Pasting in an image - looks phoney

[Jay]

Hi folks,

Sorry if this has been asked 1,000 times before. I'm a wedding photographer.
I would like to be able to "cut out" a bride and groom from one shot and "paste" them into another shot. I believe I've got the shadow thing down pretty good but the paste looks fake. They don't look real. It has that cut and paste look. Any advice. I really appreciate it.

Jay

[T Paul]

Posting your image, even if it's just a section of it will help people make more accurate suggestions to solve your problem.

In general some of the main reasons that cut and paste looks fake:

1. The two images have two different sources of lighting.
2. The two images are at different levels of sharpness or depth of field.
3. Drop shadows are fogotten or too harsh.
4. There's a halo or jagged edges around the object you cut out.


~T

[Jay]

OK, I'll take those things into consdieration. I also heard about "matting". I use a defringe level of 2. Is this correct to do? I don't see any change when I do that.

Thanks - Jay

[T Paul]

Any time you pull an image from its background, it's a good idea to try each of the three matting commands (Defringe, Remove Black Matte, Remove White Matte) to help reduce any halos.

Sometimes one will produce better results than another, and sometimes none of them appear to have any effect at all... it all depends on the combination of your foreground and background. Note the matte command is just one method to remove a halo.

[Jay]

OK, am I using the matte command properly? I paste the image into the new background, then I go to the matte command and defringe by 2. Is that the proper sequence of things?

Thanks - Jay

[Leah]

That's the right sequence, but I seldom find I get good results from that alone. Generally I have to add a layer mask, zoom right in and get rid of the remainder of the fringing manually.

[Gary Richardson]

As an alternative to de-fringing, try the following, it gives a softer and more natural transition between images.

Ctrl click on your pasted layer to select it.
Select-Modify-Border and set border to about 3 pixels (depending on image size).
Select-Feather set to about 2 pixels.
Then Edit-Cut.

The settings given are general, play around to get the best ones for the image you're pasting. Fine tuning by hand will still be needed to get best results.

[Jay]

Thanks Gary!

I can't wait to try it.

Jay J

[T Paul]

You might want to check out these tutorials:

Isolate Fine Detail and Replace a Background Using Channels

Everything you want to know about -Selections- PS

Removing the Background, PhotoShop Pen Tool

Knock it Out! Removing Backgrounds with Photoshop

Expert Techniques to Simplify Making Selections

[Jay]

Thanks again T Paul. I'll check em out promptly.

Jay J

[jaygeemo]

Another method mentioned by Deke McClelland is to select-modify-contract a selection by, for example, 1 pixel and then select-feather the selection by, for example, .5 pixel. This tip is claimed to be better than using the defringe method.