Compositing for the first time

Compositing

I never thought that I would experiment with it when I first started using a DSLR. Never. Ever.

So here I was yesterday sitting down in the sticky, hot house (because all the windows were closed -- because it was raining horizontally, as it always does in Caboolture)  looking for inspiration around the house.

Hello and behold said flash of inspiration! A shot of 3 people crowded around an opening chest, complete with cliche' gold glow.

Then came the inevitable problem: looking around its me, myself and I. With no assistant, or friends who were immediately free. Sucks when everyone except yourself  works in normal Monday to Friday jobs.

Enter second flash of said inspiration.

I thought what if I used me, myself and I for the shot? Thus dawns on me the concept that I would be attempting to composite in brrr.... Photoshop.


Now my view of Photoshop has changed recently.Its a powerful tool, but, then again so is Eddie Maguire...

It's changed because it can aid the artistic expression of a photo, but nonetheless can really screw up some otherwise possibly good photo - And make kids look REALLY CREEPY.

Anyway, Returning from my tangent...

So here is the light setup I used:

Lens was my 14-24mm, zoomed out to 24mm and aperture @ f/8. I used the gold reflective cardboard to warm the reflected light. White balance is tungsten, with all lights (except for the softlighter II)  CTO'd as I wanted a slight cold feel around the edges, but warm light for the subject. I also wanted the wall to show some of the reflected warm light from the chest.

Here are the 3 separate photos used:

I liked the falloff around the edges of the couch.

Piccies were taken using timer set to 10 secs on tripod, which was a bit frustrating as improving and changing the shot took much longer then usual.

All 3 pics plus background were thrown in photoshop and blended together to get what you saw at the top. A couple of things to note here:

1. The clock shows a different time in each picture, which may have complicated things if I accidently had shadows cast on it.

2. The two pics where I am located in the middle and at the right of the couch conflict. Unknown to me at the time I pulled my elbow back when the picture of me opening the chest was taken, which conflicts the position of where I have my elbow when I wear the red shirt. I tried to place myself so that I wouldn't overlap myself but unfortunately I couldn't pick it up at the time of reviewing it on the lcd. This will be something that I will be more mindful of next time.

Let me know what you think.

Cheers,

Az.