The stars must be smiling at me those days. One of the two images I submitted to the Palo Alto Camera Club competition in the category “Creative” won the first place on 5.2.07.
The PACC uses the following definition for the Creative category:
This is the creative use of line, form and color, expressing the photographer’s ideas and/or feelings in a non-traditional style. Nature and reality, or any literal renditions, may be distorted or otherwise modified by the use of non-standard techniques and controls. Computer enhancement is acceptable, provided the image began with the maker’s photograph. It is not necessary to render the subject unrecognizable.
I started to wander randomly into my collection of digital photos. I used the wonderful free Google photo organizer called Picasa. It helps browse very quickly across a very large amount of images. I wanted to try a realistic photo montage but didn’t have any specific idea regarding the subject.
I found that the two following images might have a potential being merged based on their similar color density, detail level, scale, contrast level, and angle of the sun. The first one which served as the background or basis of the scene was taken in Cupertino, CA on a parking lot. The woman in the center is a dance teacher who was demonstrating a step to the two students. The second photo was taken at the San Francisco Zoo, and showed some Prairie Dogs.
Original source image used as background
Nikon D50 • Nikkor 18-70 • 70 mm • 1/250s (ev -1.67) • f/4.5
3.10.2007 11:20AM
Image used as the source for the overlay
Nikon D50 • Nikkor 80-200 • 200 mm • 1/4000s (ev -1.67) • f/4.5
1.1.2007 1:00PM
I also used a couple more Prairie Dogs with different positions:
Two more images used in the overlay
The process is (fairly) simple:
- Overlay the Prairie Dog images over the Parking lot one
- Remove (erase) the unwanted parts of the Prairie Dog images (this can be time consuming, it took me about 30 minutes). A tip to erase: I use an hard-edge brush (not the pencil shape eraser) set at 100%, and then use the Blur Tool with a small brush size set at 40% transparency. It creates a nice blend of the overlays with the background.
- Adjust the brightness and the color saturation of the overlays to match the brightness and color saturation of the background image (I use the Hue/Saturation effect layer)
- Paint the animal projected shadows using the free form Lasso Tool, filled with solid black color, and apply a 65% transparency
- Darken the top section of the background (back of the parking lot) to help focus the attention to the main part of the action
I paid special attention to the location and size of the Prairie Dogs. Two of them are in the visual path of the two women, increasing the natural integration of the scene, and therefore the credibility of the story. The third Prairie Dog is looking at you, inviting you in his world, making you believe that she is a core part of the scene (and not an added subject).
The final PhotoShop file is a bit more than 32MB in size and has about 20 layers (both image and effect layers).
Here is the final image:
Final composition
I added a little touch and changed the license plates of the two cars behind. They now read:
…hence the title “Hey Pal, check out those license plates!”.