Hey there, I'm Allie Anderson. You may
have seen me before since my husband and
I make tutorials right here on YouTube.
Our channel is called Affinity
Revolution where we've been making
Affinity tutorials for almost four years.
Today though, I have a special tutorial
for you. We'll be using Affinity Photo
to make this beautiful composite image. It's going to be a lot of fun and I'm sure
you'll learn a lot. Let's get started. My
idea for this image is to create a
pop-out book effect. I'm planning on
keeping the base of the book and the
surrounding area looking the same but I
want to layer elements on top of the
book pages. Now I would love to tell a
story with this pop-out image. By looking
at these surroundings
it looks like the book is sitting in
some sort of office building so my idea
is that there's someone sitting here and
they're tired of being at the office. Maybe their mind is somewhere else, maybe
they're thinking about their next
vacation. So my idea is to turn the pages
of this book into a wave with a surfer
on it.
That sounds like a nice vacation
daydream. A quick note about choosing
images to combine — for composites it's a
good idea to make sure that the lighting
is consistent with each one of your
images. So for this book let's take a
look at the shadows. It looks like the
light is coming from the windows behind
the book and the shadows are coming
towards us. So we need to make sure that
our images look like that or that our
images have no shadows and we can add
shadows to them. If the coloring of our
images is different that's okay we can
make adjustments to that
but shadows are harder to change
direction of and blend into an image. So
with that in mind here's our surfer
image. It looks like the light is coming
from behind him, you can see that the
light is kind of outlining his arm right
here and that's perfect for our book so
I'll bring this image into our other tab
by copying it by pressing command or
ctrl C and then I'll paste it into our
book image with command or ctrl V. So
now I'm going to select the move tool to
move this surfer where I want him, so
looking at the pages of the book I love
that this left hand page is kind of
going up at an angle and I'd like for
our surfer to be on that page. However
he's facing the wrong way so I'll
right-click on this image, go to a
transform and then choose flip
horizontal so now he'll be going up the
right direction on the page and I'm just
going to lower the opacity of his layer
so that I can better see the page and
where to place him. I'm going to place
him here where the waves completely
cover the page. I'll go ahead and turn up
the opacity so we can see it again but
then I'm going to turn off this layer.
Now the next thing I want to do is I
want to mask our surfer onto the page so
I need to make a selection of the page
so I'll press P for the pen tool and
then I'm going to trace an outline of
this page. As you're tracing
make sure that your points are outside
of the whites of the page. If you can see
the whites of the page afterward it's
not going to look very good because this
is a pop-out book. I'm okay if the waves
and surfer are popping out up here so
I'm just going to trace roughly around
this area and then I'm going to bring it
back into the page right about here. Alright with that
page traced I'm going to turn our pen
path into a selection then I'll turn
back on this surfer layer and then with
the surfer layer selected I'm going to
press on the mask icon. At this point we
can see that our surfer has been masked
to the page but there are a few extra
elements here that I want to get rid of
so I'm going to select our mask layer
and then press B for my brush tool and
using this brush tool I'm going to paint
in black to remove from our mask. So I'm
going to bring down the hardness so that
the edges of our paintbrush are looking
softer and I'm just going to quickly get
rid of the sky and then to gradually get
rid of these waves I'm going to lower
the flow of my paintbrush, that way I'm
just painting away a little bit of the
waves at a time. Now that I've gradually
painted away parts of the waves in black
I'm going to switch my color back to
white so that I can make sure that the
key parts of the waves are filled. Then I
also want to go over the surfboard to
make sure that I didn't get rid of too
much of that.
Alright and there we have it, we have
our surfer added to the page. I'll press
command or ctrl D to deselect and now
our next step is to continue the water
down the page. Now to do this I'm going
to press command or control V one more
time to get our surfer back onto the
page then I'm going to drag this layer
down here so that it's beneath our
original surfer. Now I'll select the move
tool to move this image into place. I'm
looking for water that will match up
nicely to that water and I'm also
looking for enough water that it will
cover the white page that's left behind.
I'll just decrease the opacity to make
sure that's covering the page all right
and I'd say that's looking very nice for
filling in that water. So now I'm going
to use the same technique we did before.
I'll turn off this water layer, select
the background layer and then use the
pen tool to trace a selection of the
page. That way the water will only be
showing on the page. This time, because
I'm not covering the entire page, I don't
need to trace the whole book page but I
will trace a little bit extra so that we
can use this to blend the pages together.
Alright I'll turn this into a selection
and then turn on the background layer
again, then I'll select this extra water
layer and press on the mask icon. So now
that layer has been masked to our
selection which is looking great but I
do want to blend this water together, so
I'll select the mask layer and then pull
out my paintbrush again by pressing V
and then I'm going to switch my paint
color to black and I can begin to erase. However if I use black to erase on this
layer we'll start to see the page again. That doesn't look very good so I'll
press command or control V and instead
we'll paint on the mask layer that's on
top. So now with my low-flow paintbrush I
can gradually paint away the edge to
blend these waves together. I'll press
command or control D to deselect and I
can see some sharp edges over here. Now I can try painting that but it looks like
it's not coming off because this is
coming from our other mask layer so I'll
select that layer and then I can
gradually paint that away in black.
