How to Create Fantasy Composite with Your Photos in Photoshop

Peter McKinnon is back with another video, this time to show how to create a fantasy composite in Adobe Photoshop. A composite image is an image made up of various photos which are placed and blended together to make one image. When it comes to fantasy, it’s just that... fantasy. When you have an idea that you want to bring to life, you have to use the tool in your trade to bring it to life, as you can't just snap a photo and be done with it.

For Peter’s example, he adds the Banff National Park coming out of a shot of his dryer. A great tip from Peter is that make sure the images work together well, the better the two photos work together the easier it will be to create the fantasy composite. You can spend a lot of time trying to force some images to work together, and you can do it but will just spend a lot more time doing so. How do you bring the images all together? By using mask and blending modes to combine them. The example in the video is fairly simply, but the same methods can be applied to more complex images, just with a lot more time. Once you have the images set up and combine the way you want them, add some color grading and final lighting adjustments to have them become one image.

There are several different methods to creating the mask, use whichever you are best at that gives you the best results. A poorly executed mask can break your image, so spend some time on it. Using the pen tool is great for some more precise selection and mask, they do take some time for complex photos but works great with harder edges, which I personally use for cars and buildings. A quick glance at Peter’s image it looks great, but a closer look you can see where some more time spend on the masking of the road would of resulted in a better composite. This was just a quick example to show you the tools and steps you need, so go forth and see what fantasy-inspired images you can create, show us some of your examples in the comments below. As always if you have any of your own tips, share them as well.

PS. you don't have to copy and trash the lock layer as shown in the video, you can simply click on the lock icon to unlock the layer.