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Lighting Effects

Lesson 32 from: Adobe Photoshop Compositing: Essential Techniques

Aaron Nace

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Lesson Info

32. Lighting Effects

Lesson Info

Lighting Effects

let's go ahead and play around a little bit more I want to see about adding some maybe some warmth behind our subject and see what we can do there this is kind of like getting to that point all right our lighting effects this is getting the point we're like man what what else can we do to the image and these lighting effects I do want to be visible in color as well so I'm gonna click on this layer and hit control their command you and we're going basically just adjust the hue the saturation sorry the hue of our lights back there to mimic what's going on in the actual light in her background bring down the saturation a little bit there we go so we can have that or weaken stick with something that's a little bit more normal yeah let's deal with this a nice contrast in color I think works pretty well all right and this guy I mean hit command t we're going toe lock are within our height and I'm gonna give this right on the other side of the ball there so it's going to look like the bulls r...

eally you know the light's kind of creeping around the ball let's go ahead and put a layer mask on this so I'm gonna paint black on my lame ass about forty percent there and then I'm gonna hit command j to just kind of duplicate that so this is like if ever there was a time to go crazy with lens flare it's this type of image like this is exactly when you want to do it because it again from the very beginning we set out to create an image that was super stylized and this is exactly this is exactly what we were talking about when we when we want to create those stylized images all right and I am able to put a layer mask on these so that's just gonna make each one of these layers not look exactly the same let's just turn all these often on and make sure our lighting effects we don't want we don't want these artifacts kind of showing up everywhere but having invisible in a couple of places really does add a lot to the image all right I'm gonna take control of command l if you want things to be a little less visible use your levels to do so and the reason you're going to use levels is because if you use opacity what it does is it's going to make all right let's just put this in front of our infront of our subject here so in the capacity of one hundred percent right now and that's basically a white right if I bring my opacity down I get like a gray and that doesn't really make any sense right like you don't have grey flair but if they had controller command l and it brings up two levels it changes their black point and what it does is it basically shrinks the size of your lens player because it's making your blacks even darker while the white state of same so if you want to shrink the apparent size your light source especially when you were working with the lens flare is something like this it's a lot but over an idea to just use levels adjustment layer then you know something like here we go let's bring that capacity of then something like just lowering the opacity of it all right really really cool I'm gonna go back here let's go back in front of our stadium and I'm going to see what I could do with a little bit of color we're going to play around with levels again so we're going to go to our blue channel and now basically anything that I do is going to effect let's pop it above the grass it's going to affect everything that's behind our subject right because I've got everything layered really really well so if I wantto take this and you know make our background a little bit warmer a little bit cooler whatever I want to do I could do all this sort of thing back here and then mask it off so let's say I want to make a little bit of like a warm centre to these lights I'm gonna pull my red channel in my blue channel to make this a little warmer hit command I all my layer mask and right now this is kind of like what I would consider like the playing around time like I don't I don't know if this is what I'm gonna wind up doing I don't know if it's going to wind up working exactly how I wanted to but it's it's worth kind of playing around in my opinion all right maybe you want to play with sky a little bit yeah I'm not really digging that yellow that kind of looks horrible actually but I'm not going to abandon it just yet because I can always change the color and my kids that I really like so just click double click here I'm going to go to my blue channel I'm going to see you know maybe I want this to be a little bit more on the blue side let's just reset this all right we're going to re hit the reset button there goto our blue channel and pulled us in maybe I'll go to my green channel and I'll pull that in a swell so maybe I'll get some blue screens in there all right maybe I'll get some reds in there I don't know just kind of like playing around with a couple different color ranges all right there we go and that's going to affect basically everything underneath the players here okay now here in our background I'm gonna open this up and I'm gonna grab a levels adjustment layer there we go option command jeez gonna clip that gonna darken the sky down a little bit hit command eye on that and then I'm going to bring this in with a grating tool ghee for the grating tool and I'm gonna bring this in from the top down just like that so we can bring a little bit more focused on my subject yeah I really like that so we're going to lead it that's part of the process just kind of making some adjustments and deciding if you