come alive.
Also in some pieces I had to get creative.
So in this case I used a towel for the l-
sleeves and in this case I used a cat for
the fur lining on the uh, people's hats.
So as you can, this uh, took a lot of work
but at the end it was worth it, and I have
a small animation here that you can see, of
the composite coming together.
So obviously this is a very complex composite
and we're going to work on something very
simple today, but that simple composite will
still show you a lot of the elements that
you need to complete um, a composite like
this.
So we're going to talk about five different
things and I have it here in Photoshop.
Let me bring that up really quick.
We're going to talk a little bit about masking,
perspective, color matching, blending modes,
and cohesiveness.
Meaning, making everything seem as- like a
single piece, make it cohesive.
So that is one of the projects that I work
for Adobe and I also want to mention that
if you are into Photoshop and compositing,
always work on personal projects.
So that's something I try to do as much as
I can when I have time, and this is one of
my personal projects.
I'm a big fan of Spider-Man.
A lot of you probably saw the new Spider-Man
movie, Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse, so
this composite was created based on that movie
and I'm going to scroll down so that you can
see the images that I used to create that
composite.
So those images there were used to create
this composite that you see here.
So I'm just going to move on over to Photoshop
and once again, if you want to follow me on
Behance my handle is JRfromPTC.
You can also follow me on JRfromPTC on Instagram
and as I mentioned, we're going to work with
masking, perspective, color matching, blending
modes, and cohesiveness in this stream and
this is the final composite that we're going
to work with.
I know that it may not seem super exciting,
but trust me.
This composite has all the elements that you're
going to need to make composites like you
saw on my behance page.
So I'm just going to open up a new file and
we're going to work with this file that has
the three separate layers that we're going
to use to create composite that you saw.
And the first thing that you want to do on
almost every composite is figure out the perspective
of the scene.
Let me show you what I mean by perspective.
Let me bring up another document.
So everything that you work with will have
a ground plane and the sky.
That doesn't necessarily mean the floor, it
could be a table, it could be anything.
I mean by ground plane is, where is the subject
sitting?
So it could be the ground, table, even if
the subject is on top of a building, it's
still the ground plane that they're sitting
on.
So where is that ground plane?
Important thing is where it meets the sky.
So we can see the ground plane here and we
can see the sky here, so that means that the
horizon line is there, where the ground plane
meets the sky.
Another way of finding the horizon line is
by looking at all the objects and image, it
have parallel converging lines and see where
they meet.
So in this case, with these cubes, the parallel
converging lines meet, of course, on the horizon
line.
And that's what we're doing.
We're following those converging lines to
see where the horizon line is.
There's also two-point perspective, where
there's two vanishing points on the horizon
line and three point perspective, where we
have a third vanishing point above the horizon
line, or it could be below.
But the point is is that, there's still two
vanishing points right on the horizon line
and that's really, really important because
we need to make sure that everything is in
perspective when we start compositing.
And one other thing that I want to mention
is that some of you may have that the horizon
line is the eye level and that's true in the
real world, if you're looking off into the
distance the horizon level would be where
your eye level is, but in the case of a photo,
that's where the lens was when the photo was
captured.
So you can think about it as simply where
the ground plane meets the sky.
And in this image you can make a very, very
good estimate of where the ground plane and
the sky is.
We can see the road, so that's the ground
plane.
The sky is back here, and you can just estimate
and assume that the horizon line is right
about there.
You don't need to be 100% perfect, but you
need to have a very good idea of where it
is.
You could also, in this case, follow the parallel
converging lines of the scene and you'll notice
that they'll meet somewhere right about...
Actually, that was not a very good one.
They'll meet somewhere right about here and
this is probably just a little too hight,
but you'll, you'll see that um, they meet
right around there.
Right arou- uh, right around where I, uh,
where I placed that guy.
So that's all you really need to know, that
that's where the horizon line is.
And the reason that you need to d- know that
is because if you don't, then things don't
look the way that they should.
Let me show you what I mean by that.
I have this example here, of this beach and
this man and it's a very good composite in
the sense that the masking is pretty good,
the lighting matches, the color matches, he
even has mud in his shoes.
We have a nice shadow, and it's a very good
composite.
But the problem is that the longer you look
at this image, the more that the image doesn't
feel right.
It doesn't look right.
You can tell that something is wrong and if
we analyze the image we'll see that the background
has a horizon line really high up.
