Levitation composite - park

[petersweden]

Hi

I am working on a few levitation composites. Any ideas on how to improve this composite would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Peter

[klev]

Re: Levitation composite - park

What motivated the color choices on the subject? She feels quite flat due to the obvious casts and lack of connection with the background lighting.

[petersweden]

Re: Levitation composite - park

Thanks for your feedback.

Subject color: I tried to make the subject blend with the background by changing hue/saturation/levels of subject to match the background. Did I go too far?

What do you think should be done to improve connection with background lighting (rim lighting the subject with background color?)

[Tulack]

Re: Levitation composite - park

Your perspective is off. Background cartoonish. Light is off. Looks like it's overlay, not real light. Luminance is off. Saturation is off.

You can see it if you make HSL map.

https://scontent-lax1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtf1/t31.0-8/q82/s720x720/11270517_10155619774065153_3032941745646349276_o.jpg

[petersweden]

Re: Levitation composite - park

Interesting, how do you create a HSL-map?

How should the perspective be changed?

[klev]

Re: Levitation composite - park

I wouldn't worry about extracting maps. Someone either worked on video at some point in their life, or they watch too much youtube. In either case it's not very meaningful in this context, because it is a very poorly defined metric.

When I look at the girl, I don't see how the light in the intended scene is interacting with her. I don't see anything implied by her intended environment that would lead to that color in her clothing either. It's closest (still not that close) to what you would see with really warm camera flare or the kind of effect you would see with atmospheric haze on distant objects.

I think you need to consider interaction here and on the other image. It's okay if they feel surreal, but right now their elements just feel disconnected and not very interesting.

[petersweden]

Re: Levitation composite - park

This is the image of the subject without any hue/saturation/levels adjustments or lighting effects added to it. What should I do to make it fit the background?

[petersweden]

Re: Levitation composite - park

This is what I originally did with the subject (from top to bottom in layer panel):
Light glow: layer with yellow sampled from background, manually painted in top left, screen blend mode
Layer with difference clouds clipped to subject, lighten blending mode
Light rays from top left: yellow color, manually painted in from top left towards model, soft light blend mode
Colour model: took copy of background layer, filter/blur/average, color blend mode, 85 % opacity
Darken right side of model: levels adjustment layer
Brighten left side of model: levels adjustment layer
Saturation: added +18 saturation

[klev]

Re: Levitation composite - park

In my opinion the two don't go together that well. I can still offer some comments. I would probably add some highlights on her. They shouldn't be too bright, but some of the backlit portions would have affected her. The lighting on her is in conflict with the background. The scale is certainly off. She's too big relative to the tree. You'll want to match brightness levels somewhat to the scene.

[petersweden]

Re: Levitation composite - park

Thanks, in what way is the lighting in conflict?

[Tulack]

Re: Levitation composite - park

Interesting, how do you create a HSL-map?

How should the perspective be changed?

With PS just use gray layer in Luminosity and Saturation blend mode. For saturation map you can probably use "selective color" I use "luts" because it allows me to do it in one click.

You can figure out perspective with "vanishing point"

You'll want to match brightness levels somewhat to the scene.

And how would you do it without luminosity map?

[klev]

Re: Levitation composite - park

With PS just use gray layer in Luminosity and Saturation blend mode. For saturation map you can probably use "selective color" I use "luts" because it allows me to do it in one click.

You can figure out perspective with "vanishing point"

And how would you do it without luminosity map?

It will probably disappoint you. I would estimate it visually, because the available data isn't sound. Luminosity in this sense actually conveys very little about the image. It's frequently misused, but it's more likely to be a source of confusion here, especially when values per channel are of greater concern than their average.

I'm not entirely satisfied with my explanation. I've been trying not to drift too far into technical areas lately. Luminosity in photoshop works fairly similar to an adjustment to the L channel of LAB. That doesn't actually conform to differences in cone response though. For many colors, creating swatches and comparing will result in different color appearance. It doesn't take balance into consideration. RGB uses tristimulus values that represent overlapping wavelength ranges. It doesn't correspond to either of the original scenes, because the coordinate basis we work with depicts things in terms of output values, which may be further constrained by the available hardware.

I'm a little tired today, but hopefully that makes some amount of sense.

Thanks, in what way is the lighting in conflict?

She appears completely unaffected by the backlighting in the scene like none of it reaches her, especially on the left where it looks like light breaking through fog and tree cover. Her hair would show it. Shadows on her don't match the density of the overall scene, and they aren't very interesting. The shadow is completely wrong. Her scale doesn't look right when considering its location. Given the scene's perspective she doesn't appear to even be hovering over that point.

[Tulack]

Re: Levitation composite - park

It will probably disappoint you. I would estimate it visually

No, you would not disappoint me. That is what OP did. Estimated it visually.

[klev]

Re: Levitation composite - park

No, you would not disappoint me. That is what OP did. Estimated it visually.

You seem to think that is the source of the problem, but it would still be a visual estimate.

To account for balance issues, you would probably want to do this by channel rather than just compare their average. Even then the acceptability is dependent on whether lighting from the background scene appears to have some effect on the subject.

As I mentioned this is completely independent of the source intensities in the original scenes. Compositing of video often involves a lot of technical data, but they typically use something much more reflective of scaled intensity measurements rather than an output referred scale.

[petersweden]

Re: Levitation composite - park

Thanks for your detailed feedback.

She appears completely unaffected by the backlighting in the scene like none of it reaches her, especially on the left where it looks like light breaking through fog and tree cover. Her hair would show it.

What is the best way to fix this? Sample the backlight color and then paint over the edges of the model?

Shadows on her don't match the density of the overall scene, and they aren't very interesting. The shadow is completely wrong.

Do I need to darken the bottom and right side of her to create more contrast?

Her scale doesn't look right when considering its location. Given the scene's perspective she doesn't appear to even be hovering over that point.

Is she too high up and too big?