Digital imaging is no different from conventional photography in that to create successful and eye catching pictures you need to develop a seeing eye. To harness the power of modern software you need to capture the images to start with and they are all around you if you look for them.

Some subjects may not make a complete image on their own and this is where the knowledge of your software and that seeing eye begin to pay off. We shot this picture below of the painter up his ladder one Sunday while waiting for the pub to open for lunch. We were on a break from a digital imaging demonstration day so what better time to grab some images with our Nikon Coolpix 950.

The idea was to place our painter with another of our images creating the illusion that he was painting it.

Using Adobe Photoshop 5 the first stage of this creation is to cut out all the unwanted detail from our painter to create a transparency. A quick look at the basic shot and all those spaces between the rungs probably has you groaning already. It shouldn't do as cutting out that detail is not such a chore and since when is anything worthwhile done in two minutes.

Call up your basic image and the layers palette by pressing the F7 key. Double click the little thumbnail within the layers palette called background and change it to a label of your choice. This is an important first step as Photoshop cannot make a transparency from the bottom image in the layers stack unless you change this name.

There are a number of ways to make a selection in Photoshop and the best way will depend on the complexity of the image and the background. We found the most convenient way was to make a path using the pen tool from the tool bar shown below.

After a little practice this is not such a chore and does afford you ultimate control of the selection. The advantage of the pen tool is that you can enlarge or reduce your image as you create your path.

The pen tool will create an anchor point every time you touch down on your image so carefully mark around the shape in small steps. They can be longer on straight areas and shorter on curves until you join up with your starting point.

Call up the path palette, which may already be on screen on a tab within your layers palette. If not, call up the paths from the windows menu. Drag the path thumbnail down and over the dotted ring at the base of the palette and Photoshop will change your path into a selection.

You can then repeat this same path process to take out the detail between the rungs.

Tip. Always feather the edge of your selections before cutting out unwanted detail. Even in the sharpest pictures the edges between subjects are often quite soft and unless you re-create this softness your montages will not be believable. 1-2 pixel radius is sufficient for an image from a digital camera, but 2-3 pixels if you are using a 35mm scan The feather command is found in the select menu. Your transparency should look like the above image. The blue and white checks tell you the background is transparent.

You will now need to choose another image for your painter to lean against and we suggest an image that does not contain lots of confusing detail. The final image will work that much better if you can keep the second picture simple. We chose a sky scape below and added a few Seagulls, which were cut and pasted from other pictures.

You will need to create a border around your sky to allow space for your painter, but first ensure you double click that default thumbnail in the layers palette and rename it. You will need your border to be transparent and unless you rename the thumbnail the border will default to whatever background colour you have selected. Select image - canvas size and add a few inches to the width and height. Remember you can always crop this back later so be a little generous as we have below.

Create a new blank layer by clicking the centre icon at the base of your layers palette and drag that blank to the bottom of your layers stack underneath your sky.

Click this icon arrowed to create a new blank layer, but to copy a layer drag the thumbnail over the same icon. The layer order can be changed by dragging the new blank layer beneath the sky

You can now create your background using the tools of Photoshop either flooding it with colour or by making a gradation. It is important that you give some thought to the border colour to ensure it works in harmony with the rest of your image. Try adding a slight texture to your border found in the filters menu or perhaps some noise.

Your two images now need to be amalgamated within layers so that the final manipulations can be made. Working in layers can be confusing, but again it is well worth that little effort to get your head around it. To combine the two elements of your image together bring both on screen along with the layers palette. (F7) Click in the painter transparency and the thumbnail will appear in the layers palette. Drag and drop that thumbnail into your sky and the two images will form a layered composition.

Click in the painter transparency and the thumbnail will appear in the layers palette. Drag and drop that thumbnail into your sky and the two images will form a layered composition.

The painter can easily be flipped so that he faces the other way using the edit transform tools which will effect only that layer as shown below.

With this type of image you will also need to alter the perspective of the sky so that it matches the perspective of the painter. We shot the painter from the side and without any work on the sky the final image doesn't look right.

With your sky layer selected choose edit - transform - distort from the menu bar and by using the tiny square handles that appear at the corners of your image you will be able to alter the perspective of the sky to match the rest of your image. Add a patch of white to your sky with the airbrush where the painters brush is touching to create the feeling that he is actually painting it.

To create the painter's shadow first make a copy of that layer by dragging it over the copy icon at the bottom of the layers palette.

With the preserve transparency box ticked you can flood your painter with black and the colour will be restricted to just his shape. Untick the preserve transparency box and using gaussian blur from the filter menu, add a degree of blur to your shadow.

Use the same edit-distort tools as you did with the sky to add some distortion to the shadow and give it a natural believable look. If the shadow is too black use the opacity slider control within layers to reduce it.

Try producing other images using these techniques, combining just two images is a great way to start with layers and often gives great results.