Compositing Tips- How would you fix this photograph?

[Bodacious Betty {★}]

Here's a '56 Ford Fairlane on a beach. Clearly you can tell the shots were pasted together so what would you do to make them mesh better? Thanks!

[Bodacious Betty {★}]

Thank you so much. I'm new at compositing as you can tell. I was wondering how to properly create shadow underneath the car. I knew I could use Edit-Transform to change the size of an object, but I had not tried using the perspective or distort option.

I'll have to give it another go on my own and see how I fare.

mrjynx said:

I had a go at this. not my best work of art.

firstly, the cutting out was poor, you can use the pen tool, and draw around the car with control points, then when complete, right click-convert to selection.

or just use the polygonal lasso tool. you can also feather this selection to avoid sharp edges.

the second problem, I think the perspective was a bit off, I altered this with edit-transform-perspective or distort.

thirdly, the shadows were too dark. theres a few fixes for this, levels firstly for overall darkness, then shadow/highlights to lighten up the shadows, image-adjust-replace colour then brightness to fix something specific.

also, dodge and burn, i used this to blend the edges of the sharp shadows.

lastly, the shadow under the car, looks like you used the burn tool, what you want to do is draw the shadow by hand in black, then change the layer overlay to whatever looks best, also bring down the opacity.

[Bodacious Betty {★}]

Thanks for the encouragement. I'll post my second try. May not get to it this weekend. I've got a bettie page shoot to do. Thanks for the tutorial link as well. I never looked for one for casting shadows. I actually went looking for one on photoshopping classic cars and couldn't find one. Maybe you could author one?

mrjynx said:

Well there are two ways actually... the first as I said, just draw it yourself with black, gaussian blur it, then adjust the overlay.

second way, and this works for reflection too. is duplicate the later, make it black using brightness/contrast, the transform it.
tutorial there,
http://www.avivadirectory.com/photoshop/casting-realistic-shadows/

for reflections, you just flip it vertically under transform controls.

But keep doing it, I dont see many chicks photoshopping cars.

[Bodacious Betty {★}]

"use the remove paper from wiperblade tool"

Lol! Thank you!

[Bodacious Betty {★}]

Funny that you mention that, I have some photos where I have lots of flyaway hair and it seems the only way to fix it is to extract the model from the background, and place it against another background.

California Redwoods Photography said:

well, in PS there's a tool for everthing ! but seriously... I really do wish there was a hair brush tool in PS, that would cut post time drastically !

[2d1jh4f6bcokc]

fly away hair is simply using the clone tool to remove .... pretty quick...

Bodacious Betty said:

Funny that you mention that, I have some photos where I have lots of flyaway hair and it seems the only way to fix it is to extract the model from the background, and place it against another background.

California Redwoods Photography said:

well, in PS there's a tool for everthing ! but seriously... I really do wish there was a hair brush tool in PS, that would cut post time drastically !

[Bodacious Betty {★}]

Yeah, but I usually don't use the clone tool b.c. often I can see where I've cloned an area. Tried the patch tool and that didn't work either.

Flat Black Photography said:

fly away hair is simply using the clone tool to remove .... pretty quick...

Bodacious Betty said:

Funny that you mention that, I have some photos where I have lots of flyaway hair and it seems the only way to fix it is to extract the model from the background, and place it against another background.

California Redwoods Photography said:

well, in PS there's a tool for everthing ! but seriously... I really do wish there was a hair brush tool in PS, that would cut post time drastically !

[Edson Carlos]

Use a smaller clone tool, pick different areas to clone to keep it unpatterened, follow up with a light blur over the area if there is a solid background.

Bodacious Betty said:

Yeah, but I usually don't use the clone tool b.c. often I can see where I've cloned an area. Tried the patch tool and that didn't work either.

Flat Black Photography said:

fly away hair is simply using the clone tool to remove .... pretty quick...

Bodacious Betty said:

Funny that you mention that, I have some photos where I have lots of flyaway hair and it seems the only way to fix it is to extract the model from the background, and place it against another background.

California Redwoods Photography said:

well, in PS there's a tool for everthing ! but seriously... I really do wish there was a hair brush tool in PS, that would cut post time drastically !

[Bodacious Betty {★}]

excellent. I'm going to try that tonight on a couple of photos where i have really frizzy hair.

Edson {PL Team} said:

Use a smaller clone tool, pick different areas to clone to keep it unpatterened, follow up with a light blur over the area if there is a solid background.

Bodacious Betty said:

Yeah, but I usually don't use the clone tool b.c. often I can see where I've cloned an area. Tried the patch tool and that didn't work either.

Flat Black Photography said:

fly away hair is simply using the clone tool to remove .... pretty quick...

Bodacious Betty said:

Funny that you mention that, I have some photos where I have lots of flyaway hair and it seems the only way to fix it is to extract the model from the background, and place it against another background.

California Redwoods Photography said:

well, in PS there's a tool for everthing ! but seriously... I really do wish there was a hair brush tool in PS, that would cut post time drastically !

[2d1jh4f6bcokc]

As DC said ... you have to adjust the size and also ( really important too) keep picking different clone samples near by your fly aways.... all this compositing takes practice ... I've bought dvd's and have learned so much.... and I'm always looking stuff up on youtube ...

Bodacious Betty said:

excellent. I'm going to try that tonight on a couple of photos where i have really frizzy hair.

Edson {PL Team} said:

Use a smaller clone tool, pick different areas to clone to keep it unpatterened, follow up with a light blur over the area if there is a solid background.

Bodacious Betty said:

Yeah, but I usually don't use the clone tool b.c. often I can see where I've cloned an area. Tried the patch tool and that didn't work either.

Flat Black Photography said:

fly away hair is simply using the clone tool to remove .... pretty quick...

Bodacious Betty said:

Funny that you mention that, I have some photos where I have lots of flyaway hair and it seems the only way to fix it is to extract the model from the background, and place it against another background.

California Redwoods Photography said:

well, in PS there's a tool for everthing ! but seriously... I really do wish there was a hair brush tool in PS, that would cut post time drastically !

[Bodacious Betty {★}]

I did another shoot with a car today and drat!, my reflection is showing in the front bumper.
I have no idea how to get rid of it. Any suggestions?

California Redwoods Photography said:

I don't claim to be a photoshop wizard, and I'm self taught in PS. Here is just a real quick
fix for example, obviously more time=better results.
1~removed tree,legs and highway from inside the car windows. pen tool,clone...soft history brush
to add glass reflection back in.
2~cleaned up the original cut out passenger side, where part of original bg was missed.
3~the paper under the wiper was distracting...use the remove paper from wiperblade tool
to make it go away.
4~reflection of trees on the hood.
5~reflection of trees and street in the headlights...googled headlights. pull pic into PS cutout with
elliptical tool, free transform.
6~cutting out tires ins't easy, so i decided to shadow the cutouts.
7~If all else fails, stick a hot model on the hood to distract viewers !
I chose fitness model Scarlett Rumor, one of my pics.
notes...there are cutout plug-ins available.