Photoshop

Faking it in
Photoshop
Rob Chiu gets creative with
some wildlife and a glass bottle,
showing how to create effects
reminiscent of Smirnoff’s
famous ‘bottle as lens’ ads
When creating a composited shot like this, it’s advisable to take your photos at
the same time so you’ve got similarly lit shots to work with. Unfortunately, this
isn’t always possible because project deadlines often determine the assets you use.
Over the following pages we’ll show you how to compose an image using
three photographs shot in different places at different times. Rather than relying on
the latest styles or plug-ins to match them up, the trick is to find images that relate
in some way to each other, such as having similar tones, so they can be blended into
a seamless whole. We’re using birds flying across a New York skyline, a transparent
bottle and a muddy rhino.

Designer On the disc Time needed

Rob Chiu is founder of The The files you need to work 2 hours
Ronin, a motion graphics and along with this project can
print design studio. He has be found on CD110, in the Skills
contributed work to film Resources\Photoshop Clipping paths
festivals and exhibitions, and tutorial folder. Free Transform
his short film, Dimensions, for Gaussian blurs
Channel Four/APT films won Adjustment Layers
two awards at the BANFF
Film Festival. Chiu is also a
news editor at design portals
BD4D and French ’n’ Fresh.
See www.theronin.co.uk.

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 01 The first step is to open the file DSC_0025.jpg, the rhino picture, in
Photoshop. Cut out the rhino using a clipping path. Don’t worry too much about
the back end of the animal as this won’t be used, but you do need to pay close
attention to the rest of it.

02 Next, you need to open the file DSC_3202.jpg. This is a photograph of a seagull flying high above
New York. This image will be our main base composition. Go back to DSC_0025.jpg and highlight the
clipping path you made for the rhino by pressing Ctrl (PC) or Cmnd (Mac) and then clicking on the Paths
palette window.

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 03 Drag the rhino image into the main composition by placing the cursor
inside the selection and dragging it from window to window. Rename the two
layers in the main composition as Bird New York and Rhino. You can now
close the original rhino file, but make sure you save the path just in case
you need to revert back to it later.
05 Use the Free Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmnd+T) to scale the bottle down so
it appears roughly as it does in the above screenshot. Set the ink mode to Hard
Light and change the Opacity to about 80%. You can start to see the effect of
the bottle on the image immediately.
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04 Now open the bottle image (DSC_4591.jpg) and create a clipping path
around the object. As with the rhino, make a selection of the bottle and drag it
into the main composition, naming the layer Bottle. Again, close the original
bottle but save the path in case you need it later.
06 Next, select Transform>Scale to make the rhino image the right size, and
rotate it so that it loosely follows the trajectory of the bird’s flight. Don’t worry too
much about the exact size and position because this can be refined in the next
step. Just make sure it looks right to your eye.
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 08 Turn off the Rhino layer. Make a selection of the Bottle layer but stay
on the Bird New York layer, having made a copy first. Then use the Cloning tool
to remove the wing and the feet. Keep turning the Rhino layer back on to check
how much retouching you need to do.

07 Make a selection of the bottle by clicking on

the Bottle layer while holding down Ctrl (Windows) or
Cmnd (Mac). Go to the Rhino layer and check the
mask icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. This
will create a mask in the shape of the bottle, thus
‘containing’ the rhino inside the bottle.

Alpha channels
Using a Clipping Path is probably the
easiest way to separate an object from its
background, but the best way to do this is to use
alpha channels and create masks using brushes.
You can use this technique to paint out hair and
other really fine details effectively rather than
using a clipping path.

09 Once you’re happy with the treatment of the bird, turn the Rhino layer back on and tweak the scale
and position of the rhino so that the edge of the bird outside the bottle and the edge of the rhino inside the bottle
meet in as seamless a way as possible. You may also need to rotate the rhino slightly to achieve this.

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 10 The rhino image is ultra sharp and detailed, mainly because of the 11 Now we’ll add a little motion blur to simulate the distortion that a bottle
texture of its skin. We need to tone this down a bit so it gels better with the can give. Make a selection with the Marquee tool around the top and bottom of
details of the other shots. Add a slight Gaussian blur from the Filter menu the rhino. Feather this selection at around 50 pixels, then use motion blur at
and set it to around 1 pixel or just below. 90 degrees and a setting of 140 pixels.

Duplicating layers
Always duplicate your layers so, if things get messy later on, you can
revert to a previous version without having to trail through your History palette. It’s
also useful to make a duplicate while working on key elements that you know you
might want to change later down the line.

12 Using the same feathered selection, apply the same level of motion blur 13 The sides of the rhino that join to the bird appear very sharp. These need
to the Bird Copy layer. This will give it the same feel as the Rhino layer. Make a to be blurred a bit to work with the bottle distortion. Do this by making a
selection of the bottle again and create a layer mask for the Bird Copy layer to selection on the left and right sides and feathering to 35 pixels, then use
which you just applied blur. Gaussian blur till you’re happy that it blends a bit better.

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 Lighting
When compositing images, it’s a good
idea to try and get photographs that have similar
lighting so they give the appearance of a seamless
image when joined together. You can always adjust
the levels to get the right match but, for best results,
your source images should be shot on the same day
in the same place.

14 The highlights and tone of the bottle don’t quite work with the bird and rhino imagery yet, because the
top of the bottle is very light. Duplicate the Bottle layer and create a layer mask to separate the bottom from
the top, so that one layer is the bottle top and the other layer is the bottom of the bottle.

15 Use Levels on the upper half of the bottle and adjust the middle slider 16 There are still a lot of highlights that seem too bright, so use the Burn tool
until the bottle becomes noticeably bluer and darker. The bottle is also far too to get rid of these with the setting set to Highlight and the Opacity to around 30%.
sharp for the rest of the image, so add a Gaussian blur to blend it more into Don’t forget to experiment with both layers for the bottles.
the rest of the composition.

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 17 Open the file DSC_3173.jpg. We’re now going to add the first bird
on the right to the composition. Cut it out and then drag it into the main
composition, and flip the image so that the bird is facing in the same direction
as the main bird/rhino. Place it behind the bottle.
19 As a final touch, we’re going to give the image an overall grade.
Create an Adjustment Layer by going to Layer>Adjustment Layer>Curves, and
change the curve to look like the one in the screenshot. Make sure the Adjustment
Layer is on top of everything else.
Adjustment Layers
Using Adjustment Layers to grade your images can make all the
difference at the final stages of the project. Adjustment Layers enable you to make
changes throughout the process without destroying the original image, so you can
go back and tweak to your heart’s content.
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18 Split the second bird into two halves using masks. For the part that’s
inside the bottle, go to Filter>Distort>Pinch and play around with the minus
settings so it distorts slightly. We haven’t done this with the rest of the image
as you can’t really tell that it’s not distorted.
20 The final step is to add another Adjustment Layer: Selective Colours.
Here you can control every colour with sliders. We want to make the blacks
slightly off black by adding magenta and decreasing cyan. You can also play
with the whites to amend the overall tone and feel.
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