Recent Composite Articles

NASA Releases Gorgeous Color Photos of Pluto's Moon, Charon

NASA recently released beautiful color photos of Pluto's moon, Charon, taken by the New Horizons spacecraft just before its closest approach on July 14 of this year. The photo shows an extraterrestrial object with a complex and storied history.

How This Picture Was Taken - "The Iris of God"

It's always impressive to see a subject that's shot so often used in a new and creative way. This conceptual shoot of the Milky Way by George Malamidis was beautifully conceived and executed. George picked two possible names for the image, both of which perfectly describe the outcome, "The Iris of God" or "The Peacock Milkyway." Want to know how he got the shot?

First Close-Up Images of Pluto Downloaded from New Horizons and Released

New Horizons left Florida's Cape Canaveral launch pad on January 19, 2006, arrived over Pluto more than nine years later on July 14, 2015, and finally gave scientists its first images over Labor Day weekend, when its year-long, tediously slow data dump first began. Coming in at 2,000 bits per second (1/28th the speed of dial-up), these images - many of which are composited in various ways to form a final image - finally shed some light on what secrets Pluto's surface, atmosphere, and core might hold. All told, the results give sci-fi fanatics a run for their money.

Adobe's Mobile Photoshop Application will be Released in October

Last May, Adobe gave the world a sneak peek of their forthcoming mobile retouching platform. While the video only showed off modest implementations of the liquifiy, paint, and vignette tools, it's clear that Adobe and their army of software engineers have been hard at work beefing up their iPhone and iPad apps.

One of the World's Best Compositers Reveals His Complete Workflow and Retouching Techniques

Erik Almas, one of the best commercial composite photographers, has recently teamed up with the team at PRO EDU to create a fully comprehensive tutorial on his complete shooting and retouching process. In this video Almas takes us through an hour-long tutorial, retouching and completing the backplate for one of his tutorial images. I'm always impressed when photographers and retouchers, especially those at the top of our industry, open the doors and reveal their entire process and Almas has done no less here.

Watch as 3-year-old "Action Movie Kid" Fends Off a Shark Attack in His Living Room

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.

How New Zealand's Strange Magnetic Field Almost Destroyed Our Drone, P.T.W. BTS Ep 6

Photographing The World BTS episode 6 is finally here and this is the one many of you have been waiting for. At this point in the series I had flown this drone in 7 different countries in snow and rain, and I even crashed it into the side of an ice cave but it kept on working. The streak finally ends in New Zealand when I have my first and only serious crash.

Photographer Colorized Old Photos While Adding Beautifully Surreal Narratives

It takes a lot to motivate me to reach out to a photographer for permission to feature their work but a lot is exactly what Brisbane-based photographer and digital artist Jane Long provides with her latest series, "Dancing with Costică”. Colorizing, compositing and creating content for images she sources from the Costica Ascinte Archive, Jane is able to deliver beautiful, imaginative and surreal narratives to each of her final images.

10 More Photographers You Should Be Following On Fstoppers

Last week I made a list of 10 of my favorite photographers to follow on Fstoppers and a few people complained that too many of them were "portrait" photographers. I've scoured the community again and today I've created a new list with 10 incredible, additional photographers who shoot much more than your average portrait.

Learn How to Easily Remove Human Traffic from Your Photos

Have you ever wanted to photograph a location only to have a constant stream of people coming and going? Trying to capture the the front of a busy building can be truly frustrating. Lucky for you Greg Benz knows your pain and he has a quick and easy solution to help you get the shot you've been waiting for.

This Video Just Changed My Mind About CG Visual Effects In Movies

I've always been one to complain about poorly rendered computer graphics in modern movies. I thought I could easily pick out what was real and what was rendered on a computer. This video makes a compelling argument that there is such a thing is "good" CGI.

Submit Your Image To Get Retouched For Free This Week!

I'm excited to announce a new weekly segment, where you the Fstoppers community can submit your favorite image to be edited and retouched by me, Lance Nicoll. Post an image you recently shot, that hasn't been retouched yet, in the comments below. On Thursday I will retouch it an post the recording of the entire process! If you guys love it, I will continue to do this every week! – And maybe in the future even do it as a Live Retouch with Q&A. The rules are as listed below. Really excited to see everyone's submissions. Submit your image by Wednesday at Midnight to be selected.