Right above his head.
You can see the ground plane here and you
can see the sky there.
So where the ground plane meets the sky is
obviously the horizon line.
If we enable the composite layer here and
click on the layer mask while holding shift,
we can disable it.
That's why you can see that red X and you'll
see that the horizon line of the foreground
is much, much lower.
It's right above his knees.
See that?
This is the ground plane and this is the sky,
and this is where it meets.
So clearly the perspective is not matching.
So how can you fix it?
Well, you can do one of two things.
You can click and drag him up and place him
so that the horizon line matches.
Notice that just by doing that, the image
just feels better.
He feels more like he belongs there.
The other option that you have is moving the
horizon line down so that it matches.
So in both cases the image just looks and
feels much better because the perspective
matches.
So that's the importance of perspective.
I also want to point out that not every image
will work uh, w- er, not every background
will work with every foreground because sometimes
a perspectives, the perspectives are too different.
So if I disable this layer and I follow all
the converging lines in the scene, you'll
see that of course, the horizon line is roughly
right in the center of the image.
Right, right about here.
Right in the center.
So if I bring in the model, I know where his
horizon line is, right above his knees.
So even though this matches and feels right,
he's obviously still too big because the perspectives
are so different.
So you'll never really get to make this image
work with this background, no matter how much
we scale him.
Because if we scale him down and try to fit
it, fit him into perspective, he's just not
going to work.
So just keep that in mind.
However this is also a valuable lesson in
creating, you know, maybe giants or people
that are very, very tiny, just by putting
opposite perspectives together and uh, and
then you'll get that effect here, like in
this case.
He looks very, very tall.
So that's one good way of um, adjusting perspective,
to make it...
Or, using perspective to create scenes that
work for you.
But if you want to make something realistic,
obviously this wouldn't be the case.
So let me close this document and now we're
going to work with this runner layer and we
need to find her perspective and it's also
really easy.
We can see the ground plane here, we can see
the sky and we can see these parallel converging
lines right here.
So then we can assume that the per- that the
horizon line is right on her hip more or less.
So I can click and drag her up just a little
bit, and actually before I do that um, I'm
just going to mask her.
And there's so many ways of masking.
You can use the quick selection tool, if you're
uh, if you're in an older version of Photoshop,
and click and drag to select her.
But in Photoshop CC, if you're a member of
the Creative Cloud, you have access to the
select subject button.
So when you click on that, Adobe Sensei, which
is Adobe's artificial intelligence, will analyze
the image and make a selection.
It's not perfect by any means, but it gets
you started on that selection.
So I can just come in here by holding alt,
option on the Mac, and clicking and dragging
on these areas that I've missed, or that I
want to subtract rather, and then click and
drag on the areas that I want to add.
And at this point in the game, I don't necessarily
want to spend a lot of time fine tuning the
image because I don't need, uh, I don't even
know if I need to.
Some of these pixels, I may decide to not
keep, or the mask doesn't need to be perfect
because it will blend perfectly with the background.
So at this point, I'm just making a quick
rough selection and then clicking on the layer
mask icon to subtract the background from-
from the foreground.
At this point I can just click and drag and
move her up and maybe press control T, command
T, to transform and scale her down, just so
that she's not as big and I'll place her right
about here.
And one of the things I want to do is I want
to use some of that original, some of those
original pixels for the reflections.
So what I could do is simply select a soft
brush, make sure that the hardness is set
to zero and just start painting with white,
not black, to reveal.
So white reveals, and black conceals.
So you can just start using these original
pixels for the reflection, and that's something
you want to do a lot in compositing.
You want to try to use the original pixels
as much as possible and this is going to work
for now and actually, you know what?
Maybe not.
Let me just hide some pixels.
So I'm just going to make a smoother transition
to invisible, like so.
So that's before, and that's after.
So now that we've worked with masking we can
start moving onto the next part, which is
color matching.
So we can see that the background has a lot
of blue and the foreground does not and it
clearly looks fake because we need to have
a better um, color match, so that it looks
more realistic.
Now before I show you how to do that, we're
going to move on into a different file and
I'm going to show you a technique for white
balancing a photo.
But, that technique is going to show us how
to color match.
So first I'll show you the white balance technique,
so you understand how that tool is used and
then we're, and then I'm going to show you
how we can use that tool to color match.
