options with the Selection tools
to imitate depth of field
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MAKE LIGHT AND SHADOW TWEAKS Some of the new buildings have neutral lighting in their own environment. To blend the object more into the new scene, select part of the building that should be lighter and apply a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer, making it brighter. Then select the part of the object that should be darkest in the new environment and apply a Brightness/
Contrast adjustment layer, but reduce the Brightness value. Use the Polygonal Lasso tool to select different parts of the building with different Feather options depending on the depth of field. Stay consistent with the rest of the image and do not allow the object to pop up out of its environment. The same kind of treatment could be done with a Curves or Levels adjustment layer too.
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ADJUST MAIN TONEWhen you have adjusted the contrast of all the landmarks, delete the top black layer. Now it’s time to make the first rough move into colour adjustment. Apply a Solid Color adjustment layer to the object, and in the opened window, pick up the colour of the building located next to the landmark you have placed using the Eyedropper. Don’t pick up a colour from the lightest or darkest places. Then change the blending mode of the Solid Color adjustment layer to Color. This makes the building colour closer to the environment it is in.
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COLOUR TUNINGIn real life the colour is not monotone. To make the picture more believable, you need to perform some colour grading for the highlights and shadows to bring in some variation in colour. Depending on the situation, there are different tools that can do this, including Color Balance, Selective Color and Curves adjustments. To add more variation, mask different parts of the buildings and apply different colour adjustments to them. In the Properties of the Color Balance adjustment layer, add some yellow tone into the Highlights, red in the Shadows and magenta in the Midtones.
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DEPTH OF FIELDTo blend new objects with the scene, you need to adjust the depth of field of every landmark.
The distant objects must have fewer details than the foreground buildings. The best solution is to compare the placed landmark with the environment and find out if the new object looks sharper or blurrier compared with the buildings from the original plate located next to it. If a new object is sharper, apply Gaussian Blur. If it’s blurrier, apply Unsharp Mask.
QUICK TIP
The Selective Color adjustment layer is one of the most powerful colour adjustment tools. Begin the adjustment with the Midtones, Shadows and Highlights, then make precise tweaks in any of the four colour channels.
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ADD DROP SHADOWTo create a drop shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge, make a selection of it, Cmd/Ctrl-click on the layer mask, create a new layer under the bridge layer and paint it black. Flip the layer vertically, apply Gaussian Blur with a value of 8.0, change the layer blend mode to Multiply and set the Opacity to 23%.
Using a soft brush at 400px Size and 25% Opacity, paint with black over the shadow’s layer mask to make the lowest part more transparent.
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ADD A VIGNETTEAdd a Curves adjustment layer on top of all the layers and invert the mask to black. Make it darker in the middle values. Select a soft brush and adjust its Size to 1100px, 0% Hardness and 25%
Opacity and paint with white over the mask in the bottom-left and upper-right corners to make it slightly darker. To avoid banding that can appear in the sky as a result of using a soft brush, add Uniform Noise with a value of 4% to the mask.
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OVERALL COLOUR CORRECTION The foreground looks too yellow. To fix it, create a Gradient Map adjustment on top of all the layers. Create a dark blue to orange gradient. Select the adjustment layer’s mask and change it to black.Change this layer’s blending mode to Color and set Opacity to 39%. Select a soft brush, change the Size to 1100px and Hardness to 0%, and paint with a white colour over the Gradient Map adjustment layer mask. Try to cover the bottom third of the image.
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HIGHLIGHTSSelect the Brush tool and set the Size to 50%, the Opacity to 30% and the Hardness to 0%. On a new layer, paint a soft circle with one click, reduce the size of the brush to 35px and click on the same place once again. Then reduce the brush size to 10px and click again. As a result you will get a soft circle with a high density in the centre and soft edges. Now duplicate this layer, transform it and change the opacity so that you can apply it to different buildings.15
FLARESTo finalise the visual and make it more cinematic, add two lens flares from stock images ‘95471923’and ‘144121720’. Place these images in new layers on top of all the layers. Place and rotate image
‘144121720’ over the sun and change its blend mode to Screen. Place the second image ‘95471923’ to the right of the bridge and rotate it to match the direction towards the sun, change Opacity to 67% and set the layer blending option to Screen.
TECHNIQUES SEAMLESS LIGHTING
QUICK TIP
There is no need to cut out light effects (flares, light beams, sparkles, etc) from a dark background. Instead, push the contrast of the image and try to make everything except the light effect as dark as possible but don’t lose details, then change the blend mode of the layer to Screen.