How One Photographer Recreated A Beautiful Iconic Image In His Alleyway

I knew when I saw this image up in the photo section of our Fstoppers website, I had to inquire about how it was created. It is clearly a thoughtful re-imagining of the iconic painting "Liberty Leading The People", but I had no idea how much effort Anthony Kurtz went into creating this photo. Little did I know that it took three weeks of preparation, two days of set building, one day of photographing, and 50+ hours of retouching and it was all done on a shoe string budget with borrowed props and location. What he created with very little money and a lot of brilliant strategy and vision is inspiring. Read below to learn how Anthony did it.

See What it Takes to Shoot a Car Ad in Downtown LA

LA-based cinematographer Brandon Lippard gives us a behind the scenes look at photographer Dave Hill's 2015 Toyota Camry, Parade and Night Market, print ad shoot. I really dig these kinds of behind-the-scenes videos. They are so insightful and educational when kept clean, simple and unfiltered. These kinds of genuine glimpses from behind the lens offer a lot, to the keen observer, as opposed to the oh-so-common, self-promoting, trendy music video type clips we are often fed. Thanks for sharing Brandon.

Here is What Famous People Would Look Like If You Averaged 50 Photos from Google

Have you ever wondered what Donald Trump would look like if you combined 50 random photos of him and averaged them together? That's exactly what Reddit user Dwainosaur did with his latest photo/data mashup. Using commonly found images on Google, these composites of celebrities like Barack Obama, Kayne West, Bill Murray, and Brad Pitt almost look like pencil drawings. The results are pretty eerie and give a pretty good idea what each of these well known people would look like as a ghost.

Fstoppers Landscape Photography Tutorial With Elia Locardi Is Now Available

In September of 2014 Patrick and I met Elia Locardi totally by chance in the basement of a German beer house during Photokina. That night we learned that Elia had sold all of his possessions and had been traveling the world nonstop for 3 years taking landscape & travel photographs. Soon thereafter we decided to team up on the biggest project any of us had ever worked on.

How They Made That 'Game of Thrones' Scene So Darn Cool

"What the heck just happened?" I remember saying to a friend as we finished Season 5, Episode 8, "Hardhome" of Game of Thrones a few weeks ago. I was in a crowded bar with many other GoT fans as we all just sat in silence as the credits rolled. This was no "Red Wedding" but I still had that "Oh S***" feeling you get when everything hits the fan.

Creating Colorful Portrait Effects In Camera and In Photoshop

So a few weeks ago I found sometime to shoot a personal project, a summer inspired beauty shoot. The idea behind the shoot was to focus on summer and to play with bright and vibrant colors. Prior to the shoot a spent days experimenting with new techniques and different ways of introducing color into my shoot. In this article I want to share a couple of techniques I used to create colorful effects in camera and also how I recreated one of those effects in Photoshop.

Take Your Time-Lapse to the Next Level by Blending in Real-Time Video

With less expensive gear being introduced all the time, we have seen a boom in time-lapse films in recent years, making it easier for just about anyone to make their own time-lapse clips. But with the deluge of videos comes innovation and the need to differentiate yourself. Filmmakers have used time-lapse in some creative ways with production techniques like multi-axis motion and post-production software like After Effects to achieve wild results. A relatively new approach is compositing live-action footage over time-lapse video, and it is pretty easy to do.

 Before and After Shots From 'Mad Max: Fury Road' Reveal the Power of Postproduction

If you have not yet seen "Mad Max: Fury Road," I highly recommend seeing the film in theatres while you still can. The combination of art and action brings a rare addition to the big blockbuster-filled summer. These before-and-after shots will give you an idea of the true creativity behind the movie's polarizing set pieces and live-action stunts combined with brilliant post-processing.

New World's Largest Photograph is an Astounding 365 Gigapixels

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.

Create Realistic Lighting Effects Using Knoll Light Factory

Flare has become a huge part of modern photography for how it can add both depth and excitement to an image. Many of us have resorted to manually creating lighting effects using Photoshop or by layering pre-made textures above our photos. Red Giant, however, looks to replace and augment this rather tedious process with Knoll Light Factory.

