*Click on photo to embiggen*
Welcome to another Phun Phriday!. Phun Phriday is where we experiment, try new things, step outside the box and so on.
What a beautiful scene. This was photographed Mar. 16, 2010 just outside the entrance to Zion's National Park. . . No wait a minute this was photographed Mar. 26, 2010 on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. . . Okay, it was both. Sometimes you get a beautiful landscape or scenic shot like the mountain here, but the skies just aren't right, when that happens you can simply get a great sky and insert it. So indeed the mountain was taken at Zions NP but the sky was taken 10 days later by the Great Salt Lake - about 300 miles apart. Both original photos are shown below.
How did I do this. Well to be honest, with Photoshop it's pretty easy. NOTE: I use CS 4, I don't know if you can do this the same way in Elements and I use a PC. It's done the same way on a MAC, but you use different keys.
Step one was to open my "Sky" photo in Photoshop.
Step two was to open my "Mountain" photo.
Then while holding the Ctrl key you click and drag the mountain (foreground image) onto the Sky (background image) so that now the mountain is hiding the sky. Once you are happy with the arrangement release the Ctrl & the mouse button.
You may want to rename the new layer. In mine I just called it Mountain so I'll refer to it as such here. Select the Mountain layer and then go to the bottom of the layers palette/panel and click the mask button (square with a circle inside it) to create a layer mask. What this does is allow us to "erase" the sky from the Mountain layer so that the sky in the background becomes visible.
Now, make sure that your foreground color is black. It doesn't matter how you paint in your sky with black, you can do it with a brush or in my case I did it with the combination of the magic wand tool and the paint bucket. Using the Magic wand tool I "selected" the sky in the Mountain layer and then using the paint bucket I poured in black which created a mask allowing the sky I wanted to show through. Since the Mountain layer's real sky did have some clouds and variation in it the magic wand tool did not just select the whole thing at once, so I had to do it a few times, and then after I got as much of it done that way as I could, I still had to go grab the brush and paint black in a few areas where the magic wand tool had missed. But overall it took maybe 3 minutes.
I'm not the best Photoshop user in the world. Not even remotely close. I have two books on it that I quite like. The first one is Adobe Photoshop CS4 one-on-one by Deke McClelland, which I have read cover to cover, and the second one is Adobe Photoshop CS4 for photographers by Martin Evening, which I'm about 1/3 of the way through. These books sit right next to my computer so I can grab them very quickly when I need them, which is most of the time I am doing anything besides the very basics.
I know many of you know Photoshop CS4 much better than I do, so I welcome your comments and suggestions. As always I hope that you will share your Phun Phriday! type photos with us by leaving a link in your comments.
So the big question now that you've see the befores and the after - was it worth it?
Don't be shy - leave a comment or email me. I love hearing from my visitors!
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8 comments:
Ahhh, the magic of computers. What one can do with a few mouse clicks!! And was it worth it, in my opinion, absolutely!!! There is such controversy among photogs about the pros and cons of post processing. If you are a photojournalist, then yes, you are obligated to present the image just as you saw it, not adding, but also, not leaving anything out of the frame purposely that would alter the viewer's perception of what he was seeing. Other than that, photography is an artistic expression, and the photographer uses a camera, lenses, software,etc., instead of oils, watercolors, paint brushes, etc. Just my humble opinion. Oh, and your final image is indeed beautiful, and much more striking that the original!
Way to go.... I'll have to try that sometime. I haven't tried the layer masking thing yet - but I will soon!
Yes it was worth the effort - stunning photo.
I only have a very old (2002 - that's like driving a Model T) version of PS that I haven't learned very well. No spare ka-ching for CS4 so am thinking of learning paint.net. Now, where's that book on motivation.
Scott,those clouds were made for that shot.You did a great job and the picture is much better for it.
Yes- this is one of the things that makes photography so enjoyable. It always good to play!
I think this is a good marriage. I like the way your cloud shapes 'rhyme' with the shapes of the mountains, it ties the whole image together. Nicely imagined!
That is magic for sure! I am going to take some time to really concentrate on what you wrote and try it on something. I have Elements 5 ... I'll have to see if it works with it...and, I like your philosophy that photography is a form of art...it sure is!
A perfect job - the perspectives are well matched. I share Karen's opinion, and always have. After 55 years of enthusiasm for the photographic image you can imagine that I am on cloud 9, painting with photoshop. Purists will always find a way to demean what they don't understand Karen.
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