"Faking" a location help

[berniebernie]

I think you've done a great job extracting the girl from the bg, as you've got hair it's really hard to touch border softness without screwing up everything.

The reason it looks fakes is probably because the two pictures are lit completely differently and were not taken at the same angle. Try playing with hue/saturation and image contrast, even take a brush to darken some areas manually (it's supposed to be dawn - or is it dusk, I dunno whichone's which)

[xsenos]

oooooook.Unless you show us the higher resolution image, this one looks rather good to me. Yet, as Milkdesign said, if you want it to fit perfectly into the background you'd have to: a) pick a background that fits the angle, b) remove the lights from your model that contradict with the background, c) add lights from your background to your image.

Softening the edges wont do it here. Where have you seen a high quality photo image with a soft edged model? ;)

Hope this was of any help to you!

[Velk]

Could you post larger images? There are several ways of doing what you are wanting to do, but I'd have to see what "looks like crap" to help out more.

As has been suggested the light source and type of light is an issue that you will have to resolve.

[BigSky]

Light is going to be your biggest headache. If you mock up another light source (a lampost, or something which seems to be casting the light on her/him), then you could almost get away with it. The other thing is the edges - they are too sharp, you need to feather just a little bit, and wrap your mask around. Matching the light is going to be difficult, and you can do this...make a copy of your b/g, and invert it, then fade the inversion, say, 30%, then blur the hell out of it, then overlay it back over the image, at about 30% opacity, and then do an overall blur (tiny, say 0.5), and then a small noise over everything (including the b/g). Essentially, you're going to be pushing it.

[Velk]

Just flipping the background image on the horizontal will help a lot. Then duplicate your friend add a levels adjustment layer and crunch the blacks in a bit. Set that layer to something like overlay or hard light and see if if helps at all.

Part of the issue here is the background is really warm and the image of your friend is not.

[Talos]

Hey guys, I uploaded the fullrez images here (http://members.shaw.ca/nathanengler/New%20Folder/)

thanks alot for taking alook and your help

[Velk]

I see why you are having trouble. The image of your friend is a bit out of focus and there is a lot of noise in the image. The biggist issue you are facing is the little halo of junk around her hair and the sharpness of that. If you want I could throw together a sample and show you what I mean.

[spmonahan]

I think it would really help if you re-shot the pic of your friend without flash. The flash is causing your friend to be lit with a really harsh light while the background is a warm sunset. Also, as someone else mentioned, you'll want to be consicous of matching your lights in the final composited image (e.g. - the light in the background is on the left of the image while the light in the foreground is on the right).

[suztv]

You need to backlight the girl. If you cannot do that then you need to create a duplicate layer of her and darken the front. Also create an adjustment layer to saturate her with the colors from the background. I would also flip either her or the background image so that the lighting lines up. Also maybe create a "Ray of Light" effect behind her coming from the direction of the sunset?

I did a real quick mock up of what it would look like if you used some of the tricks mentioned. Please see the attached file.


After all of this hard work - it might be well worth the effort to just take a picture of her in front of a sunset....

[Jack Youngblood]

True.... you should have used a better photo. however, I am always making the most from bad photos and it is possible to get round your dodgy camerawork using a few simple techniques.



I attach something I made up from your posted material.

masked the girl with a layer mask. Then I blur the edges ever so slightly. Sharp edges are the bane of compositors.

De saturated the background which was competing with your girl. Left a saturated strip along the horizon.

Changed her outline a bit which was distorted due to her pose. Also moved her hairline which was distorted by her fringe.


Added some tones (light and dark and separate Multiply and screen layers) to integrate her with the background (moved the light up a bit so there is less light under her nose). Used a separate layer for a blue 'bounced' light.

Finally.... gave her a tattoo (her arm looked a bit empty).

A bit rushed. Didn't have your patience for the hair and my tones are a bit dodgy, but I hope you get my points.


http://www.jackyoungblood.co.uk/images_public/CG_Board.jpg


Here is the full file:

http://www.jackyoungblood.co.uk/images_public/CG_Board.psd.zip

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