12
WORK ON THE HEAD
Let’s start another very important part of
the composition, which is integrating the body with
the head of the elephant. You have to be very careful
when you’re choosing the pictures; this will be the
key to the success of your composition. We used
image 148608224 from shutterstock.com. As was
said earlier, there isn’t a perfect photo for this
composition, so use your imagination and your
technique to combine everything. Now you will just
rotate the image until it fits with the rest of the body
and apply a Feather effect (Shift+F6) of 3px.11
COMPLETE THE LEGS AND BODY
This is the last step to complete the
elephant’s body, so let’s look at all the details. First
make a mask and gently erase the edges of the legs;
this is essential to make your image very realistic, so
be careful. Once this is done use the Color Balance
tool to match the green, and finally use the Burn tool
to enhance the shadows and Dodge tool for the
lights. Do the same sequence for both legs. After
that apply a High Pass filter (Filter>Other>High Pass)
of 3px to make the image more realistic.13
SQUEEZE THE HEAD
It’s time to shape the elephant’s head inside
the bottle. Pay attention when you merge the
pictures, remember that you are making a realistic
image, so all details are very important. In this step
you’ll use a mask to delete some details, such as the
trunk and the ear, which will be placed in the next
steps. Use a Feather (Shift+F6) of 3px. This tool is
used in almost every step; it gently erases the edges
of the image, making it easier to incorporate it with
the scene.10
DISTORT THE LEGS TO FIT
Continue to work with the elephant’s body
parts. In this step you will make the legs fit into the
bottle. For you to have full control of the body parts,
you should work separately with the left and right leg.
The principle of the distortion is the same, use the
Warp tool (Cmd/Ctrl+T). You should be concentrating
on the shape of your image at the moment, as the
other details will be worked on in the next step.09
MASK AND ADJUST THE COLOUR
In this step you will take care of the elephant’s body details. To do this, make a mask, select and
erase the sides of the body until it matches the shape of the bottle. Next adjust the colour of the layer to the
green of the bottle using the Color Balance tool.WORK THE ELEPHANT INTO THE BOTTLE
BREAK DOWN YOUR PHOTOS AND PLACE THEM WITH CARE001 TTo start the image we created the background. THE BACKGROUND o make the
image more interesting we used the Burn and Dodge tools
002 GTo put an element in a scene you have to be careful REEN BOTTLE
with the details, like the Color Balance and Feather(^003) For the scene to become interesting it is WATER SPLASHES
necessary to create unexpected elements
004 SIn the next steps we will use DQUEEZE THE ELEPHANTistortion tools and
Filters to put the elephant in the glass bottle
002
001
004
003
There isn’t a perfect photo for
this composition, so use your
imagination and your technique to
combine everything