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FreePreview: Testing Composite in Photoshop

I wanted to make sure you guys were here for this process it's probably not the most exciting thing to look at but it's very important so we have basically the entire pool in this layer zero and john has been good enough to lower the capacity for us so we can see kind of both of our both of our perspectives now my goal here is to transform this pool toe where it's about the same size as the bull I don't want to use a nonlinear transform I want to make sure my proportions are maintained so as I make it smaller, I'm not changing the width of the height so I'm gonna hold down the shift key and click and drag in and just make this a little bit smaller and my goal here is to make this about the size of our cereal bowl there we go all right? And we're just going to hit enter there and so there's about the size of our cereal so judging you know, given that both of these are perfect circles are they are they matching up? No and I'm just going to come right come right around here and this is ho...

w we're going to figure it out, okay? So our sir syria ble is a perfect circle and this is technically a perfect circle too, but they're not matching up they're not that far off but they're not matching now given all that fun stuff that we talked about earlier, can anyone tell me what we need to do to our camera angle in order to make it match up or why it doesn't match up here, come lower and come back okay, so tell me why it needs to come lower and come back because thie pool is narrower than the bowl at this point and we need to change our angle or the distance to make it look whiter, right? Okay, perfect, so we need to make it look like so it's all with divided by height at this point. So right now, the width of the cereal bowl divided by the height of terrible is smaller, then the width of the pool divided by the height of the pool. In other words, we're at a higher angle of the pool I'm seeing it mohr round the pool in this image is mohr round than the cereal bowl in this image, which is exactly what you were saying, right? So in order for the sea, for the pool to be less round basically, I have to bring my camera angle down so I'm looking at it like this I need to bring my camera angles, so I'm looking at it like this and it's going to be less round, so basically that's what we're figuring out we're figuring out now this is going to be less around. So all that stuff we talked about earlier is just helping us to decide whether the camera needs to come up or down. In this case, we know what needs to come down because I need to look at it from less of the top. All right? Cool. Is the room good? I promise we're going to get it in the fun stuff soon. This's like all the super boring stuff that is incredibly important. And if you get all this stuff right, everything else is so easy, but this is definitely important. John, would you mind lowering? Sorry, it's, not my tripod. And I don't even know how to work this for folks in creative live have amazing tripods that I don't know how to work let's, bring it down. Maybe a little bit more. So what we're going to do is all right, and I hate I'm gonna make mike's job is a little bit harder, but as we bring this down, we're gonna take another photograph and basically do the same thing again. You guys don't have to get this exactly right. We're not trying to fit this person into a scene where, like, they're actually going to be like, interacting with different things. That's a relatively hard composite to do this person is floating in a white circle of liquid so if you get your angle like slightly off it's not the biggest deal in the world but you do want to get it pretty close mellie photo is wondering whether the image resolution makes a difference it all says that I'm finding what that when I taken object that I've shot full frame and then shrieking down to fit another image that it seems a little too sharp compared to what is being replaced totally great point it is going to be too shocked the reason is here just you know if something's this small in the frame you're not going to be getting a lot of resolution in there there are a lot of things that you could do to kind of combat that in photo shop and if that's the case with this final image where you are going to be doing that keep in mind we did focus on the syria ble so focuses and something we really have to worry about but if it becomes too sharp there are some really cool tricks you khun too I'm sure you guys have sampled things down really small and then tried to bring them back up and you lose detail have you guys are just a normal size image? You're trying to make a large and lose detail you can use that exact same technique on these images, if the guy was too well detailed, you couldjust sample him, you could make him really small and then making larger, and it would lose detail which most of the time is a bad thing, but in this case, that would actually be exactly what you wanted just kind of cool. Let's take another image john's going to thank you, all right, some lazy guy, his asking, how is the angle so important right now, especially when you're going to crop out the person from the white back group for the final image? Exactly great point well, earlier I talked about like, being able to see the top of my head or the bottom of my head and things like that that's going to translate directly when we have the image actually in place. So if I'm looking too far from too far above our subject, it's going to look even though they're in the cerebral it's going to look like I'm looking down at my subject in the bull, but you know, straightforward at my subject in accordance to the whole picture, so that's, the perspective changed like that, you don't want to happen if we're a few degrees off it's not going to be the end of the world, I just wanted to show you guys how to get, like, really, really close and just for people who may not know exactly what you're doing what what john is doing in photoshopped right now can you speak to that really quickly? Yeah, of course what john's doing and john thank you for doing my job. What john's doing is taking these photos that we that we just that we just took so this is the photo that we just took after lowering the height of the camera which is what we said we needed to do now we're going to bring that over top of the cereal bowl and lower the opacity on that layer they were going to shrink that down and now with with a lowered perspective we're going to see how that compares to the angle of the cereal bowl which john's just doing it all right now which is awesome there we go and so we can kind of see does this wind up matching a little bit better if it's you know if it needs to be rotated that's not a big deal because that's just the camera rotating as well. All right, what do we