So I'm going to open up a document and I'm
sure that you've seen a bunch of photos like
this where they simply are just not collar-
color balanced cor- correctly, and this can
happen for many reasons.
But the point is, is that you can fix it in
Photoshop, and one of the ways of fixing it
in Photoshop is by using the curves adjustment
layer and by default when you hit auto, sometimes
it doesn't give you the best results.
And Photoshop has four different algorithms
that you can use when you click on that auto
button.
If you want to change what the algorithm is,
you can hold alt, option on the Mac, and click
on auto, and it brings up this window.
These are the four different algorithms.
By default, you'll see it has brightness and
contrast and you click on the different algorithms
to see how they affect the photo.
In my opinion, fine, dark and light colors
gives you a better result.
So that's the one that I'll select, and I
can also check snap neutral mid tones and
notice how the image was color matched.
And it's finding the darkest color, which
was black, and the brightest color, which
was white.
In other words, it's looking for the darkest
pixel in the image, it makes it black.
The brightest pixel in the image, and it makes
it white, and then you get this result.
And I'm going to click on save as default
and press OK.
So next time that I create a curves adjustment
layer and click on auto, I'll get that result,
which works great.
Now this is not a perfect algorithm.
Sometimes it doesn't give you the results
that you're expecting.
For example in this image, if I go into the
curves adjustment layer and click on auto,
you'll see that it gets better but is not
as good as the previous example.
That's because Photoshop had a lot of trouble
finding the neutral gray, and to find the
neutral gray, you can click on the gray point
eye dropper and just click on an area of the
image that should be a neutral gray, like
the brick path, and the image looks much better.
Now some of you may be thinking, "Why not
just start with the neutral gray eye dropper
and not click on auto?"
If you do, the image looks a little washed
out.
So you do need to click on auto to get the
contrast right, and then click on the image
to uh, on the neutral gray, to neutralize
it.
So um, I just want to show you what's going
on behind the scenes, that way you understand
what that algorithm is doing.
So remember, the algorithm is called, find
dark and light colors.
So what does that mean?
Before that algorithm came around, way back
when in Photoshop, some of you that have been
using it for a while, you might remember that
you can um, white balance an image by simply
going to each individual channel and just
finding the darkest and brightest points of
an image.
This is the black point, this is the information
in the image, so I'm finding the information
here, I don't need to do it on the white point.
Then in the green channel, I can do the same.
Just finding the dark and brightest points.
In the blue channel, I have to do both the
black point and the white point.
So see how that gives me the same result I
had earlier?
And when I click on the gray point eye dropper,
I neutralize the image.
And I think it would've been a better example
to show you on the...
On this image.
'Cause the image actually gets co- color corrected
in this, in this case.
So I'll do it really quickly.
I'll go into the red channel and you can see
that as I find the black point and white point,
the image starts looking better and much,
much better on every single channel once I
find the dark and bright points.
So that's what that algorithm is doing, basically
it's just finding the dark and light colors
for you, and it makes them black and it makes
them white.
Now with that knowledge, we can go into our
composite here and we can tell Photoshop to
instead of finding black and white, to find
the darkest colors in this image and apply
them to the runner.
To do so, I'm going to go into the curves
adjustment layer, click on this icon to clip
it to the layer below.
Clipping simply means that you will, that
this adjustment layer will only adjust the
layer below.
So that's it.
That's what that clip does and that's what
this arrow in the layer panel represents.
So with this layer selected, I'm going to
hit the auto button by holding alt and I do
not need neutral mid tones because this image
has a color match, so I definitely don't need
that.
I do want to stay with the fine and d- fine,
dark and light colors and click on this black
color swatch for the shadows and then I can
select what the darkest color of my image
is.
So if I select this really, really dark blue
here, and actually I made a mistake.
The image turned white.
Why did it turn white?
That's because I didn't properly select the
right um, icon to work with.
See how the white outline here?
This focus?
This white focus is on the layer mask?
It needs to be on the actual curves adjustment
layer.
So if I click on the actual curves adjustment
layer, notice how the focus changes.
So if I do that again, when I click on this
area, you'll see that it changes to this dark
blue and I can move it around if I need to.
So I'm just going to move it around, just
make it a little more blue and press OK.
And I can do the same for the highlights.
I need to find an area like the snow here,
to represent my highlights and press OK.
Notice that it doesn't look very good and
that's because snap neutral mid tones is check,
but once I uncheck that, it's going to look
much better and it's going to look more like
the background.
