Recent Composite Articles

Erik Almas Offering Workshop to Raise $25,000 for Building a School

San Francisco-based commercial photographer, Erik Almas, is known for his flawless composite work as well as shooting campaigns for many major companies such as American Airlines, Toyota, Microsoft, and Nike, just to name a few. In January he is offering a workshop where he will take you through his entire workflow, from shooting the background plate and model, to editing. What makes this workshop even better is the fact that 100 percent of your money will be used to help build a school through Pencils of Promise!

Jay P Morgan Creates Composite Sports Photo With Rafael Marquez

Jay P Morgan is a commercial photographer out of California who has a history of creating some of the best most educational behind the scenes videos out on the internet (click here to watch tons of them). In this video Jay explains how you can shoot athletes in a studio environment and composite them into any scene easily and effectively. I want you guys to take note of how Jay breaks down his photography approach and offers concise and detailed information about his shoot. If you are interested in winning our Behind The Scenes Contest (and instantly having a studio of your own), you are going to need to explain your process thoroughly and in an interesting manner. Also be sure to check out the full retouching video on Facebook to see how everything was pieced together in post.
Grieving Mother Finds Comfort in Digital Art

After the traumatic loss of her son in a terror attack in Barcelona last year, an Australian mother found solace in composite superhero artwork created by a total stranger.

How To Light A Semi-Truck Against The Los Angeles Skyline

Jay P. Morgan is a commercial photographer based out in Los Angeles. His behind the scenes videos have been a hit with our readers because they always feature some useful lighting or photoshopping technique. In his latest video, Jay shuts down a highway ramp in order to light an 18 wheeler truck against the LA skyline. It's pretty interesting that an image like this is shot in camera and not completely photoshopped but that's what makes Jay P. Morgan a hero around the office. If you enjoy this video be sure to check out some of his other videos here.
Combining Strangers' Photos to Create Digital Art

Turns out you don't always need to be an amazing photographer to create photographic art. I came across graphic designer Bashar Hjooj's work on Instagram, where he combines two to three photographs shot by complete strangers to create art full of imagination with his own take.

Freddie Wong Builds His Own Gun Shots

If you are not already subscribed to Freddie Wong's YouTube channel, you should go there right now and watch one of Youtube's most popular animators. Well this week he has created a really simple video called The Freeze Shootout and has provided a quick behind the scenes video on how he did it. Watch the full video here and click on the full post to watch how he created it.
How to Create a Giant Croc Munching on Your Friends

Good special effects are the ones you don't really realize were "special." They are the moments that give you that sense of awe without dragging you away from being caught in the moment. Fuel VFX specializes in creating special effects for a wide range of movies, some of which you've most likely seen this year.

Projecting Your Photographs Back Onto Your Photographs

This video was recently featured on Strobist but since we've been getting so many emails about it I figured we'd share it with those of you who missed it. David Myrick decided to try something rather strange when the electronic group Glitch Mob strolled into his studio. Basically he shot portraits of the band members on a white seamless background and then projected those images back onto the artists as they wore white clothing. If this sounds confusing just watch the video and it will all make sense. Fresh ideas like David's "projection technique" continues to inspire me in my own work. What do you guys think - anyone tried this technique before?
How to Create Burning Effect in Photoshop

In this video tutorial watch as Abby Esparza shows you how to create a burning effect in Photoshop. This is a really cool effect, and the way Esparza goes about doing this is definitely one of the best ways I have seen.

Watch EA Sports Shoot The Madden 2012 Cover Live In Time Square

Here's a clever idea... EA decided to make the cover shoot for Madden 2012 a promotion in itself. How did they do it? Well they created a studio in the center of Time Square in NY and allowed thousands of people to watch the photoshoot take place live, and in person.
The Art of Digital Imaging

Do you consider this an art form separate from photography, or do you consider this an extension of photography?

We Review Oniric Glow, a Digital Artist's Dream Plugin

There are many ways to create a glow effect in Photoshop using layers and blending modes. What if you could do it in a fraction of the time and get even better results? Would you be interested?

Twelve Photographers Come Together to Create a Heart Warming Fantasy Book For Sick Children

The Get Well Tree is the latest touching project from the talented collaboration The heART Project. Many of the previous projects have been featured here. Each one brings amazing artists and sponsors together to help bring love and smiles to a family that has experienced some form of hardship. This time the project follows two childhood cancer survivors on a fantasy journey through a dream-like world. 12 photographers came together to create a 14-page photo storybook staring these two heroic little girls.

Easily Age and Erode Objects in Your Composites With These Apps

Photographing toys can be a lot of fun, but they don’t always look like the most realistic subjects. Here are a couple of quick and dirty ways to add an aged, eroded look to your composited playthings to up the realism of your toy photographs.

