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These
5 images were used for this tutorial
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One of the joys of digital
photography is the ease in which digital cameras handle
close-ups. Add the ability to amalgamate a number of pictures
in one image and endless possibilities emerge. Try taking
a number of pictures on a theme and then arrange them using
your chosen software to create a strong composition and
balance of colour. Our examples were taken at Warwick Castle
with a Nikon Coolpix 950 digital camera. All the 5 pictures
above were shot through glass cases with the camera set
up for close up mode.
The main elements of your
image will need to be made into transparencies and this
is where a little time and effort will pay off. Call up
your first image and the layers palette (F7). Rename the
layer from the default Background to anything of your choice
by double clicking the thumbnail. There are many ways to
remove the background leaving you with a transparency, but
we chose the pen tool on this occasion for accuracy as shown
below.
With your image greatly
enlarged mark a path around your subjects in small steps.
The steps can be smaller round corners and longer on straight
sections as we show below.
When the path has been closed
call up the path palette and drag your path over the dotted
ring icon shown below, which will convert the path into
a selection.
Having made your selection
feather the edge of that selection by 1-2 pixels, inverse
your selection by hitting Ctrl+shift+I and cut out the background
using the shortcut keys Ctrl+X. Your image should look like
ours below, the chequered background tell you that your
image is floating on a transparency.
Repeat this process with
the swords. It can be slow process to mark a path around
such intricate objects, but its well worth the effort.
The main elements of the
composition can now be put together in layers with a background
of your choice. To create a layered composition call up
your helmet and swords and drag the thumbnail of the helmet
into the main picture area of the swords as we demonstrate
below.
With your transform tools
you can size and rotate these elements into the correct
position.
To create your background
select the eye dropper tool and select two shades of colour
from within your current image. We chose our tones from
the helmet. With your gradation tool chosen from the tool
bar you can create a gradation that is very complimentary
to the remaining tones of your picture. Try adding some
shading around the edges with either the burn tool or via
a selection and the levels command. You may also wish to
had a degree of texture to make the main elements stand
out boldly. Textures are found via filters>textures>texturizer.
You can what we mean by looking at the image below.
Drag the castle into your
growing composition and position it correctly using the
transform tools. Choose soft light from the blending modes
within layers and the castle will start to blend nicely
with your background. Add a layer mask to your castle and
by spraying black you can mask the edges smoothly into the
background. Continue this process with the other pictures
you wish to add.
See how the layers stack
and layer masks will look below as your image builds up.
To add depth to your picture
try adding a drop shadow to your main subjects of the swords
and helmet. Make a copy of these layers by dragging them
over the copy icon in the layers palette. Tick the preserve
transparency box and flood the shape with black. Using gaussian
blur, the distort tools and the opacity command in the layers
palette you will be able to create an effective shadow to
both these main parts.
After all the work you will
have put into an image save it in its layered form and look
at it again critically a few days later. You may find that
some of the edges of the helmet and swords show a few tell
tale signs of the copy and paste technique. You can deal
with them in a number of ways, but our favourite is to use
a layer mask and mask out any stray pixels that are not
wanted. Alternatively use the eraser tool from the toolbar
Warwick castle is a great
source of images and they don't appear to have any of those
petty rules that say you cannot take photographs.
Check out the tutorial CD's
available on this site HERE