And I can keep fine tuning it as much as I
need, make it brighter, darker, whatever you
think it needs so that the image looks more
realistic, and I think in this case I may
need to go a little bit brighter on here and
press OK.
I'll press OK one more time.
Photoshop is going to ask you if you want
to make these the default colors.
You actually do not, because then next time
you want to color correct something, you're
going to be using these colors.
So most of the times you're going to click
no.
And now you can use the RGB channel to give
the image contrast and make it match the scene.
One trick that I like using is creating a
black and white adjustment layer so that we
lose all the color in the scene and we can
just see the luminance values.
Then with the curves adjustment layer, I can
just fine tune the image and try to make it
look...
If the image looks good in black and white,
it'll look good in color.
So I'm just trying to make it match.
Meaning that I want the darkest pixels in,
on her, to be similar to the darker pixels
in the background.
So something like this, I would say.
Once I disable that black and white adjustment
layer, notice how much better the foreground
image looks.
I just want to mention that uh, since we're
done with this section here and we're, uh,
I want to mention one quick, really quickly
and Andrew, I know Andrew's going to talk
about it more in the chat.
But if you're interested in compositing and
you want to take a deep dive into compositing,
you can check out my premi- uh, premium tutorials
at photoshoptrainingchannel.com/shop, and
as I said, Andrew should be pasting the link
in there somewhere and I have a course on
compositing.
It's this one here, so it's about five hours
long and I cover a whole bunch of things on
compositing.
I have uh, transcripts available.
You can watch the free sample video if you
like, but if you're into compositing and you
want to learn more, I do have a full five
hour course on compositing in Photoshop.
We talk about perspective, lights, shadows,
um, a whole bunch of different things.
Reflections, uh, almost anything you want
to know about compositing.
So if you're enjoying this stream, check it
out.
Also there's going to be a discount code and
uh, Andrew again, will post that on the chat
and yeah.
Andrew just I see that, I just saw that you
posted the compositing course and I'm sure
you'll be posting the discount code.
It's 10% off for the people watching this
stream.
But anyway, we have now found the perspective
of the image, masked our model, applied a
color match to make the model look more realistic,
and now it's time to just fine tune the image
further.
I'm going to press control, semi colon, to
disable the guide.
Control, semi colon, enables in the sales
guides and what I'm going to do now is zoom
in just to show you some of the details that,
that are missing.
See how in the background we have a lot of
snow coming in and we don't necessarily see
that on her?
Well obviously this is not realistic so we
need to make sure that we get some, some snow
on her.
And there's a lot of ways that you can add
snow into Photoshop.
One of the ways that I prefer is simply by
going into um, the internet and finding an
image.
I like to use Adobe Stock and from the library's
panel you can search on Adobe Stock and you
can just type something like, "Snow overlay,"
and you're going to get all these different
overlays from Adobe Stock that you can use
on your image.
Obviously you need to license those images,
um, but I already have one licensed here from
Adobe Stock.
So I have this snow image and when you're
doing this, find something that has white
snow or rain or whatever it is.
The point is that you need white and then
black in the background so that's it's easier
to composite and I'm just going to click and
rotate this layer so that the snow sort of
matches the snow in the scene.
maybe even make it a little larger.
Oops, sorry about that.
Um, let me undo that.
Maybe make it a little larger and just place
it right there.
And I want the snow to only affect model,
so I'm going to press control, alt, G.
Command, option, Google on the Mac, to clip
it to the model like so.
And now I need to hide the black pixels and
only keep the white pixels, and to do so you
can click on this drop down and just use blending
modes.
And we have all these different blending modes
that blend layers together.
The darkened group, see how these lines are
between certain, uh, blending modes?
Those are groups, normal group, darkened group.
The darkened group obviously makes things
darker, and the lighten group, well obviously
made things brighter, and the blending mode
that you're looking for is screen.
This one here.
So notice how the black background disappears
and we only keep the foreground.
See that?
Now obviously we need to make a couple adjustments
like the snow is way too sharp, so let me
just go into filter, blur, Gaussian blur,
and blur it a little bit, just 'cause I'm
trying to make the blur of the actual snow
in the scene and you know what?
I think I might, may have made the snow way
too large.
So let me transform it and actually, I'll
go the opposite way this time.
I'll make it way smaller.
Maybe something like this.