think, john? All right, I need to be rotated a little bit more there we go then bring it up and um here's the access a little prettier yeah, there we go I think we're getting pretty close to me to take over for just a second here perfect thank you ok, so basically what we're doing now is making sure that it all does in fact match up and that's what that's what our end goal is so we're going to use the interior diameter we just turn off snapping here we're going to use the interior diameter of our little shallow pool here and I'm gonna hit command tea let's bring our little control point right over there we're there to where it matches and then we're going toe make it either larger or smaller all right so our interior diameter of the pool is what we should be matching if you want to do this so where you're not it's kind of confusing right looking at looking at this like you know, two different capacities here what I'm gonna do is I'm going to just create a new layer and I'm gonna use my marquee tool just select out there we go that's about the lips of the bullet doesn't have to be exactly perfect when hit shift elite and I'm going to just fill this with fill this with a nice read something like that there we go so as long as that shape is there we go as long as that shape is echoed with our pool then we're good all right and what do you guys think if I just rotate that around it's getting pretty close I think we could still come down a little bit because this is this is still mohr round than our pool and everyone can see that that our pool so if I hit command tea and I squish this down a little bit we can see that that does in fact fit better in there right? So our angle is still a little bit too high on the pool, which just means we need to come we need a lower our tripod down a little bit in height all right, cool so we're going to did it come down a little bit lower perfect. All right, let's try that again. Third time should be a charm and again you don't have to in this case this is not something actually joined you want take over for me because I don't even I don't know what you were just doing it and you did a good job. Uh this isn't something you have to get like exactly right in this exact case, I just want to make sure that everyone knows how to get it right so our angles first and then we're going to do the lighting. You guys wanted me to do this life working this's something that you will do I mean, you will work to get this right on on a shoot most definitely yes, I will definitely do this on a shoot if it is something like this where I'm where I'm photographing one element or another usually it'll just be me in the camera working it it takes ten or fifteen minutes to get this right usually the models are taking a break this would happen at lunch or something like that no one needs to be like standing around you watching you calculate all your angles like that's not you know that's not really that important but this is definitely something that would happen during a photo shoot because you just don't want to get into photo shop and then realize when you're in photo shop oh there we go that's a great idea john you don't want to get into photo shop and then realize like after the fact that like oh, you know what? My camera angles not it all right here cool and I think if we rotate that counterclockwise just a couple degrees we're getting really close yeah, the control point moved so yeah, this is something that I would totally do during a photo shoot but I would expect no one to be paying any attention to be so every photo shoot that I've done this on probably no one has noticed this is what I'm doing I'm just like all right, take a break you know go get some sodas or take some lunch for a couple minutes I'm gonna go dork out with some camera angles do you ever do this on location without a computer without a computer no, just because this process what john is doing right now is extremely important and we can see actually right here I think we're good like we're probably one or two degrees off but it looks a lot better maybe can we compare this john to the layer zero oh, sorry I'm asking a lot of you but if we compare the most recent shot which is that one to two layer zero so if you want to just make turn that one invisible and then turn oh yeah it's you can weigh all right here we go way have layers layers euro and let's turn that red guyana's well, so let's turn the top most layer off there we go let's bring um there we go too okay? So we can see here from where we started off and there we go and that's where we ended so we can see I mean that's that's the practical application we figured out exactly where we need to be we knew that we need to lower a camera angle by that same theory and then we actually did it. So that is the end of figuring out your camera angle for perspective and now we're actually getting ready to start matching our lady cool was that fun? I mean, that probably wasn't fun but did yu has learned anything okay, cool, well that's that's the most important thing that we learned how a photo says, please let him know that this is not boring on the contrary. It's fascinating. Yes, you are a lot like me, mellie photo. I love this stuff, but I've tried to explain to some people are like, uh uh, but it's really cool? These were, like, the cool little techniques that are helping going to help you do your job a lot better. And just kind of thinking about these things really does help out, so we have a camera angle in place. What that means is our camera. We do not want to move. So for the wood for the rest of this photo, shoot our cameras going to stay in the exact same place, this pool he's going to stay in the same place, it's like, you know, eight hundred pounds, so it's definitely going to move, and now we're gonna worry about mashing our lighting so our lighting let's go ahead and, john, if you wantto let's, start off with our fill light so we're gonna punch these lights into the ceiling and they're both on ok, cool. So we're gonna start matching our lighting and you're going to be here for the entire process we're using pocket wizards in this case, and basically we're just going tio turn these on and make sure they're firing directly into the ceiling and that's going to provide our fill light and then here we go and these are the same alien easier using earlier exactly. All right, is that einstein firing right there? Perfect. Okay, so that's just me hitting the test button on the camera and now I'm gonna take a picture in our focus is again locked I don't I don't necessarily need we have lower the camera good point and I don't need this stepping stool anymore. Perfect. So that's a great example of, you know me just like kind of using my like, you know what I think would match the camera angle? I thought we needed to be a lot higher, but it turns out this is actually the right camera