The Camaro - edit
August 26, 2016As I said at the end of my last post from my day with the Camaro, I will be going through the edits of one of the picture I took that day. Let me start by showing you the final result :
The goal of the picture was to show the Camaro in an urban area and to create a surreal effect with the lighting. First thing first, we’ll need to take the picture. In this street, we had the chance to park the car on both side of the street, giving us a lot more options. As you can see in the first picture below, there was nobody parked in front and directly behind of us making it possible to frame the picture easily and with more liberty.
Obviously, this side of the street was giving boring result with a ton of disturbing elements, bringing me to my second location and the actual composition I used.
The next step in the process is to spot the problem and everything disturbing in the image. I like to outline some of them at the beginning but I keep adding some to the list while I edit. Simply create a new layer (Shift+Cmd+N on mac) and use the brush tool (B) to circle the selections.
There we go. As you can see, a lot of the edit will be pretty easy to do with the healing brush tool (J) and for some trickier part we might have to use the clone stamp tool (s). There’s also two bigger transformations to do in the image and this is the pole on the left side of the screen and the one on the far right. The difficulty with the removal of the red pole is it’s location since it is directly on top of the edge of the concrete column. This mean, I would have to recreate the edge. This is why taking multiple pictures with a slightly different angles come handy. On the next image, I was able to see the edge of the column so I simply copied the column from this image and paste it over the other one.
In order to align the newly added part of the image, I simply lower the opacity of the object and try to align it as best as I can. For trickier situation, I use the free transform tool. The tool gives you more liberty when aligning and changing the shape of an object. In order to use it, select the object or layer you want to modify, then you can use the shortcut command+T (cmd+T). This will bring the transform menu and all of his transforming options. On the right side, you’ll find the Free transform tool.
Test and experiment the free transform tool, you’ll get use to it! After aligning the part from the other image, it’s time to create a vector mask on the object to hide some unwanted sections. Since you will be revealing the image under the one you copied, you want to take this step slowly. I like to use a soft brush and simply use the edge of it to slowly reveal the area behind the one I want to keep. The vector mask will allow you to hide and reveal part of the selected layer without erasing the image itself. In this case, start with a white vector mask (to inverse the color : cmd+i) and use a black brush to hide the unwanted sections. We’ll do a similar trick with the other pole with all the crazy no parking signs on the right side of the image in order to cover the flower pot area. Simply copy and paste the first flower pot and put it over the third one. make sure it doesn’t look exactly like the other one by removing some of the shape with the technique used before (vector mask and the brush). The rest of the edits around those areas are going to be done with the clone stamp tool (s).
When all the sections which needed to be replace are in, it’s time to modify the picture by creating that halo of light on the top right. In order to do so, we will need to create a copy of the actual picture and all of the layers we created earlier. We will use the shortcut Shift + Alt + Cmd + E to create a new layer with all of the visible layer compressed into it.
The next step will be to apply a Gaussian Blur to create that mist effect on the desired area. Go into the filter menu -> blur -> Gaussian blur and adjust the slider to your liking. You can always Cmd + Z and restart the blurring process if you’re not satisfied. Then, select the layer and use blending mode : screen. As used earlier, create a mask on the blurred layer and use the Gradient tool (G) with the circle option checked (it’s actually call the Radial Gradient). Make sure the colors of the gradient are set to : Black to White and use it wherever you want (in our case the top right). The Gradient tool help to set mask quickly so I recommend experimenting with it a bit.
To finalise the halo, simply play with the opacity slider and adjust it accordingly. You can also add some exposure adjustment (in my case) to brighten up the halo a bit. The photo filter adjustment was added to match and warm the color of the halo. If everything went well, you should have something similar to this! Of Course, I quickly adjusted the exposure of the image in Lightroom when everything else was done.