Examples of Perspective in Compositing
Lesson 3 from: Essential Compositing Tips & Techniques In Photoshop 2021Jesús Ramirez
Examples of Perspective in Compositing
Lesson 3 from: Essential Compositing Tips & Techniques In Photoshop 2021Jesús Ramirez
Lesson Info
3. Examples of Perspective in Compositing
Lessons
Class Introduction
01:14 2The Importance Perspective
05:35 3Examples of Perspective in Compositing
08:56 4Creating Depth with Atmospheric Perspective
09:39 5Matching Brightness in a Composite
05:59 6Matching Saturation in a Composite
04:06 7Matching Ambient Color in a Composite
08:01 8Making Selections and Masks for Better Composites
11:06Lesson Info
Examples of Perspective in Compositing
Now that we have that knowledge, we can apply it into Anak actual example with a photo. And I have this composite here and it's a very simple composite. We have this foreground element, which is this guy standing in front of this lake, and we have the background image, which is a lake. Now we're gonna talk a little more about masking a little later on. But for now, just realize that we have a layer mask. The layer mask is hiding the original background. If I hold shift and click on the layer mask thumbnail, you can see my background image. So I'll click on the layer mask icon again while holding shift to hide the background. And I want to point out that this composite it's fairly good. We have a good cut out. We actually have added shadows to his feet so that it makes it seem like he's really standing there. He has mud on his shoes and things are looking pretty good. But the longer that you look at this composite, the more you'll feel that something is off. Something's just not right, ...
and your brain is telling you that something is just not right, And as you probably have guessed by now, the problem is the perspective. Let's focus on the background first. We don't have any parallel converging lines to follow, but we can clearly see where the ground plane is. And we can also see where it meets the sky right here, right on the horizon line. So we know where the horizon line is in our background. I'll enable the foreground element next to say with a mask by holding shift and clicking on the layer mask Tamil. And now let's look at where the horizon line is in this photo. And as you'll see, there's no parallel converging lines. But again we can see where the ground plane is, where the sky is and where they meet. And they meet, of course, on the horizon languages right about here, just above his niece. So if we compare the two, you'll notice that the horizon lines don't match at all. And that is why this composite doesn't match and why you're getting that feeling that something is not working so you can do one of two things. You can select your foreground element and move him up so that the horizon Line matches. Just remember, the horizon line for him is just right above his knees. So if we place him in a similar area on the background image, then the composite feels much better and it works. But obviously this doesn't look very good, so I'm gonna put him down here again, and the second option is to take your background element and move it down so that it matches like so obviously, you would need to composite at New Sky in just to save a little time. Also like the rectangular marquee tool, and make a selection just in the top part of the image here. And I'll select the eyedropper tool and I'll click and drag over that blue and I'll, Phil, Ault and backspace to fill with the foreground color that is, Option the leader in the back. And then I'll press control the and Windows commander on the map to the select. And as you can see, this looks much, much better. Of course, we would have to adjust the tree line. You can do so by cloning or painting totally up to you. We'll talk more about how to create custom brushes later, but The point is that the composite looks much better and it works because we took into account perspective. So that's how important perspective is. It will either make or break your composite. And just by getting the perspective to match, you could get away with so many things. And I would like to point out that this will work even if your main subject is standing on top of a building. As long as the perspective matches, everything should look great. So I'm going to select them and move them down just a bit right about here. And remember, the horizon line is where the ground plane meets the sky. We can see the horizon line right here. There it is. So it's right above his knees. So it works. If we move him a little lower, it doesn't work is good. And obviously, if we move them higher, it definitely doesn't work. So that is how important perspective is in compositing. I'll show you one more example. In this example, I'll disable this man layer in the shadow layer so that you can see what we have. We have this train station. This is a photo that I shot in Florence, Italy. And this photo does a great job in representing one point perspective. If you follow all the parallel converging lines and I'll actually follow them with you by using the line tool. If I click and drag and follow all the parallel converging lines, see that all these lines you will realize that they all will end up meeting at one point right about here, right in the center. And actually, what I can do is just