angle so it's just a really good way to you know you don't have to guess anymore now we actually know what we're doing hopefully anyway that's that's the goal okay, I am going to refocus on and to do that I'm going to try to move my cameras little whore up and down as I can, so I'm just going to try to move it to the right a little bit because the up and down is going to turn my angle so I don't I don't want to change that if I can if I can afford it all right? And now we're actually gonna be lighting. Sorry. Matching our matching our lighting. Perfect. We've refocused and we're matching our lighting. So what I want to make sure we're doing is basically getting this getting are filling in, and then we're gonna bring on our hot light. So if you wantto let's, go ahead and turn those on his well, john. All right, so the goal here is basically to make this giant pool of liquid look a lot like the a small pool of liquid. All right. And let's just turned auto focus back on it's on full. Ok, let's, go ahead and fire and see what we see. All right? Cool. So this is basically I would be doing this as I'm shooting. I would be doing all this stuff and continuing to bring it back into photo shop, so we matched her camera angle. Now we would continue to bring this back into photo shop over and over and over again until the lighting a match. It depends on how patient you guys are, which, how thorough we want to be with that as well. Okay, can we bring the height down of those just a little bit? So what? I also want a matches, maybe in light room might can pull up the image of the cereal bowl there we go. So there are a couple of things that I'm looking at in this image of the cereal there's a shadow from the rim of the cereal bowl that we can actually see in the white in the white liquid so I want to make sure the height of these lights pretty much matches that if aiken basically imitate a lot of these shadows in this giant pool of liquid that we know where lighting it's masha's well so we can look at these may be side by side if if mike you can pull this up along with maybe the image that we just shot side by side and then here in the audience we can kind of just say what needs to happen. So what do you guys what do you see that's wrong here we'll start with todd it's too bright it's bright it's way too bright, isn't it? Okay, so we have a couple things that I can do here. I can lower the power of all of my lights if I wanted to do that or I could just change the power I can change some settings in my camera so I'm shooting it at fourteen if I wanted to shoot it something like f sixteen I could do that too so let's try that let's go to f eighteen and see that never go and weaken maybe if we can compare these again okay, perfect so we can see it definitely is getting a little bit better it's probably still a little bit too bright right? So what we're going to do is let's lower the power of our phil's just a little bit I'll take care of this one, john if you want to take care of that I went down about a stop if you want to come down maybe a half a stop on both of those on these things you have to do with power when you make your adjustment settings good question it'll usually dump after a second or so anyway so the time in which I'm traveled there and come back there we go and so this looks good, we're already getting better now there are a couple of things that okay, so todd mentioned it was too bright which I think we've already worked on solving that now the second thing that we want to focus on is well, there are two things first is we're getting a reflection from the actual back side of the pool there in the bowl of cereal now I think once jesper gets in here and it starts move and things like that and I cut him out, I don't think that's going to wind up being a huge deal the second thing is the shadow that we see on the left side of the bowl maybe it's a little bit let's see that? I think these need to come back up and hide a little bit, right? So the shadow kind of enters the pool a little bit more. Also, we have a transparent material here, which is basically not giving us as parts of harsh of a shadow as if this were opaque. So we have a couple options there weaken just kind of like, go with it and see how close we can match it. Or we could try to, like, put some black tape on this side, which would make it a little bit more transparent. What do you guys want to go with? Option three with that, can we just do it in photo shop? We just starting it down? What that could be docking in photo shop after the fact? Yes, we can definitely darkening photo shop and the third thing which you probably see is we're getting color cast because there is some blue color here in the pool it's actually casting that blue color onto the milk and that's something which we can take care of it photoshopped we could use a huge saturation and kind of drug that down as well. All right, so we're getting pretty most guys, and then the fun starts to happen. Now, if you guys were doing something like this for a client let's say that this was your idea and you were pitching it to a client. What I would recommend is doing this sort of thing, like the day before the shoot, so maybe separate thes shoots, maybe separate out the shots by day. So it's going to be a two day shoot, you finish up what you were doing with sarah on day one, go ahead and prep a ll this and then invite the client back in with all the lighting and everything set up so that they don't have to be there for this process. I want you guys here for this process because you're supposed to be learning about it, but in the end, like the client doesn't necessarily have to be there. They switched one right here. Yeah, a power cord for the room. Like, okay, cool. And the third light is the is the rim light, which we may or may wind up, we may include or we may not include if you could remember on sara, there was a room light to the camera, right, which was kind of lighting that side of her. The one reason why we might not wind up including it is if her arm, which I think it is, is blocking the rim light from even hitting the cereal bowl. Then it doesn't make sense to have the rim in the cereal bowl as well, because her arm will be blocking it. So what do you guys think? Can you see the rim in the cereal bowl or not? I can't see it on the rim of the cereal bowl itself, so maybe we don't even have to worry about it. That answers our question cool, all right, so much fun, matching camera and lighting angles for seven hours with aaron ace. All right, well, I think we've come to a consensus were pretty dang close, and honestly, this is about as close as I would get if you if you needed to get a little bit closer. We've already said how maybe I would take this up a little bit to make this a little bit more of an opaque material. You could even take the insides of it to not get a color cast.