Studio to Scenic by Susi Lawson
Combining Three Different Images in Photoshop

Requires: Photoshop 7.0 or higher.
Project time: Approximately one hour or less, depending upon experience level.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Summary of project: This project will take a boring snapshot and transform it into a beautiful scenic portrait.

Introduction

How many times have you taken a cute shot but thought that the whole image lacked personality or charisma? Well, I certainly have, so I came up with this project to end those boring shots and make your clients rush to the framers!

You will be going from the studio to the great outdoors, where you combine three separate pictures of a country scene, a boy and a pup, and place them all happily together in a beautiful environmental portrait.

Using the Selection and Move tools, you will transfer the subjects onto the new background, then clean them up and nestle them down with the Eraser tool. You will use Curves and the Selective Color tool to match your subjects to their new backgrounds and fine tune the edges using the Smudge tool, along with some extra retouching tips to polish off the project. Once you have this technique down, you will find it very handy. Enjoy!

Step by Step Out of the Studio! Follow along for a more interesting portrait!

1. Open all three images (boy, pup, field), and use the Curves tool to match the brightness of each image.

2. Use the Selective Color tool to fine-tune and match the colors of each image.

3. Use the Lasso tool to outline the boy’s body to select it. (Don’t worry about excess, as we will clean up later.) Then use the Move tool, and drag the boy onto the background field image.

4. After moving the boy, hold down the shift key while reducing him to the proper size. Be sure the Transform box is clicked, and arrange him so he looks comfortable in the setting. Repeat this with the pup.

5. Position the layers so the pup is behind the boys’ leg. To do this, just select the boy layer and drag above the pup layer.

6. To tidy up the edges, zoom in closely and select the Eraser tool. Choose the Oil Pastel brush #60 at 100% opacity. This brush has a nice irregular edge that is great for fitting into tight spots. Erase the excess background from the boy, taking care to reduce the brush in smaller areas. It might be necessary to decrease the saturation of the boy by going to Image > Adjustments > Hue > Saturation, and decreasing it to about -23, so his color looks more natural with the background.

7. Now that the boy and his pup look happy with their surroundings, you can flatten the image (Layer > Flatten image). Next, we need to make the boy fit into his surroundings. Choose the #112 Grass brush, and stroke lightly around the bottom of the boy to paint in grass blades. (Be sure you are using the color of the original grass; you can sample that color by Alt/Option-clicking on the appropriate color. You can use a dual brush and sample two shades of green for a more natural match.) This will nestle him on the ground and eliminate the cut-out syndrome. Next do the same for the pup.

8. Look at the grass close up. Be sure to vary the height of the grass by changing your brush size so it looks as natural as possible. Select the Burn tool at about 34% to darken the grass beneath and around the boy and to the right, where the pup sits.

9. Now zoom in very close to your subjects to see if there are any areas that are too crisp and do not look natural. If so, use the Smudge tool to make these areas softer. Use an Airbrush (#100 is a nice tip) at about 80% opacity, and run the brush just over the edge of the body. Pull the smudge tool out around the hair (see tip below).

10. Zoom in on the subject’s face, and select the Dodge tool to lighten the eyes, which are very important to an expressive portrait. Use an Airbrush at around 35% opacity. Using the Color Picker, click on the iris and bring up the Color box. Select a pretty blue, and paint lightly over the iris. Now select the Burn tool, and go over the pupils if they appear too washed out. This is easily overdone, so go lightly. Then crop the image to your liking.

Quick Tips:

• To even out skin tones, zoom in close and use the Airbrush at a low opacity, selecting a light skin tone using the Color Picker.

• One way to ensure that you have removed all the excess from around the bodies is to apply the drop shadow layer effect to emphasize any debris. You can then turn this effect back off.

Expert Tip: You can use the Smudge tool to make hair more natural after the cut-out phase.

Sometimes, when we completely change the look of a portrait by moving a person into another setting, we get that dreaded cut-out look, and hair, rather on a person or pet, is the worst offender. With the exception of mannequins, no one has completely neat hair, especially outdoors! It is imperative that we remedy this, and it is the Smudge tool to the rescue! I have found that the #11 watercolor brush tool is quite effective for this job.

The opacity should be a bit high so you can ‘pull’ the hair from the head onto the background. You want to make the brush quite small so you can recreate the strands of hair or fur. Keep in mind that your strokes must go in the natural direction that the hair grows, and make the strand wispy, as though they are being blown by the wind—this will make the composite that much more realistic looking. An alternate technique is to paint the hair using the #100 Airbrush (but this requires more skill).

Before and after images, all shot with a Canon EOS 20D, natural light

A. Boy: This little fellow is Kade, shot on location at the home of his parents, Robbie and Stacey, with their permission.

B. Pup: Cocker Spaniel, with permission by pet owner Deb Stone Walker

C. Background: This picture was shot while driving through the countryside in Wytheville, VA.