Blend Images and Create Composites Like a Pro with Photoshop

In this video, we're going to learn how to create this design step by step, starting from putting images together, correcting the lightness, correcting the color and painting the light and shadow and finally putting the final effects and the final color grading. So without any further ado, let's dig into that. Hello guys, welcome to my channel. My name is Noor and this is Noor Art Channel. All right, let's dig into Photoshop and let's directly start. So the main idea of this poster is inspired from Stranger Things series, the color palette, the reds in the sky and the spider. So what I'm going to do in this episode is going to be a little bit different because I am going to give you like a quick breakdown in the beginning and then we'll start building the design step by step. Because if you want to just get inspired and know how these kind of designs are made, you can just follow up the breakdown. And if you want the full details, you can follow along with me the whole tutorial. Okay, so started from the sky, putting some buildings and then corrected the lightness of the sky, make it darker, giving it some blue. Next, started to correct the lightness of the buildings, giving it some blue, trying to even everything at first, putting them into the same lightness and then painting the extra lights and extra effects. Next, I put the guys, correcting their lightness, then giving them some blues and then painted their shadows and then went to the spider, cut it and then corrected its lightness, giving it some blues. Now everything is even, all has the same lightness and they are blended. Let's put the special effects and started with the sky, giving it some reds and making it pop more and then started to paint some highlights from the sky into the buildings like this. And next, started to paint the rim lights into the spider here. And at this point, I found out that the image is boring and it needs another color into the image. So I started to put another color, started by giving it some light blue color here, another fog layer, and this lightning effect to give it interest and make it more dynamic, started to even everything and put hazing effect here, and then give it some glow effect to add mysteriousness and magic. And next, started to paint like, you know, some rim lights into the guys. And at this point, I found out that this area is a little bit busy and here it's very soft, so I needed something else here. So I put this layer to match, you know, the balance, the visual balance. And finally, started to put everything in a camera raw filter to give it this, you know, pop, this final punch. And at this point, this is good, but I like at the end to put some, you know, hazing effect. Let's give it like magic feeling, you know, and yeah, that's it. There is before and here is after. That was the quick breakdown. And now, if you want to follow along with me step by step, let's start. You'll find all the images that I'm going to use in the link in the description so that you can follow along with me. So I'm going to start with creating a new file. And this should be something like 4K to give me flexibility in zooming in and zooming out and so on. I'll give it 16 bit coloring. This also gives me flexibility in coloring. And I like to expand the width a little bit. So something like this should be good into poster dimensions, you know. Let's start with a black background because our design is going to be like moody and dark. Let's start by the buildings and the sky. Let's put them here. And I'll start by selecting the white background from the buildings. Let's make it smaller. And I'll do this simply by the object selection tool. I'm going to hover here and press. And now I'm going to press alt and press into the mask to just mask this area. Now, as you can see right here, there are some edges that haven't been selected. So let's bring our soft rounded brush. And we can fix this by simply changing the blending mode of the brush into overlay. And let's select the mask from here. Let's make the brush smaller. And let's just paint over here. What I'm doing right now is just painting into the mask. So if I press alt and press into the mask, as you can see right now, I can paint over the white edges with white or toggle between the white and black from the keyboard, get to the whites and paint over here. If I notice that the effect is high, I can simply decrease the flow of the brush. And now I have more control. Okay, so let's just paint over these areas. That is perfect. Now let's press control T, make it bigger. And let's put it around this here. Perfect. And let's bring the sky. Let's put it behind the buildings. And let's just put it here and make it bigger like this. That's very nice. Now let's start by blending the colors and the lightness. I will start by putting the mode into the lightning of the sky, which is the main source of light. So let's start by creating curves adjustment