A_P_TPC_Vol11_2015_

FORGE A SCIFI COMPOSITE FROM PHOTOS

11

INCREASE CONTRAST

If the building is looking a

little faint now, you need to up the

contrast. Clip on a Levels

adjustment layer, with the black

set at around 26 and the white at

245. It also needs to look a little
     bluer, to reflect its environment,
     so clip on a Color Balance layer
     and in Midtones set Cyan/Red to
     -8 and Yellow/Blue to +20.

10

REDUCE OPACITY

Reduce the Opacity of the Building layer to

around 90%. This will add an additional sense of

depth and distance and lend the layer some of the

colour and tone of its environment. With all that

metal and glass in the scene, it will also create an

illusion of reflections. Now add a layer mask and pull

a gradient up and over the base of the structure.

Ghosting this out helps further with depth, and as the

city comes together and it allows the buildings to be

moved around the composition freely without tearing

out their foundations.

09

PRESERVE DATA WITH SMART OBJECTS

The city itself will be quite complex and you may want to go back and re-edit many elements, many

times, so to preserve the original data convert the Building layer into a Smart Object (Layer>Smart

Objects>Convert to Smart Object) then add a Gaussian Blur of between 0.2 and 0.6 pixels. You can now

change the amount of blur at any time by clicking the little arrow at the right of the layer title and double

clicking on Gaussian Blur.

ADD THE BUILDINGS

USE STOCK PHOTOS AND PHOTOSHOP TOOLS TO POPULATE THE CITY

001 SMART OBJECTS

Convert all of the cityscape elements to Smart Objects so that you have full

control over them and can rearrange them if necessary

002 SMART FILTERS

Once you’ve made a Smart Object and applied a filter, use the icon on the layer

palette to change the filter strength at any time

003 CONSISTENT LIGHT

Flip or rotate some of your image elements so that all the light is coming

from the same direction. If light isn’t consistent the image won’t work

001

003

002

You may want

to go back and

re-edit many

elements many

times, so as to

preserve the original

data, convert the

Building layer into a

Smart Object