Help with CS6 composite images

landerson07 · 24 Nov 2013

Hi all, to say my knowledge of PS is limited is an understatement but every now and then I think I should start to learn it. In a weeks time I have a "fairy" photo shoot with a 6 month old girl.

Whilst I have a starry night backdrop I thought I would practice masking an image, adding some wings, fairies and changing the background.

This is my first attempt and in truth it didn't take too long. I used Topaz Demask to cut around the original image, reduced the exposure slightly, added some wings, a couple of fairies and and a fairy trail.

My GF obviously thinks it's great lol, but I can see the floors.

Can someone please have a quick look and see what they would change and if possible list their workflow for this type of PS work??

TIA, Lee

Fairy test by landerson07, on Flickr

tommmy.star · 24 Nov 2013

Shadows. To make this work you need to work on shadows. As for now it just looks as if you pasted him on to a great looking background. The hard work is now to make him become a part of it. Dodge and burn would be my way of doing it. Also, although it doesn't bother me that much,some will say that the direction of the light source background/foreground might be somehow confusing.

landerson07 · 24 Nov 2013

tommmy.star said:
Shadows. To make this work you need to work on shadows. As for now it just looks as if you pasted him on to a great looking background. The hard work is now to make him become a part of it. Dodge and burn would be my way of doing it. Also, although it doesn't bother me that much,some will say that the direction of the light source background/foreground might be somehow confusing.

Yeah I realised the light direction was different but i'd already messed on with the mask and couldn't be bothered to start over again

I've got a feeling this isn't going to be a quick thing to learn??? PS is the one thing where I feel I need to sit down with a "master" and will all just click into place. So dodge and burn on my daughter

or the background? or both?

tommmy.star · 24 Nov 2013

landerson07 said:
Yeah I realised the light direction was different but i'd already messed on with the mask and couldn't be bothered to start over again

I've got a feeling this isn't going to be a quick thing to learn??? PS is the one thing where I feel I need to sit down with a "master" and will all just click into place. So dodge and burn on my daughter or the background? or both?

Both. Dodge and Burn is fairly easy to master with lots and lots material on YouTube.