The Professional Photoshop Book - Volume 7 2015

12

CUT OUT THE WATER PUMP

You will need a foreground environment,

puddle, water pump and a small gap of ground and

grass behind the puddle. Using the Pen tool cut out

the water pump and a line of grass behind it. Don’t be

too careful with the grass – this part of the image is

already behind the main object, the creature, so it is

going to be blurred, or even replaced with another

background. When you outline the water pump, keep

in mind that it is better to make a line inside the

object, 1-2 pixels in, so there are no borders of

different colours when you separate the layers.

11

ADJUST THE REFLECTION

Cutting out such a complicated silhouette

as the reflection of the render manually can be a

real nightmare! Luckily there is an awesome tool

called the Background Eraser tool. Pick it, make a

radius of 50 pixels and carefully delete all the grey

parts of the water. Small lines and different

artefacts can appear in this process, you can use

the eraser to clean them. After this, use the Pen

tool to separate the reflection from the creature on

a new layer. Using the Eraser tool with a large

diameter and soft borders, make the edges of the

reflection soft. Then go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian

Blur, and apply it with 2-3 pixel radius.

10

ADD MORE WATER

A bigger reflection is a great way to pull the

photo and render together, but the puddle on the

photo is too small for the creature’s reflection. You

can make it bigger using the Clone Stamp tool. You

can hide the layer with the render by clicking the eye

icon beside the layer, so it will not distract you from

the background image. Pick the Clone Stamp tool,

use Alt/Option and the left mouse button to pick up

the source for the cloning. The best point to pick is

the open door line in the reflection – you should

continue this line down. Don’t forget to avoid small

details when cloning, like bubbles on the water, or

chalk letters in the reflection.

09

BACKGROUND IMAGE

Now you should launch Photoshop, and open the photo water_pump.jpg. After this, drag and drop

your render on top of it and don’t forget to resize it and place on the puddle. Then, using the Pen tool, carefully

cut the creature from the background. Don’t waste too much time on water though – you just need to cut the

background to the water line, you will be able to clean it in the next few steps.

ADD THE PHOTO ENVIRONMENT

INSERT YOUR RENDER INTO THE PHOTO ENVIRONMENT

001 CUT WITH PEN

The Pen tool is the best way to cut

out the render – it is very flexible and you can undo moves if you

need to

002 DELETE BACKGROUND

After you’ve outlined the creature and

water line, press the right mouse button, create new layer from selection, and

delete background layer

003 LOCATION

Delete the background and place the

render carefully; the optimal position is the top of the puddle. You can reduce the

opacity of the layer to see the backdrop

001

003

002

To make a focal point effect,

like on a real photo, you

should blur the background

13

ADD BACKGROUND

Now you should add a new background to

the image. Open background.jpg from FileSilo and

place it in a new layer, behind the layer with the

creature and water pump, but under all other layers,

and make it a bit bigger. To make a focal point effect,

like on a real photo, you should blur the background,

and keep the creature sharp. Go to Filter>Blur>

Gaussian Blur, and apply it with a 10-15 pixel radius.

As you can see, there is a lot of green on this image,

so go to the Image>Correction>Photo Filter and

apply a warm tone to the background.

Combine 3D and photos

The Professional Photoshop Book 83

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