Recent Composite Articles

How To Use Multiple Flashes To Photograph Buildings From Outside

Strobist has an interesting article by architectural photographer Mike Kelley. Usually exterior shots of homes and buildings are simply too large to effectively light with speedlights or big power packs. The tried and true method of capturing a great looking exterior shot is to turn all the lights on in the building and wait for the ambient sky light to match the build's artificial light. In the behind the scenes video below, Kelley shares his "selective lighting" technique and how it can be combined with multiple exposures from a small Canon 430EX to produce a sort of hero shot for publication. Click the full post for the final images.
How to Add Light Leaks to Your Photoshop Scenes

In this video tutorial, watch as I show you how to add light leaks to your sky in Photoshop. Light leaks are part of the styling process of your photo manipulations and are added towards the end of your workflow.

Making The Most Unbelieveable Basketball Trick Shots With After Effects And Some Creativity

This video reminds me of my college days– spending time working with a friend while having next to no budget, but coming up with a fun idea for a short video that would allow us to flex some creative muscle. Corridor Digital may have a (small) budget for these, but what I enjoy about them is that the fun and creativity feels authentic, which you often only get when no agency or corporate sponsor is pushing creative decisions. In this video, you'll see the final clip, with the behind-the-scenes video inside the full post.

How to Create Bullet Haze and Fire Haze in Photoshop

Sell the fake or add to the surrealism. As a creative retoucher and composite photographer, these are two aspects that in my opinion are very important: you either learn techniques to help blend realism into the piece or to make it stand out and add surrealism.

Create an Eerie Nighttime Photo in the Middle of Day

Sometimes you just want to shoot midday with a speedlite, in the middle of the forest, on a balmy 80-plus degree day in Florida. OK, those last few statements are purely hypothetical, but as a traveling photographer, I work with what I’ve got.

Ben Von Wong's Mastery Lighting...With An iPhone.

Montreal photographer, Ben Von Wong, an Fstoppers favorite is at it again with his latest shoot. The folks over at Nikon sent Von Wong a Nikkor 400mm f2.8 lens to shoot with. Typically with a large lens you would shoot nature or sports, but not Von Wong. He decided to test the lens using the Brenizer Method. He took several portraits of musician, Andrew Kesler, on top of a rooftop, but one problem presented itself. How to light Andrew in the middle of the night on such short notice? In typical Von Wong ingenuity, they chose, an iPhone.

'Underwater Beauty': The Process Behind Creating This Image

"Underwater Beauty" was an image commissioned by a local company as a part of their campaign supporting various independent artists. The image was created as a composite for obvious reasons. In this article, I'd like to walk you through the process of creating it from the initial idea to the final result.

Learn Compositing 101 With Aaron Nace

Beginning this Thursday May 30 - June 1, creativeLIVE will host photographer Aaron Nace as he teaches compositing 101. Aaron has taught photography and photo manipulation to millions of people for over five years. In this 3 day comprehensive workshop you'll wake away with a better understanding of how to conceptualize an idea, plan out your composite, photograph and light each piece of the puzzle, and artfully combine the many parts using Photoshop.

Arev Manoukian Creates Nuit Blanche

One of our forum members recently posted this and I am so glad that he did. Arev Manoukian create "Nuit Blanche" about 9 months ago and I am shocked that I had never seen it. This may very well be my favorite short film of all time. View the incredible finished product below and then view the full post to see the BTS.

Nuit Blanche from Spy Films on Vimeo.

Creating a Fantasy "Composited" Portrait In-Camera

If you are into fantasy or photo-illustration style photographs, you are likely well aware of compositing, or shooting key elements separately and blending them in Photoshop. While compositing is made easier thanks to software solutions like Photoshop, have you ever considered how they are done without it?

Recreating The Back To The Future Delorean Time Travel Scene On A Budget

If you follow any of my work, you know I am a sucker for anything Back To The Future. I even recreated my own BTTF image using a real DeLorean awhile back, so I HAD to share this video. The guys over at Shanks FX have created another inventive tutorial on how you can create your own time travel scene on a budget using a DSLR, simple time lapse software, a toy DeLorean, and some LED lights. Think you may want to try something like this at home?

[BTS Video] Dean Bradshaw Lights And Composites A Variety Of Athletes

Commercial photographer Dean Bradshaw provides us with a unique perspective of his recent photo shoot for "Startrac". The shoot involved a handful of athletes being shot while mock competing in their individual sports. The athletes were shot in a controlled environment and then composited into different backgrounds in post.

A Habit of Gravity Defying Photography

Li Wei has earned his way to recognition in China through his trademark gravity defying images. This video, recently featured by the Creators Project, gives a little behind the scenes glimpse of how Li Wei was inspired to pursue his aerial stunts and how his creative ideas have reflected the quickly changing culture and country around him.

This Beautiful Photoshoot Celebrates the 30th Anniversary of Back to the Future's 2015 Time Travel

How many times have you seen that popular meme that inaccurately says today is the "Back to the Future" day? Well today, October 21, 2015, is in fact the true date Marty McFly set as his future destination in his time traveling DeLorean from "Back to the Future II." To help celebrate this iconic date as well as the 30th anniversary of the original film, the production company Full Frame did this awesome photoshoot where they explore the capabilities of time travel. Check out the full behind the scenes video in the post below.

Compositing A Unique Family Portrait With Ben Von Wong

Back again, Benjamin Von Wong takes on family portraits this time in another one of his behind the scenes videos. See how he put together 4 different scenes to make typically mundane photography style come to life. Using a D800E and Photoshop, check out how Ben works his magic.

BTS On An All CG Scene From The Amazing Spider-Man

The Amazing Spider-Man has been out for about 2 weeks and has made 137 million dollars. I saw it last week and was really impressed by the special effects but I've never had a full understanding of what really goes into it. In this video Jerome Chen from Sony Imageworks takes us through the basics of creating an all CG fight scene. Check out the full post for 3 additional videos.

Critique the Community Episode 13: Composite Photography

Last week we had the Fstoppers community submit their best composite images for the latest episode of "Critique the Community." There were some awesome composite submissions, including a wide range of genres. We chose a total of 20 pictures for Lee and Patrick to give feedback on. Add your comments and ratings to the pictures below. If we selected your picture, we'd love to hear about how you did it.

[Video] Shooting The Ad Campaign For Discovery's River Monsters

Our good friend Blair Bunting is at it again. This time Blair was hired to shoot the ad campaign for The Discovery Channels hit show River Monsters. The concept was relatively simple; to have the show’s host Jeremy Wade wrestling a giant fish in the shallow waters near South Beach, Florida. To do this Blair's team used a fake fish that was then replaced in post. To freeze the water with a quick flash duration and stay portable Blair used the new Photoflex Tritons.

Barbarian Transformation Photoshoot With Renee Robyn for Less Than $50

Photographer and digital artist Renee Robyn is known for creating magical composites complete with gorgeous costumes and dreamy scenery. But what happens when there is no designer to provide styling, no makeup artist, and a budget of only $50 to spend?

How to Get That Perfect Blend in Composites

Composites are one of the best ways to give your image a whole new look and feel. It can take something from the ordinary to the extraordinary. Understanding how to create these images to stack in a realistic way is all about understanding how to blend your subject seamlessly.