Composite

[petersweden]

Hi

I want to composite this soccer player on top of the background of stadium seats but I can't get the images to look right together. Any ideas of how the montage can be improved?

http://wip.psportraitphoto.com/#home

Thanks

Peter

[Britsdad]

Hiya Peter,

Just a quickie from me, I think it's all in the lighting.
The player is lit from both sides but darker in the centre, I selected the guy and moved him to his own layer then darkened the seats, as you can see from my screen dump, then I added a reflective gradient from black to white to lighten up the sides, I think it looks a lot more convincing.

Hope this helps somewhat.

John

[Repairman]

I agree the lighting is the issue here: the model looks like he's standing in front of a photographic poster of seats. If you darken the background, take down the contrasty highlights in the seats and desaturate the colour a little to suit the 'ambient' lighting. Finally, sharpen the background to match the model.
R.

[Mike Abbott]

Originally Posted by Britsdad

Just a quickie from me, I think it's all in the lighting...

I think John is right. This is a tough one to make work as the lighting is so different in the two images - particularly if you're looking for a realistic rather than stylised result.

My feeling is that, given the strength of the two side lights on the talent, and the level of indirect lighting on the front of the guy, the seating / stand background should be darker.

I'm asumming that the light areas top left and right are supposed to be simulations of lens flare from the strong side lights that would be lighting the talent. While I'm not a great fan of lens flare bling : ) I wonder if adding some more realistic and stronger lens flare effects might sell the lighting more? It's difficult to say without trying it.

Mike A.

(message composed at the same time as that from Repairman)

[petersweden]

Thanks, that was very useful. I knew something was wrong but I couldnt put my finger on it. I will also look into a more realistic lens flare effect.

[capsicon]

Try to make the soccerplayer more in the tone of the background. I think a more blueish tone.

[Vernon]

One other detail to consider is the application of a "light wrap" to the foreground subject. This technique effectively "wraps" some of the "ambient light" from the background onto the edges of the subject, making for a more believable effect that the subject is indeed in the background.

One YouTube video helps illustrate applying this technique; it's simple yet quite effective once you become familiar with it. The technique is actually borrowed from an earlier Adobe After Effects trick to compositing green-screened actors onto a background sets to match ambient lighting, etc.

The link to the YouTube video:
Creating a Light Wrap in Photoshop

[Bobed]

Only because I'm a big fan of this type of image, I think the player being the focal point looks better against a monochrome background, so I removed him and desaturated the background and sharpened him up a little and replaced him.

[MacBurg]

I think the problem here is the contrast in colours between the left/right sides of the background, makes it very hard on the eye as the two colours are opposites and compete for your eyes attention, you loose focus on the subject.

Maybe these are team colours though and can't be changed? If so I'd recommend re-colouring the seats in a different arrangement to make it easier on the eye and put more focus on the subject. Here's a few examples -

http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/9751/ccexample.jpg

The lighting is pretty good and the background contrast helps to bring the subject into the scene, I would increase the left and right flare though to further enhance the blend.

[petersweden]

Originally Posted by MacBurg

I think the problem here is the contrast in colours between the left/right sides of the background, makes it very hard on the eye as the two colours are opposites and compete for your eyes attention, you loose focus on the subject.

Maybe these are team colours though and can't be changed?

I see your point. The colours are not team related. I guess an easy way out would be to copy the left half of the background layer, flip it and paste it on the right side (though the seat numbers would havr to be fixed).