like them kind as you're going along all right let's see are behind our players as well let's create a new layer let's bring in some of that atmosphere case I'm gonna bring in some of these colors here and kind of paint them over top of her stadium here we go all right change are blending mode from normal down here to screen all right and then I'm gonna lower the capacity just a little bit and this is going to help our soccer player looked like he's you know kind of coming off the background just a little bit more change your passage that just a little bit all right what do you guys think about that does that look okay all right the lights behind him are only kind of like it seems like it's not hitting the back of his arms so they need to be like more this got here yeah I like it because his back is dark that seems like they're uh good point okay so in that case if we wanted to just turn one of those lights off or move one of the lights we can totally do that we still have like our lighting effects and things like that that are that are going to be visible everywhere but let's go out and see if we can try that real quick so turning the lights off and then we could take this guy and later mask this up he does have a bit of a rim light on him there we go and then we would take our appear going into our lighting effects and take that guy out as well and then I've got some sweat layers on there as well what do you think does that look better or should I try to add a little bit of a rim light to the subject yeah still in his head all right cool let's do it so we'll bring that back in I'm going to go back up here let's turn that group back on and turn our sweat group back on there we go and turn this background as well all right let's go back to our subject I don't know if I'm gonna be able to have a tunnel look back but we're going to give it a shot so I'm gonna control or command click on our subject there we go was kind of waiting on the uh waiting on the computer second so we're basically turning him into a selection now okay and with this what we're gonna do is we're going to create a new layer I'm gonna hit option command you to clip this and then I'm gonna go to select we're going to go to modify and down to contract and then I'm gonna bring this in by about three pixels so just a little bit inside of our subject there okay now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna hit shift command I too in verse the subject so inverse this election so it's selected slightly inside of him and now we can take our color here basically describe the color from our adjustment layer one hit controller command h to hide this election and I can paint a rim light on our subject and it should just show up on the edge there because that's where it's visible that's actually worked out pretty well okay we'll do that more often I have no idea right I was like uh this may work it may not I had no idea all right yeah that actually looks pretty good all right cool great suggestion just go all right good well so much for lighting someone in the studio just don't even worry about it don't even worry about it you apparently you can just do this in photo shop all right now I'm gonna clean this up a little bit let's just hit control or command e that was cool did everyone follow how I made that selection cool let's put a layer mask on there and I'm going to prescribe my brush tool and then kind of mass is out there we go all right that looks pretty good there and there we go a swell all right cool that surprised me on how well that worked all right good let's just take a look at that before or after so there's our without a rim light and there's our with a rim light I think all right don't do that again I know wouldn't do that all right let's see looks like we've got a little bit of something going on here on our subjects legs so let's just turn all these layers off and see if that kind of kind of fixes that there might be something we did you know up above up above okay that's ah white area that we're just turning a little bit dark so we might need a color that again so let's grab a new layer option command she is going to quit that adjustment layer and in this case I'm just going to grab this color and test my luck just kind of painting this in all right because it is a just kind of a bit of a blurred egg all right turn it zoom out to see if that works for us and I look better before didn't it don't look at her effort right very cool all right let's make a little bit of a cool this looks right so now we have our subject we have our dirt in our sweat and everything like this I'm going to see if we can take out our subject and take out our ball and our sweat and our foreground colors in our dirt okay so we're going to make all those things invisible you know what let's pick our lighting effects invisible as well and now we can do is I'm gonna make a stamp visible layer basically just my background shift option command e to create this merger visible or sam visible there and this is where I want to add a little bit of that motion blur that's going to really make it look like our background it's kind of moving and our subject is moving through it so what we're gonna do is I'm gonna do turn all these back on there we go and now we're gonna go to filter blur and I'm gonna go down here to radio blur we're going to try a couple different floors I'm not sure that radio blur is gonna wind up being the best but we're gonna bring it over there there we go and I'm going to spring our basically we're going changes from spin down to zoom and it's going to look like the entire field is kind of zooming out a little bit and it's going to get gradually stronger and stronger as we reached