layer, create a clipping mask. And then let's just make this dark like this. And let's go to color balance. Create a clipping mask as well. And then let's give it some cyans, some blues, and I guess this is good. And not so much. Now let's put them into a group to be organized. Let's name this sky and we are good to go. Now let's go and correct the lightness and the color of the buildings, depending on the lightness and the colors of the sky, of course. But it should be a little bit darker because the sky, which is the main source of light, should be the brightest point. So let's create curves adjustment layer, create a clipping mask, and let's make this very dark like this. Then create color balance. And let's add some blues. Never forget creating a clipping mask. Then some cyans and some... Now I guess it is matched perfectly. Very nice. Before, after, here is before, here is after. Let's put them all into a group and let's name this buildings. Very nice. The next element is going to be the children or the guys. So let's just open it into a new project. And I'm going to select them using the object selection tool as well. So let's just press select subject and see. Yeah, I have selected them perfectly. Just with a press of a button. Pressing here and it selected the guys. Then press alt, then press into the mask and we are good to go. That's very nice, actually. Selected it perfectly. So let's take it as it is because we will need the background to take this shadow out of the image to put it into our design. So I'm going to drag it and drop it here. Yes, like this. And press ctrl T. Maybe make it a little bit smaller. Now it's time to correct the lightness and the color of the guys as well. So let's just put them into a group. I guess you got the point. Correcting the color, correcting the lightness. And then we will paint the special effects at the end. But at first I'm trying to match them all to one point. And then we will put the effects later. So let's create a curves adjustment layer. Create a clipping mask. Let's match it carefully. I'm trying to match this to the surroundings. But here the blacks are very dark. So we will need to open up the shadows a little bit. Just a tiny touch. Very nice. Now let's go create a color balance and create a clipping mask. I'm just making this quickly because, you know, this is a repetitive thing. We've done this several times before. So giving it some cyan and some blue. And we're good to go. I guess everything is unified. But the blacks here need to be a little bit darker. So it's just darker. Okay. So obviously now we need a shadow. How can we paint a shadow? We can simply paint it manually. Or we can take it from the main image. How can we do this is by simply press Ctrl J to duplicate the layer. And into the bottom layer I'm going to choose the blending mode to multiply. Then I'm going to just press into the mask and press Ctrl A. Press Alt Backspace to get everything again from the mask. So if I change this into normal, now it's just another copy of the image. And then change its blending mode to multiply to get only the shadows. And now I'm going to select the layer itself. And then press Ctrl L to bring the levels. And trying to separate the shadows from the surrounding parts. Okay, so I'm going to open the highlights and increase the contrast like this. Just trying to play around to get the best results. Then press OK. And from here we can simply paint the areas that we want. I'm just going to press Ctrl I to remove everything from the mask. And using the soft rounded brush. Don't forget to change the blending mode of the brush into normal again. And using the soft rounded brush with a white color. I'm going to just paint to get the shadow back like this. Very nice. Not 100% accurate. But is what we need, you know. We don't want to have like hyper realistic one. Because it's going to be kind of invisible into the darks, okay. And we can even decrease its opacity. So something like this. So let's see. Here's before. And here's after. Perfect. Quick pause. If you are interested in creating amazing visuals using photo manipulations like this. I have good news for you. Because my course The Ultimate Guide to Photo Manipulation is now released. And you can find it in the link in the description. In this course you will learn how to create advertising visuals and photo manipulations. Like this. Using all the techniques that I'm explaining all the time. Into a practical way. Like 13 projects. Fully narrated in English. Fully explained in details. Not only that. We will talk about an introduction to marketing. Because creating visuals is a little piece of the big puzzle. Which is the marketing game. So you need to understand the basics of marketing. To create visuals that sells. And how to apply the branding guideline into your visuals. And we talked about visual communication meaning. And understanding the brief and the elements of the brief. The graphic design principles. Hierarchy. Contrast. Proximity. Balance. Etc. And