click here in the center and you'll see that if I follow all the parallel converging lines in my scene, they will all end up there. See that? See how they all in there. So it it's pretty safe to say that the horizon line of that image is right. They're right about the center of the photo. Let me just delete this line layers because we don't really need them. I was just using them to show you where the vanishing point is and where the horizon line sits, and what I can do now is enable this layer and again we know that his horizon line is right above his knees. So we place him right there, so that the horizon lines match the image doesn't work, and that is because both the foreground and background have very different perspectives. So not every background will work with every foreground. So you have to keep that in mind. In some cases, I know that you have to work with what you have, and if that's the case, you will have to break some rules. For example, what I would do is just maybe hide his feet so that they're not noticeable. Maybe even press control T command you to transform and do a little bit of a perspective distortion to try toe remove some of that perspective. Unfortunately, you cannot be too extreme with organic objects, but you can make different adjustments to try toe hide the fact that the perspectives don't match. Also, this proves another point that if you use images with opposing perspectives, you can create the effect that you have a very tall person, maybe a giant, or also create the illusion that the person is very small, so they are advantages of using photos with different perspectives. But, of course, this is not always the case. What I'm gonna do now show a couple of tricks that you can use when determining the perspective of backgrounds and foreground elements. So let's look at these graphics. And if I wanted to place this car in perspective, what do I need to do, of course, find the parallel converging lines and see where they meet in the background. And to be frank with you these days, I don't follow too many lines anymore, cause I could sort of see where the horizon line is, and you don't have to be perfect. You could be close enough. And one way of finding the perspective of something really, really fast is by thinking about these boxes and let me show you what I mean by that. You can imagine a set of boxes like this, and the first thing that you need to do is think. Can I see the top part of my four grand element, or can I see the bottom part of my Fergon element? If you can see the bottom part of your foreground element, that means that the horizon line is below your foreground element, and if you can see the top of your foreground element, then that means that the horizon line is above your foreground element. And how far down is your object from the horizon line? Well, that depends. How much of the bottom or top, Can you see if you can see just a tiny little bit of the top or bottom, Then it's close to the horizon line. And if you can see ah, lot of the top or bottom than you're further away from the horizon line so I can enable this car. And now I can determine where the horizon line is without following any parallel converging lines. So, first of all, can I see the top or bottom? Well, I definitely can't see the bottom, so the car will be below the horizon line. Now, if you imagine this car as one of these boxes, where is the top of the car? Definitely not. The hood is right up here. This is the top part of the car. So how much of the top part of the car can I see? Can I see a lot of it or just a little bit? Well, I can only see just a little bit. So then the car can be this far down and notice that when I placed the car this far down. It doesn't look like it belongs in this scene, but if I get it closer to the horizon line without going over it right about here, notice now that the car feels like it belongs. And I don't have to be precise, Aiken maybe go just a little bit higher. Or maybe just go a little bit lower and the composite still works. And obviously the closer that you match the horizon line, the more realistic it'll feel. But you do have some wiggle room. The point is, is that this car is now in perspective and it feels like a sitting on this ground plane. So again, perspective is very important when compositing in Photoshop.
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Ratings and Reviews
David
This course teaches what you need to know about creating composites. As alway Jesus delivers in a clear, precise and fun way. You can just tell this guy has a great personality and he loves what he does. I greatly enjoyed the course and would strongly recommend it. A big thumbs up!!!
a Creativelive Student
One of the best courses I've done on CreativeLive and that's a high bar! An incredible mix of in depth guidance but also some simple photoshop tips along the way, I had so many 'wow' moments, learning things I had no idea you could do in Photoshop. Really a good pace too. Quite a short course but so many good lessons to revisit. Great work!
Jorge Perez-Martinez
I think this is a wonderful course. It goes into the key aspects that one needs to know to make a good composite. Jesus does not go into needles details and assumes a basic knowledge of photoshop; this make the course very manageable as far a its length. Highly recommended!