The Canon Magazine 51
CREATIVE COMPOSITE PROJECT
NEXT MONTH
BIG BURGER
EXPLOSIONS!01 LOAD INTO LAYERS
Open Adobe Bridge. Hold Cmd/Ctrl and click to
highlight the images you want to combine (here we
begin with shots one, two, three and five), then go to
Tools>Photoshop>Load Files into Photoshop Layers.
Your photos will open in Photoshop as a stack.
03 MASK THE LADDER
Highlight the top layer (shot one of the subject and
ladder) then click the Add Layer Mask icon. Grab the
Brush tool from the toolbar and hit D then X to set the
colour to black. Paint over the ladder to remove it,
revealing the chairs on the layer underneath.
05 COPY AND PASTE
Open shot four (the model perched on the chairs) and
grab the Lasso tool. Make a loose selection of the part
where the bottom meets the chairs, then copy (Cmd/
Ctrl+C) and paste (Cmd/Ctrl+V) it into the main
image. Hit Cmd/Ctrl+T to transform, then position it.
02 AUTO-ALIGN THE LAYERS
Go to the Layers panel, click on the top layer then hold
Shift and click on the bottom layer to select the entire
stack. Next go to Edit>Auto-Align Layers. Choose
Auto and hit OK. This will correct any misalignment
between the frames caused by camera shake.04 ADD ANOTHER MASK
Highlight the layer below (shot two of the chair stack)
then add another layer mask and paint with black to
hide the rest of the ladder. If you go wrong with a layer
mask, you can always hit X to switch to white and
paint to reveal the missing parts.06 TIDY THE SEAMS
Add a layer mask then grab the Brush tool and paint
with black to soften the edges of the piece so it blends
in with the rest of the shout. Finally, make a new layer,
grab the Clone tool, set it to Sample: All Layers in the
tool options then clone to tidy any messy patches.STEP BY STEP BUILD THE BALANCING COMPOSITE
Use Photoshop layers and masking skills to combine our photos and create our final image
THE AUTO-
ALIGN LAYERS
COMMAND
Found under the Edit
menu, this handy
Photoshop command
automatically corrects
for slight misalignment
between layers. As
such, it’s useful for a
project like this when
we need our frames to
match. There are several
alignment options to
choose from, but Auto
usually works fine. It’s
also useful for other
workflows like focus
stacking, where the
slight change in focus
point between each
frame means it’s very
hard to align them in-
camera. The command
is also handy for manual
exposure blending, such
as when combining one
exposure for a sky and
another for the land.