The Professional Photoshop Book - Volume 7 2015

Photo manipulation

90 The Professional Photoshop Book

QUICK TIP: LOOK AROUND

When you work with light manipulation you

need to do research and look at a lot of

reference images in order to fully understand

13

SET FIRE TO HIS ARMS

Now it is time to make the scene even more

interesting. For this, using the same principle as in

Step 3, you will add fire to the arms and hands of our

superhero. Use image: 161205068 from shutter

stock.com. The more detail you add, no matter how

small it may seem, the more interesting your scene

will become. It is always nice to see a scene where

there are many added images with harmony.

10

ERASE DETAILS

At this stage we will begin to integrate our

superhero more within the scene, for this you should

apply a mask to the foot and knee, giving the idea that

it is actually covered by fire caused by his punch to the

ground. You’ll need to delete a part of the image,

remember to create a mask and select the area that

you want to delete with the Brush tool set to black.

Always have in your mind that you need to preserve

the photo, so whenever possible, use masks.

14

ADD FIRE TO HIS PUNCH

The image is almost ready, now it’s time to

add some important details that will make a lot of

difference. In this step we will add more sparks to

represent the impact that the punch caused to the

ground. The principle is the same as Step 3: set the

blend mode from Normal to Screen and use images:

223794127 and 289427945 from shutterstock.com.

The challenge is in knowing when your image needs

more detail added and when there is too much going

on. If you are not sure our tip is to show the image to

someone who has never seen it and ask their opinion.

11

USE ADJUSTMENT LAYERS

We are working with an extremely detailed

image with complex lighting, so it is important that

every hour you rest for at least five minutes. When

you return to the image you will often be able to see

if there are any further adjustments that you need to

make. In this case, to enhance the colours of fire you

will have to do some adjustments with Levels,

Brightness/Contrast and the Photo Filter tool.

15

MAKE MORE ADJUSTMENTS

It’s very common when you are working

with complex scenarios to make adjustments at

different times throughout the process. This is

because your perception changes every second. To

create harmony between all the elements in the

scene click (Cmd/Ctrl+G) to create another

adjustment layer, this time thinking about the entire

scene, then make adjustments using the Levels,

Brightness, Contrast and Photo Filter tools.

12

PLAY WITH THE LIGHTING

Next we are going to make the edges of

the image darker, for this duplicate the hero

image, select the picture and then go to

Select>Modify>Contract by 30px, in sequence

you will apply a feather (Shift+F6) with 120px

and press Delete twice. Finally you will leave this

layer in Multiply. Another trick is to imagine

where the backlight will invade the main photo,

for that you need to use the Pen tool to make

some blank forms and apply the Gaussian Blur

(Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur) and put the shapes

in Soft Light mode.

how lighting acts in different environments.

Be aware of everything around you and

experiment with different effects.

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