T 3 his issue’s article is
really a continuation from the last article which was about swapping out
backgrounds. A common request from estate agents, or realtors as we call
them in Canada, is to have a portrait created against a cityscape of the
area they serve. Such a request came to me from one of Vancouver’s top
Re/Max Crest realtors, Michael Dowling, who wanted to have his portrait set
against the area of the city that he specializes in – one of the most scenic
urban areas of Vancouver B.C, see Image 001. Doing a location shoot with
full lighting is expensive for the client and so I usually propose a shot of
the subject in studio, see Image 003 where better lighting control can be
exercised and then a separate shot of just the cityscape, see Image 002,
which can be captured quite quickly and with little expense since all that
is required is a photographer, camera, tripod, meter, and no lighting gear.
By shooting the two shots separately you do not have to compromise the needs
of one over the other and in many cases do away with the hassle and cost of
city shooting permits. Planning as always is everything, a quick telephone
conference with Michael and his graphic designer informed me about layout
(dimensions and placement of text and graphics – the final image would carry
a company logo, Michael’s name and other details). This critical information
allowed me to figure out where Michael needed to be placed in the final
composite image frame and what sort of area of the background would he sit
against. This is important to know if one is to figure out what tone
background is needed for the portrait part of the composite. Hair is always
the most difficult part to place against a new backdrop. All other features,
clothing, skin, etc are comparatively easy since they generally have
distinct edges.
First an image of the cityscape was captured, during this shoot I recorded
the angle of forward tilt on the tripod head so that I could duplicate this
angle in studio during the portrait session. Back in the studio, with this
tilt angle set, I raised and lowered the camera on tripod to frame Michael –
keeping the tilt angle constant between the two shots helps to ensure a
believable composite in terms of perspective.
Background choice for the portrait session was another important decision
for making this composite quick and easy - quick and easy meaning
inexpensive for the client and less time burning out my eyes in front of the
computer. I have come to learn that it is best to shoot the subject image
against the same tone as the dropped-in backdrop and so for this image of
Michael, I chose a white, seamless paper and overlit it to pure white (255
RGB levels of brightness). This bright seamless backdrop made sense since
the area of the cityscape that Michael’s hair would sit against would be a
light toned blue sky – in Photoshop the white background of the portrait
will melt away allowing the blue sky to show through if you layer both
images on top of one another (cityscape on bottom, portrait on top) and then
set the top layer’s blend mode to Darken. See call out box for my Fast Blend
Mode Knockout step by step recipe for light background scenes.
Darken blend mode' blends layers by favouring the darker pixels, that’s what
made this blend so easy – the underlying blue sky pixels are darker than the
white seamless backdrop and so they dominate, the edges of Michael's hair
are darker than the background, and so they dominate. Imagine a pixel on a
layer that is darker than the pixel directly underneath it, Photoshop will
display the top pixel and not the lower pixel. If a pixel on the bottom
layer is darker than the pixel directly above it, the bottom pixel will be
displayed and the top pixel not. When using the Darken blend mode think
DARKER PIXELS RULE.
How Michael was lit was key too, having shot the cityscape first made this
easy, at the time of the location shoot (from the rooftop of Michael’s
downtown apartment) I made a mental note of the direction that the sun was
coming from and how high in the sky it was positioned. Back in the studio I
lit Michael with a small light source and I placed the light lower than I
usually would for a portrait, in order to mimic the height of the setting
sun.
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