And that's looking a little more like the
snow in the scene and what I'll do now is
I'll just apply a image adjustment, hue and
saturation adjustment, so that I can make
the snow bluish like the snow in the scene.
Something like this, and press OK, and maybe
bring down the opacity just a little bit.
And obviously this will take some fine tuning,
but you can see that right away we made the
snow look a lot like the snow in the scene,
just by using that snow overlay.
So you can use these overlays to get uh, I'm
sorry, you can use Adobe Stock to get overlays
and actually I just thought about something
that I'm going to show you.
Let me just uh, look for my Creative Cloud
app.
Um, Adobe Stock, you obviously have to license
images, um, which means you have to pay to
use them.
But if you want free assets from Adobe, if
you're a member of the Creative Cloud, the
full Creative Cloud, unfortunately not the
photography plan, but the full creative cloud,
you can go into the assets tab on your Creative
Cloud app and you have this tab here called
market, which allows you to download um, user
interfaces, vectors, icons, patterns and brushes.
So for example, I can find, I can go into
brushes and I can type something like, um,
we'll try a fog brush.
We'll see if we can find one, and you want
the brushes, and we have some fog brushes
here.
So I haven't used these before so we'll see
how they work.
So I'll, I think I like this one here.
Smoke brush number three, actually no, number
two.
We'll use number two and we'll click on this
icon to send it to my uh, downloads folder.
Actually, I'll put it in my tutorials folder.
I'll put it in my tutorials folder and it's
downloading.
Should be on there pretty soon and let me
just go into my libraries panel, go into my
tutorials folder and let me just delete that,
and you can see the brushes here.
And there it is.
This is the one that I, I just brought in.
So I can just double click on it and the brush
will automatically selects it.
There it is and then in a new layer, I can
start painting with that brush.
So that's what that brush looks like.
Obviously yellow's not the right color, so
maybe I want to add a little bit of fog in
here, a little bit of smoke, so maybe I could
do it with like o- like a light blue or something
like that and I'll try it again, and just
paint in some of that smoke and obviously
adjust the opacity and things like that.
Just to, to bring in some of this, some of
this mist, some of this smog, uh, smoke or,
or fog rather.
Um, and there it is.
So that's before and after.
But the point is is that you have to, you,
you can use the Adobe Creative Cloud app under
assets and under market, to find all these
different brushes of any kind and also the
icons.
So maybe you're working on a design and you're
looking for you know, I don't know, the Facebook
icon, since we're on Facebook.
Let's see what they got.
Um, I guess they don't have a lot of things
on Facebook on here.
I think if you type in social media actually
there, something may come up, like in one
of those packs.
Let's see, social media.
Yeah, so if you type in social media, you
can get these packs that have uh, those icons
and then use them for whatever you need to.
So we have the like button, Pinterest and
all of these different things.
So all these assets are free and you can use
them on your projects.
All right, so now that we have all these layers
together, uh, or not together, uh, I want
to pull all these layers together.
Um, just control on a single image, so that's
the cohesiveness part of the image.
We've uh, talked about masking, perspective,
color matching, blending modes and now we're
going to do cohesiveness.
And what I like to do once I have my composite
more or less in this part, um, I like to just
put all my layers together.
So I'm going to hold shift and click on the
bottom layer and then the top layer and it
selects them all.
And then pre- and then right click and select
convert to smart object, and this is going
to put the entire composite into a smart object.
If I double click on it, it opens up in a
new tab and I can edit it.
For now, I'm just going to work with the smart
object and what I'm going to do is go into
filter, um, camera raw filter, and I can adjustment
this composite as a single layer.
So I can maybe make it cooler, I could adjustment
the shadows, make them darker, maybe add clarity,
which is contrast in the mid tones, to make
it pop and seem a little more grungy.
Maybe you the vibrance which is uh, smart
saturation.
It adds saturation to pixels that are not
already saturated and it protects skin tones,
and I als- I also want to sharpen the image.
So when I sharpen the image, I really can't
tell what I'm sharpening and you always want
to sharpen at 100% so that you can really
see what's going on.
Any other zoom level will be misleading and
it won't give you a right representation of
the sharpening.
So when you increase sharpening, you obviously
sharpen the entire image, right?
But Photoshop allows you to mask the sharpening
by using the masking slider.
Now when you drag it to the right, you can't
really see what's going on but if you hold
alt, option on the Mac, you'll see that the
screen turns white, just like a layer mask.
White reveals, and black conceals.
