Photography worlds

A world class photographer and college professor once said to me:

“Bad (or lackluster) photos are caused from laziness. Unfortunately, too many photographers, amateurs to professionals, will approach a photo assignment with a pre-conceived notion of attack – mostly from ‘history of style’ and wanting to play it safe. Rarely, will the photographer step back, put down the camera and size up the assignment before proceeding. Instead, many of us will execute the photo from the angle we initially approached the subject, never thinking to study the subject and its environment first.

“Look at it like this,” he continued. “The subject you wish to photograph is the nucleus of an atom. You, the photographer, are the electron spinning around the subject until you find just the right angle and distance. Not until then will you have successfully evaluated every aspect of that subject and its possibilities.” He added, “Just the slightest move to the right or left, up or down has the potential to make or break the photo. Don’t be in such a hurry to finish and leave.”

That observation affected how I look at photography more than any other instructor, class, course, seminar or guest speaker, before or since. In fact, long ago, I based my “photographic vision” on this wonderful tip. But what’s more important; that professor suffered from the crippling effects of adult polio. And even with that affliction (and in his 60s), he still employed the “atom” philosophy with all the vigor of an athlete.

Introduction:

This tutorial is to help you learn how to change the background of a photo to something more interesting if you choose.  There are many ways of getting this done, but this technique is probably one of the easiest and most effective.  Ok, so once you open two similar photos (preferably the same size) that you would like to combine in photoshop:

1. Adjust the Levels and Brightness and Contrast of both pictures so they are just about as similarly adjusted as possible.  If you need more explanation of this visit our “Photo Touchups Tutorial.”

2. Then working with the photo that has the background that you want to use, Select the whole thing (Select>All), Copy the whole thing (Edit>Copy), and then working with the photo that has the foreground that you want to use, Paste the previous photo onto a new layer (Edit>Paste). Your layers menu for the for your photo should now look similar to the picture to the left.  With the background photo on top of the foreground photo.

3. Now, add a Layer Mask to the upper layer that Hides All, (Layer>Add Layer Mask>Hide All). Your Layers menu should now look like similar to the picture below.

4. Click on the Brush Tool.

5. (make sure the colors you are working with are black and white).

6. Then (with the mask on the upper layer selected) simply brush where you want the new background to show through.  You will probably have to change brush sizes often for the more intricate places.

By RIchard Schneider