how to create a design from scratch. Brainstorming. And making the ideas from scratch. Gathering the images. The references. And all this stuff. And finally the practical part. Which is 13 fully explained applications into photo manipulation. And we have a section dedicated for using the basics of AI. To help you get better results in faster times. And finally how to create a presentation. To show the effort that you put into your work. A link of the course is in the description. And let's get back to the video. Now it's time to bring the spider. So let's bring this image of the spider. And open it into a new project. It has a lot of hair or fur. So we need to select it using color range I guess. So let's go to select. And color range. And let's just select this white. And play around with the fuzziness to get the best output. So something I guess like this. Press okay. And then press alt. Press into the mask. And I guess this is a good mask. Let's create a solid color black one into the background. To see there are some parts that need to be gained again. So let's just paint them over using the brush. Like here. Some whites. And maybe here as well. I guess that's enough. There are some dark pixels here. So let's try to get rid of them using select and mask. And I'm going to shift the edges inward a little bit. So something like this. Then press okay. This is not bad. If we need to do this more I'll do. But let's try to just right click convert it into a small object. And let's get it into our project. Here. And let's put it into a new group. Let's name this spider. Very nice. Now let's put it somewhere maybe here. That's a good place. Something right here. Now we need some parts to be in front of the buildings. And some should be behind the buildings. So how can we do this? We can do this by simply first liquidate the mask. And then go to the buildings layer. And press ctrl and press into the mask. Now we have created a selection here. And now we can paint over the spider mask into the areas that should be behind the buildings. So let's just do this by painting over here. Maybe this leg as well. And here maybe this part. And one of these should be behind the buildings. So let's make it this way. Yeah. I guess this is good. Press ctrl D. Yeah. Now it looks like, you know, it's already into the scene. Perfect. Now let's correct the lightness the same way again. Create a clipping mask. I'm using curves. Maybe here we should open up the shadows a little bit. Because it is very dark and black. So let's just open up this. And doing the same thing. I'm going to give it some blues and some blacks. I think we're good to go. But here let's mask his eyes. Because it's lost into the dark. So let's select the mask of the curves. And using the soft rounded brush. I'm going to just mask it. Very nice. Now let's start painting the red highlights of the sky. And I'm going to do this by something called gradient map. I guess you know it. But it is simply creating like a gradient of colors. By giving each value of light specific color. How we can do this? Let's see. So the highlights should have some color. Like very vivid saturated color. Maybe bright. Something like this. And the mid-tones. Let's put another color right here. And let's give it some another reddish color like this. And for the absolute blacks. Let's give it very dark red. So something like this. I guess okay. And then pursue. And you can see now. That take the texture of the sky. But with different colors. Okay let's make this maybe brighter. I guess let's see. Yeah very nice. Now we can press control I. And using the soft rounded brush. I'm going to just paint over here. You know to give it like this dynamic red light. Now we're talking. I really like this color combination. The dark blues and the deep red. If we can name it like this. Now we are talking. Very nice. Now we can put paint some ambient light into the buildings. Using the same red. So let's go to the buildings. Create solid color. Let's make it some reddish one. It's okay. Create a cladding mask. And using blend if. I'm going to remove some color from the blacks. So I'm just going to double click into the layer. Remove the color from the absolute blacks. And press alt to split the cursor. So something like this. I guess it's going to be good. Very soft light. Press control I. And let's just paint with the soft rounded brush. Into the top of the of the buildings. Something like this. Going to be nice. Maybe we can paint some lights into the streets as well. But this should be very very soft. And done. Very nice. Next let's paint some of these highlights into the spider. And here I'm going to choose poor brush. To give the spider like texture. When painting the light. So let's choose solid color. Adjustment layer. Choose a reddish saturated color. Create a cladding mask. Let's see. This is very bright. Let's make it darker. Something like this. And maybe change its blending mode to screen. I