Alright I think that page is looking so
good now that our image is masked onto
the page. Our next step is to make the
page look more realistic by adjusting
the lighting and the coloring, so first
I'm just going to close up these layers
then I'm going to add a shadow to the
page. So if I turn off these layers you
can see that books naturally have a
shadow where the pages meet, so to mimic
that effect I'm going to add a curves
adjustment and paint in a dark curves
adjustment right there to kind of look
like a shadow.
So I'll select my adjustment and then go
to curves and then I'll make it nice and
dark. I'll go ahead and invert this
adjustment by pressing command or ctrl I
and now I can paint in white to slowly
reveal that curves adjustment. If you've
painted too much you can switch your
color to black by pressing X to get rid
of any extra shadow. So right now it
looks like our shadow is also on the
book and we want it to be locked into
this page, so to make sure that it's only
showing on the page I'm going to group
these two layers by pressing command or
ctrl G and then I can drag this curves
adjustment into the group. So now it's
being locked into where these waves are
on the page. I think that's looking so
good. As a final step, looking at the
overall image, it looks like the lighting
in this office is warmer than this very
blue tinted wave. To add more warmth to
our surfer I'm going to add a lens
filter adjustment and I can adjust the
optical density to something I think is
looking good. Right now it's being locked
in the group which is perfect it's only
affecting our surfer. But something I
don't like is that it's turning this top
part of our wave orange and that doesn't
look very good. So what I'm going to do
is with the lens filter selected I'm
going to come up to this gear icon and
I'm going to bring down the highlights
node so that it's not affecting the
highlights as much as the shadows
and we can see how that's looking. All
right that's the warmth I was looking
for. I'm going to close up this group and
I'll rename it left because it's on the
left side of the page. Next let's set the
scene for the other page. We could add
more water to this side and call it good
but I want to add to the scene by adding
a beach. So let's add in this beach image. Now before we add it in let's take a
look at the lighting. It looks like the
lighting is coming from over here and
the shadows are going in this direction
and that's perfect for our image. I'll
press command or control C to copy it, go
to our book image and press command or
control V to paste it in. Now I'm going
to select the move tool to move this
into place. I want to lower the opacity
so I can see what I'm doing better.
Now I can go ahead and bring that
opacity back up and then turn off this
layer for now so that I can trace this
page with the pen tool. So like before I
want to try to trace this so that you
can't see any whites of the page. So if I
were to trace it like this we would be
able to see this white page afterward so
I'm going to try to trace it so that
it's slightly overlapping with the water
so that we won't see the whites of the
page. So as you can see I traced slightly
outside of the page. That way we know for
sure that it'll be completely covered by
our beach. I'll turn this into a
selection and then I'm going to turn
back on my beach layer and then I'll
press the mask icon. I'll press command
or ctrl D to deselect so that we can
take a look at this. Now because I trace
slightly outside the page it looks a
little off right here, so I'm going to
select my mask and then press B for my
paintbrush and now I'm going to paint in
black over here to reduce this edge. I'll
bring my hardness up so that it matches
the edge. All right and I think that
looks good.
Next to add to our pop-out effect I'm
going to change my color to white so
that I can paint back in a few of these
rocks and make them pop out of the page.
So in this case the rock extends past
the page but I'm going to make sure that
it ends about here and I'll just bring
it up like that. The great thing about
these edits is that you're the master of
your own illusion. So I can manipulate
this rock how I'd like it and do the
same up here.
I'll just go back in with black to get
rid of that extra blue water.
I like how the rocks are looking as
they're popping out of the page. Now as I
was going around the page doing this I
noticed a few objects that I'd like to
get rid of, so I'm going to select the
main beach layer and then I'm going to
select our inpainting brush. And with it
set to current layer I'll paint over
these things that I want to remove. Next,
let's think about the lighting and
coloring of this side of the page. First
the coloring... I want to change it so this
water is the same color of blue as this
side of the page so that it looks like
this water is continuing to flow over
here. To make that happen I'm going to
add a new pixel layer and then with my
paint brush tool I'm going to sample
colors of the blue side of the page and
paint them over here. Now to make this
blend gradually I'm going to lower the
hardness and lower the flow so that I
can gradually paint these colors over. So
we'll hold alt or option and click to
sample the color over here and then I
can just paint it in over here.
