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Begin by opening City.jpg, Beach.jpg, Woman.jpg and Clock.jpg, which are available in the downloadable compositing.zip archive, and click-drag each image with the Move tool (V) into a 7 x 5-inch, 300-ppi composite document. Select the bottom
city layer, choose Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal, and position it to the left side. Select the beach layer and position it to match up its horizon line to the City’s. With the Eraser tool (E), choose a 200-pixel Radius, feathered brush, set Opacity to 60% in the Options Bar, and erase down the left edge to blend the blue of the beach image’s sky with the city image’s sky.
To stretch and distort the city image slightly, select the city layer and use Free Transform (Command/Ctrl-T) to pull the top-left corner until the far-left building is off the canvas. Darken the city by choosing Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast and set Brightness to -30 and Contrast +10. To give the beach a little more pop, press Command/Ctrl-J to copy the layer. On the duplicate, set the blending mode to Screen and the Opacity to 60%. Remove the over-exposed portion below
the horizon using a feathered Eraser brush at 100%.
 
Select the woman layer, and flip the image horizontally. With the Magnetic Lasso tool, carefully move around the outline of the woman while Option/Alt-clicking
to subtract areas not wanted in the selection. Inverse the selection (Select > Inverse) and press Delete/Backspace to remove
the background. Use Free Transform (hold Shift to retain proportion ratio) to enlarge and move the woman to the center of the canvas. Add more sun on her face by choosing Filter > Render > Lighting Effects. Using the default Spotlight, move the light source so it shines down from the top right.
 
To give the woman a furrowed brow on the city side, loosely lasso around her left eyebrow. Select Free Transform (Command/Ctrl-T) and rotate the selection slightly clockwise. Press Command/Ctrl-D to Deselect and use the Clone Stamp tool (S) to clone in the cut holes with a small, feathered brush. Option/Alt-click to sample from areas around her eye and blend it back in naturally. Now select the Burn tool (0) with a small, feathered brush, set to Midtones at 20%, and add the skin wrinkle of her brow. Toggle to the Sponge tool (Shift-0) and desaturate the burned area enough to look natural.
Give the woman’s left side a bluish hue by making a selection
around the figure with the Lasso tool. Select the Move tool and use the Right/Left Arrow keys for a tighter selection. Create a new layer, select the Gradient tool, and choose a linear Foreground to Transparent
gradient. Click-drag the gradient from the left edge of the canvas to midway through the woman.
Select the clock layer and use Free Transform
to scale and distort the clock over the top of the building. Using the Elliptical Marquee
tool (M), create an oval over the clock. Control/Right-click, select Inverse, and press Delete/Backspace. Select Inverse again, then Transform Selection while pressing Shift-Option/Alt to make the oval a bit larger than the clock. Select the Paint Bucket tool and fill in the space between the selection and the clock with dark blue. Finally, move over to the city layer and clone out the windows behind the clock. The final image is shown below.
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Robert Carter is an award-winning Canadian illustrator who works both digitally and traditionally. This article is excerpted from the April, 2005 issue of SBS Digital Design and is reprinted here by permission. Copyright ©2005, Dynamic Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. For information on all Dynamic Graphics products and publications, visit www.dgusa.com.
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