How do I move the Sun?

[Cyde]

Hello,
I would like the put the Sun above and centered over this couple and just can't find a way. I've tried mask and moving a copied layer over another but I'm not getting anywhere. Please let me know what you would do.

Thanks!!

[jeremy1986]

I copied the top half of the pic to another layer and moved so the sun was in the middle then i erased everything but the sky then i took the smudge tool and blended that layer with the bottom later then i copied the left side lf the water that had the shine on the water and pasted and fliped it on the other side and set the layer to color burn and applied a gaussian blur and smudge out the edges to shape it.

[Cyde]

Jeremy,
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!
You are a master!!!!! If you write a book, let me know, I'll be one of the first to get it!!

THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN!!

[jeremy1986]

Your welcome Cyde, I'm far from being a master, but thanks for the generous compliment, I'm still learning myself. If you need any help with anything else let me know.

[mistermonday]

Jeremy, very good job. Another approach would also be to use Edit>Content Aware Scale. You use the Quick Select tool to create a 5 sec selection of the people and save the selection as an alpha channel. Then Ctrl+A to select all, and Content Aware Scale making sure to select the people in the Protect pull down menu in the Option Bar, and then drag the left edge of the image to the right until the sun is positioned over where you want it. Add a layer mask and blend the sun into its new location.
Regards, Murray

[Cyde]

Thank you mister! I will try that tonight. I'm a little confused when you or Jeremy say you blended the layers. Are you talking about blending modes or the blending options in Layer styles?

Thanks again!
I really appreciate all the help!

[mistermonday]

Cyde, actually neither. Please see the sample attachments.
When overlaying two images, in this case the moon over your original, there are several ways to proceed. You could just cut the moon from its original image and paste it into your sunset image. However most of the time, you have more flexibility to take an object with some or all of its background and overlay it on top of its new home. You then add a layer mask and on the mask you paint with black to conceal what you do not want to show in your composited image. The mask can be fine tuned and its edge refine (feathered, smoothed, expanded, contracted) so as to allow you to blend in the overlay seamlessly. If you make an error or want to bring in some stars later, you just paint on the mask with black or white to hide or reveal more of the overlay. Its a non destructive process.
Regards, Murray

[jeremy1986]

when i said blended i meant i used the smudged tool around the edges of the sky. Where the sky is just different shades of blue i used the smudge tool around the edges to make the to layers seem seamless. Good advice MisterMonday, i have not learnt about channels yet. Im using photoshop elements 6.0 and i don't know if that has the channel feature.

[Sarah Tamsula]

Hi mistermonday. Maybe you can help me understand the Content Aware Scale option. I'm playing around with your instructions on the 8:21 a.m. post but I can't seem to see the purpose for the selecting the Content Aware scale and selecting the people in the Protect pull down menu. I'm probably not understanding your steps clearly because it seems that all I'm doing is creating another layer and moving the whole layer over. I don't see what the Protect selection is actually protecting.

Forgive me for my confusion with this. When I read our 9:41 post, I was able to follow it with perfect results.

Thanks in advance for your response.

Sarah

[Cyde]

Originally Posted by mistermonday

Jeremy, very good job. Another approach would also be to use Edit>Content Aware Scale. You use the Quick Select tool to create a 5 sec selection of the people and save the selection as an alpha channel. Then Ctrl+A to select all, and Content Aware Scale making sure to select the people in the Protect pull down menu in the Option Bar, and then drag the left edge of the image to the right until the sun is positioned over where you want it. Add a layer mask and blend the sun into its new location.
Regards, Murray

Hello Murray,
Again thank you all the guidance you've provided. I have been re-working this image for the past few days and I'm sorry, I just cant' get the results you or Jeremy have using either of your techniques. I get the closest with your Content Aware method, but I am not able to blend the sky tones in a convincing way. I've attached to screen shots in an effort to show what I'm doing. I'm able to blend the right side of the sky, but I can't do anything about the left, as you can see. Could you please provide more details on how you used your method or correct what ever I'm doing wrong?

Thanks!!
Cyde

[robmac]

Funny thing is when you start messing around with moving the un into the centre, other objects start to bother you and before you know it only the couple is left!

[Cyde]

You guys are killing me with your skills!!

[mistermonday]

Cyde, here is some additional info.
Duplicate the BG, quick select and mask the people, then do a Content Aware Scale (CAS) choosing the people mask from the Protect menu. You should get something like attachement 1 where only the sun and sky are positioned where you want them to be.
Attachment 2 shows what the image looks like with the new layer on top of the BG.
With the top layer active, choose the Single Pixel Vertical Marquee tool from the tool box (its under the Marquee context menu). Click on the very left edge of the image on top layer (just before it goes transparent). Now do Ctrl+T to activate the transform command. Half way down the left side of the selection you should see a drag point. Grab it and drag it all the way across the transparent margin to the left. What you have done is filled in the transparent margin with pixels. The only ones you will want will be those in the sky. You should have something that looks like attachment 3.
Now add your layer mask to this layer. The only thing you will want to keep on this layer is the sun in its new position and some of the surrounding sky. It will be faster if you invert the mask to hide everything then just paint on the sun and surrounding with a soft white brush. Attachment 4 shows you what the layers looks like and what the mask looks like.
The resulting composite is attachment 5.
You can do some fine tuning on the final image if you want to play with the sun rays spread.
If you find after you stretch the layer with the CAS that you have a few faint streaksin the sky, just make a very rough selection around that area and Gaussian Blur it 2 or 3 pixels to eliminate it.
Regards, Murray