Project1.After the Storm (New Sky Background)


Project 1. After the Storm (New Sky Background)

This first project is a fairly easy operationnurse, do you have the patient's new background ready? We'll simply remove the current sky and replace it with something a little more dramatic.

I shot the first photograph a number of years ago (see Figure 8.1). When I travel I'm always on the lookout for old buildings, windows, and doorways. I don't really know why, but they fascinate me as a subject. It must be a texture thing. In any event, I passed this old building at one point and then went back to shoot it a couple of days later. As it happened, the weather was gorgeousjust what you want when on vacation but not what you might want for a dramatic photo. I like the old building, but it's not really dramatic enough on its own to hang in a hallway for all to see. That bland sky can be fixed, though.

Figure 8.1. An old farm building.


Fast forward to the recent past when we had just had a great summer afternoon storm. Right outside my own front door, without even going out to the street, I could see the most amazing skies. Naturally, I ran to get my camera and shot about a dozen or so quick shots. One of these will now become the new background for the old farm building (see Figure 8.2).

Figure 8.2. Postsummer-storm skies.


1.

To get started with this project, open a couple of images you think would work well with this project, or, if necessary, download the images (Storm Clouds.tif and Old Farm Building.tif) I'm using from the companion website.

Different resolutions? Regardless of whether it shows, these two photos were taken with different cameras, with different lens, and even in totally different locations. Will that matter? Not in this case; in fact, it's a bit of a bonus because the photo of the storm skies is larger (6MP) than the farm building (3.3MP). This means I can apply the new background in a variety of ways, even resizing it down a little if needed.


2.

With both images open, make the farm building the active document by clicking its title bar.

Out with the Old Sky

Before we can use the new atmospheric cloud image as the new sky, we have to remove the existing sky. For the most part, that looks fairly trivial with the sky being mostly a distinct shade of blue, but each image has its own idiosyncrasies.

3.

Use your favorite method of background-ectomy to remove the sky from the image. Before you attempt this photo-saving operation, though, duplicate the Background layer and work on the duplicate. This preserves a copy of the photo along with the project and, though it may take up more room on your hard drive, it can end up saving you time at some point in the future.

I used the Magic Wand tool with a fairly low Tolerance setting of 10 to select portions of the sky, deleting them as I selected them. Because I was deleting the selected areas as I worked, I selected the Add mode for the Magic Wand tool.

You can try toggling the Contiguous setting on and off as you work. Some parts of the image need to be removed. The puddles along the right side, for example, should be filled with the sky to help with the illusion.

I also used the Selections, Modify Select Similar, Select Color Range command as I worked, keeping an eye on areas I knew would be troublesome, such as the fence and bush area (see Figure 8.3). I wanted to get rid of as much of the sky as I could but without removing the wire fence and the shrub. It's delicate work, but certainly well worth the effort.

Figure 8.3. Removing the sky, but not the fence or shrub.


Tip

Zoom in and out every so often to make sure you're not removing anything you don't want removed. It's easy to get caught up in the work and go a little overboard. You can get back with a few undos (select Edit, Undo or press Ctrl+Z), but it's best to keep the selections as close as possible without going too far.

Tip

If you zoom out only to realize that the last selection has bitten off way more than you want, there is a solution that doesn't involve starting the selection over. Simply select the Magic Wand, set its Mode to Remove, and then draw around the areas you don't want included in the selection. This can be especially helpful if you have the Contiguous option turned on as you make your selections.

And In with the New

Pasting in the new background in this image is great fun. The image I chose for the clouds is a far bit larger than the image that will be getting the new sky. This means we can move the clouds around until the background looks rightright being whatever you feel is good because you are the artist, after all.

4.

After the sky (or at least most of it) is gone, activate the stormy skies image and choose Selections, Select All to grab the entire image. Select Edit, Copy to copy the stormy skies image to the Clipboard. Close the Stormy skies image because we won't need it from here on in.

5.

Make the Background layer in the farm building image active by clicking its layer in the Layers palette. Select Edit, Paste As New Layer to place the stormy sky between the original farm photo and its copy with the sky removed. You should now be able to see the new sky background (see Figure 8.4).

Figure 8.4. Got sky?


It's Time to Handle the Details

If you take a close look, you'll see that the puddles have been filled in and seem to blend better than they would have if the bright blue sky were still visible in their reflection.

This image already looks pretty good, and mostly convincing. There are only a couple of small troublesome areas.

The wire fence is still a little bright for my liking, and the area of trees in the distance on the right has a bit of a halo that really needs to be fixed (see Figure 8.5).

Figure 8.5. Troublesome trees.


6.

To fix the trees in the background, I used the Eraser tool with the Size set to 9 and the Hardness set to 33. Zooming way in can be a big help (see Figure 8.6). Try not to deforest the area and remove only as much as necessary to help with the illusion. Remember you can always undo a brush stroke.

Figure 8.6. Zooming in to help with the task at hand.


7.

To help with the fence and shrub, select the Lighten/Darken Brush tool. The default is for the left mouse button to lighten and the right button to darken. I toggled the Swap Mouse Buttons option so the left button would darken (note that this is a matter of personal preference and is not necessary to complete this project). I also set the Size to 16, the Hardness to 50, and the Opacity to 40.

8.

With the brush configured with these settings, I dragged over the shrub and fence a number of times, zooming in and out to see that my work was helping the area to blend with the new sky.

There's a bit of a halo along the roof, but it looks like it's catching some light so I'll leave that. However, I will zoom in and fix the puddle's halos using the same eraser method I used for the trees.

That should pretty much do it. I'm sure you'll agree that the finished image in Figure 8.7 is much more dramatic than the original.

Figure 8.7. The final digital image.


The troubles and techniques outlined in this project are exactly the same kind of thing you'll come up against when you tackle projects of this nature with your own images. Take your time, and don't be afraid to back up a little and start again if it isn't working out. The practice will be helpful and, as you get better, the work will get better and go more quickly. Have fun.




Corel Paint Shop Pro X Digital Darkroom
Corel Paint Shop Pro X Digital Darkroom
ISBN: 0672328607
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 109

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