Hi everyone,
So for years now ive been making short movies in After Effects and use Photoshop to do photo manipulation. Latest piece is this , Diablo Smoke
So anyway, my biggest problem was when using multiple photos / sources, putting something into a certain scene etc I have never known how to make things look like its really there and real.
Ive figured the main elements are, color matching, focus, lighting, and also matching image quality so it all looks like its shoot on the same camera at the same time.
Now am I right, what im trying to do is “compositing”? and if I learn compositing for After Effects it would be the same if I wanted to use it in still photos using Photoshop. i.e are you learning theory or something particular to video or photo and to a particular application?
Also would a “compositing” book cover the areas im after? Theres a few out there, I know you shouldn’t judge a book by their cover, but as its art related and I cant check out the books as they dont have them in the stores some do seem to have “amateur” compositing effects as their covers and its like… well I could do that already…Do you know what I mean?
So 2 examples of what im expecting to know how to do
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8D7okTFnHU&feature=related
and most impressively.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTUs7hDq2PA some of the shots I couldn’t believe weren’t real. Thats the kind of matching and compositing im talking about… I do understand its very skilled people doing it however.
Again, the examples are video, I still would like to learn that side of stuff but for now im heavily into photo work…but it would be the same stuff right?, Again im not in need of info on matchmoving, modelling etc, just the putting it together to look real part of it all.
So hopefully someone could fill in the void in my head for me 
Thank you
Matthew