For the second project in this course, we’ll be taking two images and combining them into a single composite image. We have two images we’ll be combining into one: girl on rock.tif, which is an image of a little girl standing on a rock at a beach, and beach.jpg, a photograph of a beach. We'll take the girl from the first image and place her into the beach in the second image.
Before we combine these photos, we’ll need to make some adjustments to the images to make them look their best. We’ll also have the opportunity to practice working with selections, layers, and filters as we assemble the composite photo.
Making adjustments to girl on rock.tif
We’ll start by improving the appearance of girl on rock.tif. Let’s open the file and determine what needs fixing.
To start opening the file, in the Menu bar,
Click File, Click Open…
Navigate to the Photoshop Basics folder, if necessary.
To open girl on rock.tif, in the Open dialog box,
Double-Click girl on rock.tif
To save the file, in the Menu bar,
Click File, Click Save As…
To change the file type, in the Save as type drop-down menu,
Click, Click Photoshop (*.PSD, *.PDD, *.PSDT)
To finish saving the file, in the bottom right corner of the Save As dialog box,
Click
The following image shows the contents of girl on rock.tif:
At first glance, we can see that the image is a little dark, and some of the colors are dull. We can brighten the image by applying a Levels adjustment, just like we've done previously in the course. We’ll also apply a Vibrance adjustment to help intensify the colors in the image.
We'll take a different approach with the Levels adjustment this time. Instead of dragging the sliders underneath the histogram to change the overall lightness of the image, we'll adjust the luminosity by using the Set White Point tool, which looks like an eyedropper and is located to the left of the histogram in the Levels properties panel. This allows us to indicate to Photoshop which point in the image should be the whitest, and Photoshop will adjust the rest of the image accordingly.
To view the Adjustments panel, in the Panel dock, if necessary,
Click
To add a Levels adjustment to the image, in the Adjustments panel,
Click
To set the image's white point, to the left of the histogram in the Properties panel,
Click, Click on the foam near the rock at the bottom of the image
In the Panel dock, switch back to the Adjustment panel.
To add a Vibrance adjustment to the image, in the Adjustments panel,
Click
To change the vibrance of the colors in the image, in the Vibrance field,
Press & Drag the value, type: 50
To adjust the saturation of the image’s colors, in the Saturation field,
Press & Drag the value, type: 10
The image of the girl looks much better now. Let’s save the changes we've made, then move on to working with the beach image.
To save the file, on the keyboard, press:
Control key + S
To finish saving the file, if necessary, in the Photoshop Format Options dialog box,
Click
Adjusting beach.jpg
Let’s open the file beach.jpg and determine what needs attention in that image.
To start opening the file, in the Menu bar,
Click File, Click Open…
Navigate to the Photoshop Basics folder, if necessary.
To open beach.jpg, in the Open dialog box,
Double-Click beach.jpg
Now that beach.jpg is open, let's examine the image:
If we take a closer look at this image, we can see that it’s a little bright, especially compared to the image of the girl. There’s also a scratch in the sky on the left side of the image that we’ll need to repair.
We can fix these issues using the Adjustments panel and the Spot Healing Brush Tool. We'll start by fixing the scratch, then we'll apply a Levels adjustment to make the image a little darker. After completing the adjustment, we'll save the changes we've made to the image.
Zoom in on the scratch, if necessary.
To activate the Spot Healing Brush tool, in the Tools panel,
Click
To view the brush preset options, in the Options bar,
Click
To change the size of the brush cursor, in the Size field,
Press & Drag the value, type: 15 Enter key
To repair the scratch in the sky, with the Spot Healing Brush tool active,
Press & Drag over the scratch on the left side of the sky
In the Panel dock, switch to the Adjustment panel.
To add a Levels adjustment to the image, in the Adjustment panel,
Click
To darken the image slightly, underneath the histogram in the Properties panel,
Press & Drag the left slider to the right until the image darkens a bit
To save the file as a Photoshop document, in the Menu bar,
Click File, Click Save As…
To change the file type, if necessary, in the Save as type drop-down menu,
Click, Click Photoshop (*.PSD, *.PDD, *.PSDT)
To finish saving the file, in the bottom right corner of the Save As dialog box,
Click
Now both images are looking better. Next, let’s focus on getting ready to place the girl from girl on rock.psd into the beach photo.
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