the edge so I'm not sure what this is going to look like just yet but if done right I think it could look really cool all right that's cool it's just apply them blur a little bit less so filter we're going to go to blur and I'm gonna go down here to raid a blur you know what let's starting making this invisible I might just do this over top of everything see if we can include our subject with this as well filter blur radio blur and I'm gonna change my blower center to where my subject actually is let's see how that looks all right never go let's try that again filter blur and down to radio blur and I'm just gonna lower the amount to something like to all right let's go one one more there's no there's no preview with this dialogue so it's just kind of like a guess and check method all right so what this did basically is it should keep our subject relatively and focus and basically blur our background a little bit and continuously blur mohr and mohr around the image I don't know what do you guys think should we keep that or leave it maybe last out some of the subject line so they're a little bit clear but uh yeah let's put a layer mask on there I'm gonna hit command ion that you write I think let's have this just be visible in a couple areas I think it doesn't work everywhere two maybe two here just in the background around this area here and around that area too if you're on the edge of the ball as well all right very cool looking good ends now let's see what we want to do with our images a whole let's grab our above this we're going to grab a color balance adjustment layer and we're going to play around with our highlights mid tones and our shadows so our highlights we can either choose to pull these towards a little bit brighter and we couldn't warm these up a little bit if we choose to do that all right there we go and because we did that that's going to affect basically it's gonna affect all the highlights and the image so it's gonna affect our subject and it's going to affect our lights in the background as well then our shadows let's go ahead and see what we can do with those who want to pull those towards blue or maybe toward screen we can do that as well yeah I think I like this what do you think maybe lower the effect a little bit she's slightly all right cool of the color balance good question let's do it when hit v for move tool it shift and then plus or minus so lighten that's kind of cool let's see what lighten looks versus normal pretty much the same one that's why looks good all right let's go ahead and group those and we'll just call this color this is looking awesome guys all right um the siege which the birds in the background need a little bit more of a blur is dang birds all right hit okay and now I want to start sharpening something's as well so we're going to just put this put this in the color group I'm gonna make a stamp visible layer which is going to be shift option command e all right and then I'm gonna hit shift command you to d saturate this I'm gonna go ahead and change this layer from normal to overlay you can also use things like soft light or vivid light and now we're going to get a filter other and here too high pass all right and well basically we're doing is choosing our radius and this is going to decide how much sharpening we're actually gonna have on this here we go and I'm okay going a little bit farther than I would on like a regular portrait the reason being this is you know obviously like a it's a it's a sports image and it's supposed to be like ten a gritty so let's put a layer mask on there well he command I on that and then now we'll just paint basically just paint white on the layer mask for the areas that we want to actually be visible there like over top of his face his leg that grass there going off on the bowl as well all right hand his body there so just a little bit of sharpening let'sjust see mountains we can see that just helps draw a little bit more intention I don't know can you get me that helps draw a little bit more attention to our subject all right this looks also does anyone have any other suggestions maybe like color of composition or anything like that I think we're getting pretty close all right michael fell like wondered if the ball was a little too saturated a little too saturated yeah all right let's let's knock that down a little bit we've already got a huge saturation adjustment layer on the ball let's pop it down yeah I think they were right and also if we did want to change the color of the ball we could do that as well we do have other layers that you know we're clone stamped above that so if we didn't want to change the color of the ball we would want to make sure we select those well but yeah I think you're right the ball was a little too saturated yeah the light underneath his leg on the left side not the main subject the yeah that kind of like is yeah just a little awkward to me all right let's go ahead and see what we can do about that so here in our foreground group we're going to grab our levels adjustment layer option command g and we're just going to take the light area and kind of bring this down a little bit and then I'm going to use a layer mass just face it basically paint us in all right does that help it out of it can you see it that way neither like in the back of the knee like it came down a lot in the back of the thigh but it's got like some highlights on their highlights weird highlights back money how's that yeah better yeah all right yeah he was totally right great suggestion it alright see all right and we're going to ask this away because that was kind of covering up some of that so here in the end it's getting to be more and more and more important that