1. The Who, Why, When, What, and How of Composites BAPC Program Night April 2009 Peter Janecke

2. Who Best known artist is Jerry Uelsmann – He does it the hard way, in the darkroom – Ordinary mortals need digital! Maggie Taylor typically does digital fairy tales John Paul Caponigro has done some images Others out there too

3. Some Jerry Uelsmann Images

4. More of Jerry Uelsmann …

5. Maggie Taylor

6. John Paul Caponigro

7. Why To tell a story To depict a dream Social commentary Humor

8. When When you feel creative … and don’t have enough to do … and need to look busy But don’t be surprised if few people “get it”

9. What Your mother was right – Two wrongs don’t make a right (putting together two bad images doesn’t result in a good one) Composite elements must be: – In correct focus – Well exposed – Nicely lit I collect skies, misc objects for use later …

10. What else Lighting must match – Direction – Hard vs soft – Shadow Color temperature must match – warm vs. cool light Depth of field must match Angle of view must match Tip: Try a black and white with flat lighting and everything in focus first

11. How Decide what the background image will be Use layers for each of the elements Use selections and masks Use blend modes and opacity adjustments

12. Cut and paste Selections vs. Masks If you cut out a selection and paste it in – Its permanent – If you cut too deep have to start from scratch – But minimizes file size A layer with a mask – Can go back and change it – Can adjust it independently using a clipping mask – Use a smart layer if you expect to resize a lot

13. Blend Modes for layers Opacity slider can/should be used with all modes Most useful Blend Modes: – “Normal” is the default – “Overlay” to increase contrast – “Multiply” to darken – “Screen” to lighten – “Color” to change colors Try one by one, sliding the opacity, to find the best

14. Demo