If I drag it to the right you can see how
the image starts getting darker.
So those, in those dark areas, we will not
apply the sharpening effect.
So back here in the fog, I don't really want
any sharpening there, so I can drag it to
the right and completely hide the sharpening
effect from that area so the sharpening effect
will only be applied to the areas in white,
which are the edge of the image.
So now if I bump it all the way up to 150,
it doesn't look as bad.
So you can fine tune it and you get the sharpening
for your image.
I also want to go into the effects tab and
add a little bit of grain.
So if you zoom in, you'll notice that the
background has some grain but it doesn't really
match the foreground.
So that would be a little bit unrealistic
so I'll just add a little bit, a little bit
of grain to both, just so that we can match
the grain a bit better.
And I'm going to fit this into view and also
add a vignette, and increase the highlights.
Highlight simply means that the dark vignette
wi- won't effect the bright pixels and then
I'll press OK.
So you can see the before
and the after.
Also, if I want to make an edit
to ca- to those camera raw adjustments, I can double click on the camera raw filter label
and it brings it back up 
and I can make any adjustment that I want.
Or if I want to make an adjustment on the
actual composite, I can double click on the
smart object and make my adjustment.
For example, I can move the model here to
right, actually right about here's probably
what it would look, where it would look best,
and then press control S, command S on the
Mac, to save.
And notice how the smart object updated and
all those camera raw filters were applied
to the uh, adjustment that I made.
So it's a really great way, so uh, when you
composite in Photoshop, you should be, you
should be working undestructively, so that
you can make adjustments at a later point,
um, and the reason you want to make adjustments
is because if you have a client that decides
that they want to change, it's easier for
you to change.
If you're working for yourself or it's a fun
project, it's a personal project, then you
may change your mind at a later date and it
allows you the flexibility to make these changes.
So working undestructively is key when working
with composites in Photoshop.
I'm going to take a quick break.
I like to remind you that you can go into
my website, photoshoptrainingchannel.com and
check out my compositing course.
It's five hours long, where I talk about a
whole bunch of different things.
You can see the index here, you can get a
free sample if you want.
I have transcripts for every videos.
There's uh, PDFs and uh, the files so you
can work with them.
So check them out, check it out if you want.
Andrew will place the link to the page on
the chat and he's also got a discount code
in case you're interested of getting this
course.
So let's get back into Photoshop.
Let me go ahead and close these files since
we don't need them anymore, and I got a couple
of other things I want to show you.
So I'm going to show you a different way of
compositing and uh, what I mean by that is...
Let me just show you these images.
These are photos that I took in the Louvre
museum in Paris, France.
And as you can see, there's people walking
through them.
So I'll just open one so you can see them.
So there's all a bunch of people walking through
the scene and I want to remove everybody,
and obviously I can use things like content
aware and things like, you know, cloning and,
let me just quickly show you what I mean by
that.
So you know, one, one of the things I could
use, and I don't know how well this is going
to work, but I could use content aware, right?
Uh, there's a new one and the old one.
I'll just show you the old one for now just
'cause it's easier to explain.
So if I hold shift and back space, I can let
Photoshop uh, try to fill that in and that
may or may not work.
So I could use something like the patch tool
and you know, try to match it from another
area and see if that works, and you know,
keep, keep using patches and you know, try
to remove everyone in the scene, and obviously
that will take forever.
So um, if you're ever in a situation like
this, where you have a scene you want but
there's a lot of people walking through, Photoshop
actually gives the capability of compositing
images together and then apply an algorithm
to keep or remove certain pixels, depending
on the algorithm.
And what I did is, I took 14 different photos
of this museum and in Photoshop, I can put
them all in really, really easily.
So if I got into filter, uh, I'm sorry, file,
scripts, statistics, I can go into the uh,
folder here under use.
Click on browse and under my Louvre museum,
I can select that and it's going to load all
those files into Photoshop.
Then I can select the stack mode, this is
the algorithm and the algorithm that I want is median.
Median simply means look at all the images
and keep the constant pixels and get rid of
the not constant pixels.
So in, in a scene like that one, people are
walking through, so those people are not constant
because they're moving.
The buildings are obviously constant, so it'll
keep the buildings.
Um, usually want to do this with a camera
and a tripod.
I didn't have a camera or a tripod, I had
my cell phone and no tripod.
So what I had to do was hold very, very still
and take these photos roughly 20, 30 seconds
apart.