Use Luminosity Masks to Enhance Your Landscape Photography

Our cameras today are extremely powerful with settings and features that help us archive stellar image quality. But sometimes the images we come home with just don't capture the true essence of what was photographed and what our eyes saw. The photo is just a bit overexposed or underexposed and doesn't capture what we felt in that moment we pressed down on the shutter button. We fiddle and tweak in Photoshop with sliders and brushes, but there is another tool to add to the arsenal: masks. Specifically, luminosity masks.

New Compilation Technology Allows for Incredible Time-Lapse Videos

New technology from the University of Washington allows for millions of photos taken by different people over the duration of years and years to be sorted through, selected, and pieced together to create jaw-dropping time-lapse videos. Using photos from public databases, they were able to watch the progression and/or degradation of growing city skylines, receding glaciers, monuments, and more. Check out the video to see their amazing work!

Accelerate Your Photo Editing Workflow with Color Lookup Tables

Color lookup tables (also known as LUTs or 3DLUTs) have been a popular tool used by colorists in the video industry for a while and are just starting to find their way into photography. LUTs are a great alternative to actions or expensive plugins that can help speed up your editing workflow.

Phlearn Photoshop Tutorial: How to Create and Place a Logo in Perspective

In this tutorial, Photoshop guru Aaron Nace of Phlearn.com shows you an easy yet effective way to take branding your images to another level. By placing logos or other branding elements into a scene's already existing spaces (such as billboards, truck trailers, or even clothing) you can really drive home the message you are trying to deliver. Follow Nace's simple step-by-step instructions to recreate this effect in your images.

This Photographer Took The Most Hilarious Beard Photo Series I've Ever Seen

Fstoppers.com owner Lee Morris recently decided to shave his 5 month beard while having a little fun. Lee created 8 different "characters" with different lengths of facial hair and then released his unretouched images to the Fstoppers.com. These photographers took these files and pushed them to the max, creating 8 hilarious final images.

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.

Creating A Time Slice Photo

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.

Becci Manson Helps Restore the Reputation of Retouchers

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.​

Video Tutorial: Creating Fire Elements with the Render Flame Filter in Photoshop CC 2014

It's always a treat to find a Photoshop feature that you didn't know existed. I was recently introduced to the "render flame" filter in Photoshop CC 2014. Using fire in images or composites isn't anything new, but creating fire elements from scratch is. With this awesome feature, anyone can now create custom flames to be used alone or in coordination with other real fire elements and photographs.

Jill Greenberg’s Beautiful 80MP Images Send Clear Message About Importance Of Photography

What happens when one of the world’s foremost portrait photographers decides to turn to photograph still life paintings instead of people? There are no two ways about it - Jill Greenberg is fascinating. Her new work is beautiful, but there is also a clear artistic statement behind it. In this exclusive, we get to understand her direction and motivations behind "Paintings", her latest body of work.

Composite Tutorial: Movie Poster Style Embers and Sparks

When it comes to compositing, more often than not it's the little things that take an image from good to great. In this tutorial I show you how to pull off a simple yet very effective way to create those small embers and sparks that are all the rage in Hollywood action movie posters. Adding details like sparks, debris, fog, dust, etc. to your composites can change the overall mood of your composites and give them that epic feel you are looking for!

Using Toys To Satisfy My Client's Seemingly Impossible Request

When a client came to me and asked if I could do a composite that featured a dragon, my first response was, "Of course, no problem. This is going to be so much fun!" Immediately following the conversation, reality set in and the haunting feeling that I had bitten off more than I could chew began to overwhelm me. After a momentary panic episode, I promptly began racking my brain on how I was going to pull off this impossible feat. Luckily in the end, creativity prevailed!

Interview With Drew Lundquist: The Life of a Composite Photographer

I first came across the work of Colorado-based photographer Drew Lundquist in 2013 when he was working for the powerhouse advertising agency Elevendy. Lundquist is a composite photographer who specializes in what he labels "theatrical special effects photography." His composite work is extremely clean with an immaculate attention to detail. Everything from his compositions to his color work leaves you wanting to see more and more. Lundquist's work has been featured numerous issues of Advanced Photoshop Magazine, and his work is the cover image for the current edition of The Professional Photoshop Book. Lundquist is well on his way to becoming one of the big names in the compositing game. I highly recommend taking a few minutes to check out his work.

