Composite work can be fun and exciting, but sometime you may feel defeated at the end when the blending does not match up. Making a believable composite is tricky but not impossible.

A few weeks ago, Adrian Sommeling showed how he Photoshopped his son and himself driving an Aston Martin in Iceland. He’s back with yet another video, and this time it’s a shattered iPhone 8 composite. This one is particularly interesting as it includes glass and thus reflections which are both amongst the most difficult things to keep natural looking when working on composites.

If you have dipped your feet into the movie poster or book cover industry, like me, you will know that one of the most underrated aspects of the poster and the cover industry is typography. The typography you use can make or break an image. Most digital artists, think of it as an afterthought but I guarantee you it is one of the most vital pieces of the puzzle to publisher or distributor.

Italian photographer Filippo Blengini embarked on a mission to take a panoramic photograph of Mount Blanc, Earth's 11th tallest mountain. After 70,000 individual photographs, 46 terabytes consumed, and 2 months of editing and processing later, the photo taken by Blengini and his team of five is currently the largest photograph in the world. Check out this video for a brief overview of how they did it.

When blending composite landscapes, it can be incredibly tricky to mask the exposures perfectly, even when the tripod isn’t touched between exposures. Luminosity masking is a radically powerful technique to create ultra-precise masks in a matter of minutes.

The Line is a collective of directors that specialize in short films. In their most recent video they combine candid video footage with some carefree hipster animated characters. Watch "Amaro and Walden’s Joyride" as they tear up the streets of London.

Pepsi Australia recently teamed up with Kelly Racing to produce the Pepsi Max super car. Photographer Chris Benny was hired to shoot the new car and lucky for us, he filmed a quick BTSV of the production. As with many shoots, the weather became a problem but Chris had a backup plan. With a little post work Chris made the outside shots pop and then moved the car inside to finish the shoot.

Watch as LA based photographer Dan Marker-Moore shows us how he stitches hundreds of photos together to make one Time Slice image. Dan travelled Hong Kong and Shanghai to shoot the same landscapes at different times of the day. This series of photos were then color corrected in Lightroom before a composite was created in After Effects. By lining up slices of the photographs, that had been offset in time / exposures, the photos create a sense of time-in-motion for each landscape.

In this video tutorial watch Dean Samed shows us how to create a better oil paint effect in Photoshop. This can be used in your works to get that illustrated painterly feel that so many people love.

This is a how I did it story. Along with some “why.” Unlike most all folks my age, I am very fond of the WW2 history and even more so WW2 aircraft. My favorite plane of all time is the B-25 mid-range bomber. This concept has been in my mind for years, and I waited to actually implement it until I felt I was able to do it right. Had I done it early in my career, I feel the quality wouldn't have been up to the standard I would have liked.

Ansel Adams once said “you don’t take a photograph, you make it.” I have always thought that what he meant by this quote was the process involved in reaching the final image. It has never been about clicking a picture simply, but it involves the creativity the photographer pours into his image. And creativity and sensibility also are what transpire in the beautiful conceptual project of Finnish photograper Christoffer Relander, titled “Jarred & Displaced.”

You thought that 50-megapixel cameras were impressive? How about 50 gigapixels? Bentley took promotional photos to a new level for showcasing their newest car, and the result is very neat.

In this video tutorial, watch as Redouane Naouri shows you how to add clouds in Photoshop. One of the biggest challenges in photo manipulation is creating a sense of realism. If you can add realistic atmospheric effects, then you are already on to a winner.

Light stands are not known for being inconspicuous, and as such, if they are in your shot, they can be a real pain to deal with. However, with some careful planning, you can make it super easy to quickly composite the light stand out in Photoshop, and this helpful video will show you exactly how to do that.

If you're into video effects (and are half the Calvin and Hobbes fan that I am) then you're really going to dig this fun, lighthearted, imagination fueled video created by Dreamworks animator Daniel Hashimoto. As part of Daniel's absolutely amazing personal project, "Action Movie Kid", son James repels the vicious advances of a great white shark, in an effort to save younger sister Sophia. Daniel promises us a proper behind-the-scenes video in the future but in the mean time offers up a great side-by-side video showing the before-and-after.

What do you think of when you hear the term "composite"? Lots of hours with the Pen tool cutting out elements or fiddling around with the Refine Edge tool?

I started my journey in photography back in 2011. Since then, there are only a handful of photographers that I have really paid attention to in terms of actively keeping up with their work. One of those photographers is Commercial Photographer Dave Hill. His work has taken a more drastic turn in just a few years than any photographer that I’ve followed. That’s one of many reasons that I reached out to Hill to chat about his work and photography.

Making intricate selections of complex subjects or objects takes time and nuance to do well. Here are three tricks to improve your efficiency and accuracy.

This is a really unique article for me to post. I was talking with my friends at New York City based Phase One dealer, Digital Transitions, and they were interested in sharing the story of how industry's leading RAW processing and tethering software, Capture One, evolved into what it is today. It is very interesting to learn how a company learns from its products weaknesses and grows to make something that really shines. Read below to learn more:

"Mayokero" may be the best music video that came out in 2014, yet you probably never heard of it before. In the video, famous vinyl album covers come to life and they all lip-sync to Roy Kafri's singing. Michael Jackson, Abba, Madonna, The Beatles, Elton John and Bob Dylan are only few of the "collaborators" in the video. Check out the BTS video below and also the amazing final result.

Trey Ratcliff is perhaps one of the most well known and adored HDR photographers today. The High Dynamic Range images he creates are not subtle by any means and he takes no apologies when it comes to creating images he personally enjoys. In this video, Trey talks about his gear (mainly Nikkor 12-24 and Really Right Stuff Tripods) and how he thinks through his compositions as he visits the beautiful Gorda in the Virgin Islands. Watch the 2nd video in the full post

A professional retoucher does so much more than just pushing pixels about. To say the least there is a lot of artistic interpretation, collaboration, technical understanding and skill involved. Then there are master retouchers like Becci Manson who go even deeper, show us the nonsuperficial side of the industry and help restore pride in a profession that has gotten a bad rap over the years. This video will give you some understanding of what it means to work as a high end retoucher but more importantly it will show you that, being a retoucher doesn’t mean you don’t have a conscience or something important to offer.​

Taking photos at night can be an incredibly creative and rewarding experience. Unfortunately, increasing levels of light pollution in cities and urban areas makes it virtually impossible to include any detail in your sky which is often a major aspect of your composition. Adding stars is an easy and effective answer to this problem. With simple masking and blending techniques you can add interest to your background and give the impression of being in a secluded, faraway place. The most common error is overdoing it by adding too many stars or trying to integrate them into a scene that simply does not look natural. Here are two quick techniques which aim to avoid these pitfalls.

In this video tutorial, watch as Dean Samed shows you how to create shadows in Photoshop by showing you three tips and mistakes to avoid.

It’s amazing how a few simple insights can open up whole new vistas of possibility in your work. Here’s how a combination of camera work and composite editing were used to create an image of a cozy mountain-scape.

Curious how to properly shoot a background environment to drop a studio-photographed subject into? I know that is something I honestly struggled with early on. We regularly feature Glyn Dewis on Fstoppers, and recently he put together a quick and easy 2 minute video that gives crucial tips on how to make sure your focus/depth of field and angle of your background is captured correctly so it matches up with your portrait subject.