we're actually doing a pretty good job from the beginning of making our making our image basically in a way where we can go in and infected and just all these things at the very end because every year because the image is so complex now we don't want to spend years and years just trying to find what we actually want to adjust all right I'm just going to try a couple things but in terms to color here and generally when I'm coloring image or something like this general I want to spend a little bit more than just a knauer to building a composite like this like obviously this is kind of what I would consider it like a a very quick composite job see about building this color in generally I would spend a little bit more time when it comes to building composite like this right see adding some color there but I don't think that this is the right color so we'll go down to our blue channel maybe pull this in an hour good channel and we go and then rgb let me know if you want one want one more yeah I'll take one more so a lot of folks were talking about they wanted to see maybe a couple of david's in the turf where the grass was flying up from okay that's a cool idea um for that that's great accustom brush what do you say all right so I'm gonna hit command and for a new document we're going to go toe pixels and I'm just gonna make this five hundred pixels by five pixels and I want to make something that would look like I did it all right so with the brush I'm just gonna go well I'm gonna grab a lasso tool and here we go with our last two we're just going to you know choose something looks like this right it looks like a different yes total all right now we'll create a new layer on top of that and we'll just create something that looks like this that's so it's like the you know grass that would be kind of coming up because we got to see this thing in perspective right all right there's a good suggestions man all right we're going to run out of time eventually but I could just go all day all right stop me if we need to all right and then you know what I'm just gonna make a couple more of these with my my hand there all right and these air going toe basically just serve his grass for that with white all right so that kind of looks like a vivid right great so let's go to edit and then down to define brush present how he's funded let's go to full screen this we're going to go back to our grass layer and on top of our grasp here we're going to create a new layer and let's just define what are david should look like that should be you know relatively dark right so black david's for everybody uh all right well great a new layer on here there we go that looks like a david right um let's just changes from normal sorry goto our brush now and I'm gonna click on shape dynamics let's turn our size shit around you know some of these could be small and some of these could be large right we want some clothes and some faraway actually you know we're going to turn this on way don't need an angle jeter we can have a roundness jitter and that'll make some of these like more shallow than others which is our minimum roundness they're like so this is a smaller vividness is a wider one pretty meet um let's turn on our sorry let's turn on our scattering so I can just kind of paint him in and now we'll go to our spacing and we'll just bring that up there a little bit as well I don't know that we'll need this many but um looks pretty good all right let's sit command eight and then delete all those guys and now see what this actually looks like all right so we'll create some hearing or foreground alright coop and then we'll go way small with a brush and we'll just make some there in the background too so if someone were the super zoom endless that's eventually live it's all right and then we're going to need to give this a blur as well so this layer will go to filter blur and then we'll go down to motion blur and we give this about the same motion blur that we gave our grass there we go and let's see if we can make this blend in a little bit better I'm gonna double click on that hold alter option and say don't blend in where the underlying layer is later don't show up just to afford the underlying laters darker there we go all right and I'm gonna keep it a little bit more of a blur attention rapacity just a bit there we go I think that looks like a little david's huh how are brass doesn't look perfect awesome

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Fantasy Composite
Soccer Composite
Adobe® Photoshop® Keyboard Shortcuts
Gear Guide

Ratings and Reviews

Kim
 

This was the Best Creative Live course I have had the pleasure to watch. Aaron was so informative and explained each technique very well. He was so pleasant to watch because he was so humble and was so happy and excited about what he was creating. What an excellent teacher. I hope he does more seminars.

Curtis Roberts
 

Fantastic Course! I've watched (and purchased) many courses from Creative Live, and there are many good instructors; excellent instructors, in fact. Aaron's course on compositing essentials is one of the best. In addition to being a technical expert, he is a great teacher; a real talent. Great information and good illustrations/explanations. He does go a little fast when using Photoshop, and while I was trying to find the short-cuts keys, I would find he was three more points down the trail ahead of me. (That's part of why I bought the course ;-) )

Juli Miranda
 

I love the class he is generous, clear an super fun!! i highly recomend it. A lot of trics and cool information. He is Great teacher and super high level photoshoper... So greatfull. thanks!

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