Fine Art Compositing: Class Introduction
Lesson 1 from: FAST CLASS: Fine Art CompositingBrooke Shaden
Fine Art Compositing: Class Introduction
Lesson 1 from: FAST CLASS: Fine Art CompositingBrooke Shaden
Lessons
Fine Art Compositing: Class Introduction
07:36 2Why Composite ?
14:51 3Logic Checklist
24:10 4Shooting for Composite
08:12 5Changing Backgrounds and Light
04:18 6Practical Ways of Lighting for Composite
13:29 7Compositing Simple Swaps and Group Shots in Photoshop
09:16 8Lighting in Photoshop
17:26Lesson Info
Fine Art Compositing: Class Introduction
what we're doing today is sort of, Ah, take on compositing that I haven't approached before. And the reason why I say that is because I am doing compositing in a very basic way. And yet I want to build up to that basic technique turning into really advanced compositing. So my goal here is to go through really simple techniques. For example, we're going to start out with brushes like things that you can find on the left hand toolbar things that I don't find to be very intimidating. And they're things that I think can help you in almost any way in compositing. So my journey thus far in photography has been to take a look at that left hand toolbar, get really, really confused about everything and then try to un confuse myself. That's a new word that I just made up. So I What I do is I go to that left hand toolbar. I say, OK, what makes sense? I understand how to use the eraser tool. I understand how to use the clone stamp tool and so on and so forth. So my basic methods here are just focu...
sed on Okay, how can I put one picture on top of another, and how can I erase part of that picture? And that's where I start Compositing is that simple, basic idea of what is compositing. It's blending multiple images together. It could be as simple as blending a sky into your image, which, as we probably all know, is not actually such a simple thing to Dio. It could be something like expanding the frame, which is something I've touched on before. So a lot of this class is going to touch on little pieces that I've talked about in previous classes. But what I've always done with those classes is to take my idea, my fine art idea from start to finish, just everything that I need to fulfill that vision. This class is going to be more about going with very, very small individual ideas that build up to a bigger composite. So we're gonna be playing with a A bride and groom were going to be doing a group photo shoot with all of us, so that will be fun. We're going to be, let's see going into lighting techniques, which is something that I've never really talked about before. I just started using lights. It's been very terrifying to me. I have a good story to tell you later, though, of when I was in the forest and I started painting my whole body white and then I spray painted my hair white and it was really big. And then my lights wouldn't work. And I was already in costume and everything on the side of the road. So I spent three hours trying to fix my lights and while trying to move in this giant hoop skirt and stuff. And it turned out that I just needed to put a new battery in the light. You know, it's OK, so we all learn. So I've been playing with lights, were going to do a little bit of that. And and my point is that I'm going to break this down into the simplest techniques possible, and we're gonna build up to a really big, fine art photo shoot at the end. So let's jump in here to what I want to talk about throughout the three days. The first thing that we're going to do after we finished this presentation is we're gonna talk about swapping body parts, something that I think is really, really practical for a lot of people. So it could be something really intense where maybe you need Teoh. I don't know, do a composite where you need a different leg on somebody's body, and that's what your big chunk of their body to replace. It might be something like that. It might be something as simple as you have a bride and groom and they're posing together. And the bride's kind of like this on the groom. And maybe the hand is like her, like she's nervous and she's grabbing onto that groom. Then maybe we need to fix that by doing a softer hand. And so we're gonna be fixing things like that with some simple swapping techniques and goodies like that. We're gonna be changing backgrounds. So we're gonna be talking about how to move a person from one background to another. Everything from if it's a complicated background, too, if it's a perfectly lit, wonderful background to cut somebody off of, so we're gonna be going through that process as well as how to shoot for that kind of composite. So how to actually, you know, maximize your ability to move that person to a new background, which is something that I fail at most of the time out of laziness. Mostly, I'm sure some of you guys know that feeling. We're like, Well, I don't feel like going over here today, so I'm just gonna take my picture at my house and see how it goes. I do that a lot. I go outside and take a picture just against the side of my house and and see how that goes. And it's been going pretty well in teaching me some new techniques that we're going to go over that from creating dresses. That's something that we're going to be playing with. So how to take a small piece of fabric and turn that into a beautiful dress? And that's something that I'm very passionate about because I don't have a big budget to work with, ever. So I want to be able to take a $2 piece of fabric. Maybe even that I found in the trash can. I was just in New York City and I went into a dumpster and I found the perfect piece of fabric. I didn't bring it today. I left it in New York for some other person to get creative with it. But things like that aren't really awesome. Because if you can find something inexpensive and turn it into something brilliant than that's what I hope for this, we're gonna be changing light. And when I talk about lighting dynamics, which will probably do a lot, what I mean by that is how can we actually change how we read the white in an image? So we're going to go into photo shop and we're going to play with everything from making the light look like it's coming from this side instead of this side, we're going to be making it more dynamic with vignettes and radiance and things like that and just playing with lighten every fun way possible. So you may be thinking that has nothing to do with compositing, right, because lighting dynamics aren't really how you composite, but there's two parts to this. So the first part is learning how to change different elements, different images that were blending send the white matches because that's been a problem of mine where maybe I'm at the sand dunes and I say, Oh my gosh, I have to have a picture of the sand dune, and then I go home and realize the lighting was different there than it was on the subject that I want to drop into that space. So learning how to change light in that way is extremely important. But then, further than that, I mean, how do you make an image look cohesive? It's largely through light. My theory is that lighting is king in photography, especially in compositing. So if I'm going to be taking two images and blending them together, then it's not enough to just make the white match. You then have to make sure the whole image has a cohesive lighting look to it in the style. So that's why we're gonna be talking about that so much levitation photography because it's fun, and also because it's practical in ways that you might not think so With levitation, photography will be learning how to do things like creating realistic shadows and stuff like that, that things that you might be thinking well, I'm never going to make a girl look like she's flying in the air in my photography. Well, that's okay, because it is an amazing technique, just a train yourself how to create. That's what I have found it. It really has brought a lot of discipline to my craft. And then we have fine art, which we're going to be doing. So we're going to just go into this big, fine art shoot with lots of weird things. You'll see it's gonna happen, Um, and then also selling composited imagery. So we're gonna talk a little bit about how Teoh basically market those images. I don't know if you guys have run into this. We'll call it an issue of people saying That's not photography because you composited your pictures together or, you know, just questioning what kind of a medium it is or how you work because you're compositing images. And I know that I've had lots of experience with clients and they just don't get it like how I'm shooting. So I'll say I'll take a picture of your here and now I need a picture of your hand over here and now I need your hair over here and there, like, what is going on? So marketing that is something that I really want to talk about, not at length, but a good good while
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