guess. And then I'm going to choose this grass brush. Or any like four brush. Like this. And let's remove the transfer from the brush. And using and press control I to invert the mask. And let's zoom in. Using this brush I'm going to just paint over here. Let's increase the flow of the brush. And let's make the brush smaller. Then just going to paint like this. I'm doing this by this brush. Because it gives it you know some texture. And if I want to change its orientation. Simply I'm just going to press into brush settings. If you can't find it here. You will find it into the window from here. So here it is. Brush settings. And then if I want to flip the direction of the brush. I'm just going to flip it into the X axis. And now we can paint over this part. Okay. Just going to speed up the process of this area. Because it's going to be like time consuming. But you got the point. Let's firstly decrease the flow of the brush. And then let's fade the edges like this. To just give it you know some texture into the lighting. I'm not sure if you want me to speed up these parts of the painting. I'm always asking you this question. Because you know this kind of time consuming. And there's nothing new to tell you here. I'm just painting over the edges. If you don't know how to paint light and shadow precisely. I have a full video explaining this. Here I'm just trying to paint the highlights. Depending you know some basic understanding of how the light is behaving. We can say that. And how we can predict how it's going to interact with subjects you know. But you should paint with your gut. And this comes with practice. That's very nice. Now we are talking. So next I'm going to create like some lightning effects behind the spider. So let's do this by bringing this layer of the lightning. And put it right here. Press enter. Let's put it behind the spider. And let's change its blending mode into screen. And then press ctrl u and remove the color from this image. And also press ctrl l. Try to get rid of these very bright areas. So something like this. And let's put it maybe right here. And I guess we can put it behind the gradient map layer. To take from its color. So something like this. Yeah this is better. Using the mask as a soft rounded brush. I'm going to fade it. That's very nice. See before, after, before, after. Give it you know some interest. You can make it somehow bigger. So something like this. And then let's mask these areas. Let's make it more epic. Next I thought why not create another color into the image. Because you know it's kind of flat. Doesn't have dynamic coloring. So I thought about creating like another blue color into this area. To balance the visual. So we will do this using this fog layer. So let's just bring these two fog layers. Put them here. And let's bring them into above the building. And below the guys group. So somewhere right here. Let's start with this one. Change its blending mode to screen. And then press ctrl u. Colorize. Let's give it some blue color. Saturated one. And let's make it. And then let's decrease the lights. Something like this. Using the soft rounded brush. I'm just going to fade this edge. See it's not bad. Let's bring the other layer. Press ctrl p and make it bigger. And then change its blending mode to screen. And let's just drag this smart filter. Press alt and drag it and put it into this one. To take the effect from it. Very nice. Create a mask. And let's just fade it away. I guess this area needs to be darker. And we can do this by simply go to the building curves layer. And let's make it to be a bit like contrast. Or maybe, maybe create another curves. And mask it into this area. So press ctrl i. And let's mask this. And make it dark. Because if you want to make something dark, bright. You need to darken the surrounding. Okay. So if I want to make this area bright. I just want to make the street side. I just need to create the street part darker. Okay. So I'm just making it darker using this curves. And then now it's a little bit bright. We can make it more brighter using another solid color. And let's choose this color. It's okay. And press ctrl i to invert the mask. Change its blending mode to screen. And let's use any kind of light. Let's use this brush. I really like this one. You have seen me using it a lot of time. It's called beam brush here. And let's make it bigger. Let's press shift and press into the arrows. To just change the orientation of the brush. And then increase the flow. And now we can paint. You know like this effect. This is very nice. Actually I'm now like drawing the horizon perspective lines. You know the vanishing lines. Using the beam brush to centralize your eye. To the center or to this point. Like pointing towards this point. Okay. And then I'm going to use the soft rounded brush again. To fade the edges. Just fade the edges. But let's decrease the flow to this. It's not bad. And then we can bring this layer again. And use it here. Let's press enter. And change