If you're having a hard time blending,
lowering the flow is a great way to
gradually paint
With that painted in I wanted to snap to
the edges of our beach selection, so I'm
going to close this group for the beach
and then click and drag it underneath so
that it becomes part of the group. Then
I'm going to change this layer's blend
mode. I want the natural texture of the
water to peek through but I also want
the coloring to peek through. I found
that hard light does a great job of
keeping that coloring here. And we can
also lower the opacity. I'm also going to
grab our eraser brush and I want to
gradually erase the blue coloring off of
these rocks. So I'll lower the hardness
of my eraser and the flow and now I can
paint that coloring away to make the
rocks look a little more natural. I'm
also going to lightly paint away the
coloring from the very edge where the
white foam comes in to shore. All right,
there we have the before and after with
that coloring and I think that blends a
lot better but we do have one more thing
to add to this page and that's a shadow
like we have over here. So I'm going to
add a curves adjustment to bring a
shadow into this area. I want it to be
dark but not so dark that you won't be
able to see where the page is bent
inward. Then I'll invert this and then
using my brush tool I'll press D to
return to my default black and white
colors and then I'll press X to paint
in white.
Because this curves adjustment is part
of the group, all of our painting stayed
inside of this beach layer. With all of
that finished I'm going to close up this
group and then I'll rename it beach. So
now we have our surfer and our beach.
I want to add one more element into this
composite I'm going to come up to our
tree image and then I'm going to bring
this tree over into our book image. So
looking at the lighting of this tree
it's hard to tell where the light is
actually coming from. The lighting is
pretty even, so luckily, because the
lighting is so even, we can actually add
shadow to this tree afterward to make it
easily blend into our beach. Now before
we can paste it into our document I want
to get rid of this white background. So
to do that I'll select the flood select
tool, turn off contiguous and then click
in the white background. So right now the
background is selected. If I press
command or control shift I, now we have
the tree selected and I'll press the
mask icon. So now I'm going to press
command or control D to deselect and
then we can bring this tree into our
image. I'll copy it and then paste it
into our book using the move tool. I'll
move this tree into place. I've decided
the best place for this tree is behind
this rock right here so to get rid of
this extra stump here I'm going to
select the mask and then paint in black
to remove it. We'll bring up the hardness
and the flow to do that.
I can see this white line here appearing
so to make sure that's not showing up
I'm going to select my eraser tool with
100% flow and I'm just going to get rid
of that.
I'm also noticing some slight haloing
over here on our surfer layer, so I'm
going to open up our surfer layer mask
and I'm just going to erase that as well.
Sometimes that extra can just happen as
you're compositing but I think that's
looking good now. All right back to the
tree. I want to adjust the trees lighting
to make it blend in better with the rest
of the image, so to add some more
darkness to this tree I'm actually going
to take our rectangle tool and then
click and drag out a black rectangle
over our tree. So we want the field to be
black and to have no stroke so if you
have a color here just select this and
then press on this no stroke icon. So now
we have a black rectangle and what I
want to do is add it to our tree group
so I'll close up this group and then
click and drag the rectangle underneath
the group. So now our rectangle layer is
locked onto that tree layer and I'm
going to lower its opacity to bring back
some of that tree detail but I want it
to stay looking pretty dark.
I'd say that's looking really good and
it looks a lot more natural. As a last
touch for our tree, I'm going to close up
our group and select its layer and then
add a new pixel layer so that we can
paint on a shadow for our tree. I'll
press B for the brush tool and then with
full flow and a little bit higher of a
hardness I'm going to paint in black to
create a shadow for our tree. So I'm
curving over the rock and then I'm just
going to paint outward like this. Then
I'll select our eraser tool and I'll
erase any extra we have hanging off.
Now I'm just going to lower the opacity
until it's matching the shadow over here.
Perfect, let's take a look at that. Before.
After. I'm going to select the shadow and
this group and then press command or
control G to group them together. I'll
rename this group 'tree'. We've now
finished adding elements into our image.
Let's take a look at what we've done so
far. We've added our surfer the beach and
now our tree. This is looking so good, so
now as a finishing touch I'm going to
add a few overall adjustments to make
this image look better. First I'm going
to select this top layer and then I'm
going to come to our adjustments to
apply a brightness and contrast
adjustment. Then I'll go ahead and
brighten this up and add a little extra
contrast. So while I like this
brightening, I do think these whites are
looking blown out over here. So to fix
that I'll come to our blend ranges and
bring down the highlights node. I think
that's looking much better.
It's brightened the image without
blowing out those highlights. And as a
final, final touch I love a good golden
glow especially on a beach. So to add
that little extra warmth just to the
centre of the image, I'm going to add a
lens filter. Then I'm going to add a
gradient. So by clicking and dragging
from the center we're making it so that
our lens filter is on a gradient. I'm
going to make this gray color stop black
so now it starts in the center and fades
out.
Right now it's linear. I'm going to make
this a radial gradient so that the
warmth is all in the center and fades
out toward the edges. All right I think
that's looking so good with all of these
adjustments done. Let's see a complete
before-and-after of this image.
Nice. With our composite effect complete, I think this is looking so good.
What a beautiful daydream. Wasn't that so fun? This
composite turned out great. If you'd like
to try it for yourselves, you can find
the link to these images in the video
description. Thanks for watching and have
fun making your own composite.