Learn How to Quickly Add and Manipulate Realistic Snow to Your Videos in After Effects

Through Premiumbeat.com's Vimeo channel and blog, motion graphic designer Kevin Gater did the world a huge favor by recently providing a tutorial on creating realistic, falling snow with RED Giant's After Effects plug-in. There are a ton of settings in After Effects, let alone in the RED Giant Trapcode Particular plug-in, that would take forever to navigate; but Gater does a great job going through which settings to ignore and which ones to pay attention to so you'll know exactly what to tweak for your needs. Thankfully, in 15 minutes, you can be ready to add great snow effects for the holiday season or that high-mountain horror short with just a few careful clicks.

The Carbonated Ocean: The Power of Photography to Raise Awareness

Circulating daily on social media we see turtles caught in plastic, beaches bathed in piles of garbage, or decaying wildlife that make hearts heavy because we can easily relate to those species. However, there is another ocean issue that does not get enough coverage but it is dissolving many of the unseen organisms every day.

How to Create a Realistic Coin in Adobe Photoshop

With many countries still experiencing different degrees of restrictions, arranging photoshoots can be difficult. If you want to keep learning, Photoshop techniques are a decent substitute.

On Set With The Cast Of House

If you've ever seen one of those movie or tv show posters then you probably already know that they are usually huge composites of every actor. But that doesn't always mean that the different characters are simply shot against a white background. Check out this fun video featuring the cast of House season 6 as they pose for different promo shots in a studio large enough to fit an old motorhome. Photographer Florian Schneider has an excellent site to browse and even has an image or two from this shoot posted.
This Is Your Last Chance To Enter Fstoppers' Hilarious Photoshop Competition

During our 4 month project with Elia Locardi I didn't shave once. During this time my beard got a little out of control. Last week I had a little fun shaving it off slowly and creating portraits of myself as different characters. I'm now giving out the raw files to you, to abuse them as you see fit.

Sitex Computers:  The Photoshop Of the 80s

Every now and then it's fun to go back in time to see how photographers approached photoshoots requiring a large amount of production. Back in 1988 Brian King was on the cutting edge of digital photography with his use of Sitex imaging computers. Well before the advent of Photoshop, Brian was able to piece together multiple images by scanning negatives and turning them into primitive digital media. By today's standards, the final product is pretty comical but this is what the first results of 'digital photography' looked like in the advertising world. I have to say, if a single photograph took this much effort and planning today I would probably have given up on commercial photography a long time ago.
PTW III Behind the Scenes: We Got Stuck in the Dubai Desert Overnight

Our latest series of behind the scenes episodes with Elia Locardi are almost over. In today's episode we continue to explore the rooftops of Dubai in search of the perfect cityscape photograph of the city. We then head out to a remote desert to photograph the stars only to find out our guide had other plans. This is “Photographing the World III” behind the scenes episode 12!

Artists Create Giant Aurora Alien Cats

While we are inundated with beautiful images of the northern lights online and on social media, I think it's safe to say you've never seen aurora art like this before.

Shoot RAW Stills While Filming To Create Matte Paintings

When I shoot video I like keeping things simple but after watching this tutorial, I feel like I may have to use this technique in my next production. Instead of lighting a stationary background to perfection, why not take a few RAW images and create the perfect setting in Photoshop.
Crappy Green Screen Footage? Fix It Like This!

I have been learning a ton of video know how in the past few months from watching the tutorials over at VideoMaker. I recently shot a green screen video for some background compositing and didn't take as much time as I should have setting up the lights for the green screen (the subjects on the other hand were flawlessly lit, haha). I thought I was out of luck until I came across this video which showed me how to fix my beginner's mistake and also has a few more handy tips for other green screen screw ups. Enjoy!

How To Create a Dynamic Split Water Effect in Photoshop

In this video tutorial, watch as Abbey Esparza shows you how to create a dynamic split water effect in Photoshop. This is a really cool effect that I have seen in many composite images. So, if you have always wondered how it is done, watch this tutorial.

[BTS Video] Halloween Comes Late:  The Ghostbusters Photoshoot

I just realized that our Fstoppers Twitter account has tons of unread direct messages (we prefer you email us). One of them was from Douglas Sonders who had a crazy experience with one of the original Ghostbusters Ecto 1 Cadillacs. These caddies have so many lights on them that I can't make any sense of what is going on but it looks pretty cool. Douglas does a good job explaining how he plans on using a few long exposure shots to burn in the ambient light while using spot grids to pop in just the right amount of flash for specific areas of the photo. Does anyone know if the Roscoe Fog Machine in this video is made by the same company that makes Roscoe Speedlight Gels? Either way, nice touch on bringing the smoke machine to the shoot. Check out more details about this shoot over at Douglas Sonders's Blog.
Fun With Still Life: What if Quentin Tarantino Reworked an Andy Warhol Classic?

When your love of art and cinema intersect, all kinds of creative possibilities can emerge. Wanting to do some kind of photographic homage to Andy Warhol’s soup cans, I imagined Quentin Tarantino looking at this iconic work of art and thinking, “Maybe that needs a little extra something.”