One of My Portraits Unexpectedly Went Viral and It Is Hilarious

About a year ago, I took new portraits of my production company's crew for our company biographies. One of my video camera operators, Mike Nelson, decided to Photoshop the portrait of one of my producers Shawn Lucas. It started with dropping his face into one comedic situation, and well, it just started spiraling out of control after that. Now, the dozens of photos are trending on the front page of Reddit. Learn how the retouched series came to be and see all of the images below.

Quick and Easy Way to Whiten Teeth in Photoshop

In many modern cultures, we view white teeth as a sign of health, virility, and attractiveness. A large reason as to why there are a million toothbrush, toothpaste, and teeth whitening products on the shelf today. So what do you do when your overworked, over-caffeinated, and/or over-smoking portrait subject has teeth stained yellow? Our buddy Glyn Dewis shows you a quick way to whiten those teeth effectively and realistically.

Behind the Scenes of a Snickers Commercial Made for Super Bowl XLIX

Super Bowl XLIX is just two days away and most of us are looking forward to the commercials as much - if not more - than the actual game. This year will feature a Snickers’ commercial that is bound to be the talk of the work place come Monday.

The commercial follows the familiar “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” campaign – only this time, it takes place within an episode of The Brady Bunch.

Behind the Scenes and VFX Breakdown of Summer Blockbuster 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier'

With 2014 nearly behind us and the list of this year's summer blockbusters almost forgotten, we have a treat from the incredibly talented team at Industrial Light & Magic that takes us back in the form of this behind-the-scenes video of the CG that went into "Captain America: The Winter Soldier." What never gets old about these badass behind-the-scenes videos are how they blow away the background of big-budget movies, essentially revealing the digitally constructed landscapes surrounding our beloved actors in films.

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 12 Images Changed My Life Forever

We all have those pivotal moments in our lives where a single decision changes everything. When I picked up a camera about five years ago I quickly became obsessed with composites. In the beginning, I honestly had no idea where to even begin learning how to create these marvelous hybrids of photography and digital art. I had to learn how to create composite images! I knew if I could get to a point where I could create what I saw in my head, I could change the path of my career. Little did I know composite photography would change my life forever.

Eric Doggett Shows Us How He Makes the World's Best Holiday Cards

We've posted about commercial photographer Eric Doggett on here before. You may recall his popular post about how he put together his family's Back to the Future Christmas card. He goes out of his way to create some of the most creative holiday cards I've ever seen. Eric uses a creative arsenal including set-building, 3D modeling, Photoshop, photography, and graphic design to create unique one-off pieces for his clients. Read below to learn how he used ALL of these tools to create a fantastic Star Wars Christmas card.

How to Quickly Light and Composite Architectural Interiors

A great portion of my business is spent on architectural photography. My technique involves using a mixture of ambient light, flash, and tungsten hot lights blended and masked together in post to create well lit images that are time consuming to shoot and often frustrating to edit. I'm always looking for other techniques and resources to incorporate that will allow me to work more efficiently and/or improve my images. This week I found such a technique right under my nose.

Famous Album Covers Came to Life in This Creative Music Video - Find Out How it Was Done

"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.

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!

Golden Hour, Any Hour: A Photographer's Guide to Faking It

It has happened to all of us. We spend countless hours planning, scheduling, and coordinating for a beautiful golden hour photo shoot only to have our parade rained on by weather or other mishaps out of our control. Perhaps you didn't plan for those mountains in the background that's cutting your shoot 30 minutes shorter than anticipated. Maybe the conditions are perfect when you leave for the shoot, but by the time you get there, clouds are hovering above. Or it could be that your client just can't shoot at the ideal time. No matter what the obstacle, this article is going to show you a super simple trick that will allow you to get that golden hour capture at any hour!

A Guide to Retouching Hotel Rooms

Almost four years ago I began a new journey in my photography career. At the time I was still bartending part-time and concentrating on building the headshot side of my business, when hospitality photography came and slapped me upside the head. As it goes with most other good things, it all started over a few drinks with a friend, and has spiraled into a full second stream of income from photography.