You have to keep an eye out and make sure
that everybody moves.
Because if you have a group of people standing
there not moving, then obviously they're going to stay.
So you do have to keep an eye out um, for
those kinds of things, but just take your
photos, wait a few seconds and take a few
more photos.
And the number of photos really depends on
the scene.
I would just take as many as possible and
then see what works in Photoshop.
In this case, 14 was the right number and
I'll just press OK.
So you'll notice that Photoshop is going to
load all those images into your panel and
then it's going to attempt to align them,
since I was moving.
Remember?
And then it's going to apply that algorithm,
and notice how really, really quickly, Photoshop
just removed everyone from the scene, just
like that.
Just like magic.
Now it's not perfect.
If I zoom in, you'll see that there's a couple
imperfections.
See that?
Like that person right there, that's somebody's
arm.
I can just create a new layer and with the
spot healing brush tool, I can just click
and drag and move, remove that arm from the
image.
And I know there's couple more.
There's on here, really, really easy to remove
now, and that there.
Very easy, and you can see that, the job that
Photoshop did.
Now the problem is that the clouds were moving.
So since the clouds were moving, we got this
really, really weird effect.
That's really easy to fix.
We can double click on the smart object to
open up the tab and we can simply um, use
these clouds to fix the mistake.
But see that?
See how the clouds are moving?
That's why we got that weird cloud effect.
So I am going to just select the clouds with
the return to Rectangular Marquee Tool, go
to edit, copy, and then go back into the working
document, edit, paste special, paste in place,
and we have the sky back.
We do have a scene right here in the pyramid
but with the layer mask, with a layer mask,
I can paint with black using a soft brush,
and remove that scene.
Before and after.
Then I can put all these layers together by
holding shift on the top layer, holding shift
on the bottom layer, right clicking and selecting
convert to smart object, and we'll do what
we did in the previous example.
Treat it as a single image with the camera
raw filter, and I'm going to create this HDR
effect by reducing the highlights, increasing
the shadows, adding a whole bunch of clarity,
which is contrast in the mid tones.
I'll increase the vibrance as well, and I'll
add a little bit of sharpening and press OK.
Then I'll crop the edges, the edges look black
because the images were not aligned properly.
Remember that I was movin- that I was, uh,
using my, my hands to hold the camera, so
I'm obviously breathing, moving a little bit,
so that's why you get that effect in the corners,
but you can click and drag the handles here
with the crop tool, to crop those corners
and I can just rotate it to straighten the
horizon and just match it as best as I, er,
just crop it as best as I can, like so.
And actually I think that I might've rotated
it a little too much, maybe a little bit.
Just like that, and that's the final image.
So really, really quickly we were able to
composite all those images and get this really,
really cool effect, really fast.
So we are going to be finishing the stream
in just a couple moments.
I'm going to go back and look at the chat
and see if there's any questions.
Feel free to ans- ask any question and I'll
try to answer it.
(laughs).
But keep in mind, we only have about five
or so minutes, so let me know.
And I'm looking at the chat now, um, somebody
said, "I want the, uh, lesson about masking."
If I'm not mistaken, I did a, um, uh, one,
a lesson on masking about two years ago in
this group and it should be in the record-
recording somewhere.
I don't know if Andrew can, has access to
that, but um, Andrew if, if you have access
to the old recordings I've done on this group,
I did one on masking I think.
So you might want to place the link there.
Um, everybody's saying, "Wow, nice, miracle."
Yeah, it's really cool.
This is a really cool technique and I really,
really like it.
Also, if you're on Instagram, I'm @JRfromPTC,
follow me on Instagram there and don't forget
about my Photoshop compositing course.
It's on my website, Andrew's been pasting
the link in the description, or in the, I'm
sorry, in the um, chat there, and you can
check it out.
There's also a discount code and I talk about
all kinds of things, including perspective,
reflections, lights and all these different
things.
So I would recommend it if you really want
to get into compositing and Photoshop.
And that's it for this tutorial.
I hope that you enjoyed it and that you learned
something new.
If you're interested in the compositing course,
I'm going to place a link down below in the
description, with the coupon code, so you
can also get the same discount that the people
got when they watched the live presentation.
And if this is your first time at the photoshoptrainingchannel,
then don't forget to click on that subscribe
and notification buttons.
Thank you so much for watching.
I will talk to you again in the next tutorial.