its blending mode into screen. Do the same thing again. But this time I'm going to use the levels. This. Then use hue saturation. Press and control hue. Desaturate it a little bit. Maybe change the color. Like very nice. That's okay. And let's put it right here maybe. Enter. And then using the mask. I'm going to fade the edges. I don't want it to be like, you know, extreme. It's too much. And the color needs to be changed as well. Because it has some green tint. Let's go to hue saturation. Let's give it colorize. And let's shift the color towards more of a blue one. Very nice. But I guess it's too much. Too much light. Maybe we can paint back some lights here. Decrease the color progression. Paint. It's too much as well. Soft lights over here to fade and to blend the edges better. That's good. Very nice. Now we can paint some highlights. Some rim lights into these guys. So let's do this by creating a solid color adjustment layer. And choose this desaturated blue bright color. Create and create a clipping mask. Change its blending mode into screen. And I guess this is nice. Press ctrl I. And here I'm going to use a brush I like to use always in painting rim lights into people. It's called Og-Of-Gnymer. Don't know how to pronounce it. So let's just paint some rim lights. I'm going to increase the flow of the brush. And start to paint rim lights like this. And as mentioned, I've explained all this into my course. And how to paint light. How to paint shadow. And precisely and accurately giving you all the brushes. All the materials. The link is in the description. This is one of the most exciting parts into the creating the visual. Which is painting the highlights. It's like putting the icing on the cake. I'm going to speed up this part. And then get back to you. Now we are talking. Let's see. There is before. There is after. Before and after. Very nice. I'm feeling I need to decrease the opacity of this lightning into the sky. So let's get to the layer. And decrease its opacity to something like 70 percent. And yeah. I guess we are finally here. Let's create a new layer. And press alt control shift e to put everything into a new layer. And then convert this layer into a smart object. Now it's time to put the final effects and final color grading. So let's go to the filter. And press into the camera roll filter. And here let's see what we can do. So let's start with correcting the lights. So maybe we can increase the exposure a little bit. And at the same time increase the contrast. But the highlights are, you know, I don't know. Maybe let's decrease them. Decrease the shadows. Maybe increase the whites. What about the blacks? Okay, I guess the highlights need to be darker. Then let's give it some, you know, blues. Touch of blue. And a touch of green. Decrease or increase the vibrance. It depends. Here I'm just going to leave it as it is. Increase the texture. And as well increase the clarity. This gives it this punchy look. And then give it some vignetting effect. Give the feathering of the effect. And give it some grain effect. And then let's go to the color mixer. Into the saturation. Not sure if I can decrease the reds. Let's see. We can increase its brightness. But leave the saturation. Because, you know, this is the artistic side. And let's go to the luminance of the blues. Maybe make it something like this. And let's go to the curves. Maybe give the highlights a little touch of yellow. And the shadows, touch of blues. Little cyan. Maybe a touch of cyan into the highlights. And a touch red. This is good. Into the shadows give it some red. See before, after. Okay, go to add some sharpening. And let's see. Maybe tweak a little bit the blue into the calibration. I'm not sure if this looks good. Let's see. Before, after. Press okay. And finally we can create a new layer. I like to do this all the time into my visuals. There is a brush called magic. I like to give it this magic effect. And then change this blending mode to screen. And get to the parts that need some glow. And give it some glow using this magic brush. Maybe some bloom glow effect right here. Oops, this is too much. Let's take the color from here. Give it some bloom dreamy colors which I really like. This color. Very nice. Here as well. And here. I like to paint it into the areas that should be shining. Here as well. But it's very high. So we can decrease that a little bit. Yeah, here is the final results. Here is before. And here is after. Yeah, that was it guys. As I'm always saying when trying to apply into a tutorial. Try to put your ideas into the design. Don't just apply behind me. Put your touch. Put your ideas into the visuals. And that's how you can be developed. If you like the video, press the like button. And let me know in the comments. Do you like making other tutorials like this into the future or not? And as mentioned, you can find my course The Ultimate Guide into Photo Manipulation into the link in the description. Yeah, see you soon in next tutorials. Peace.