Create surreal composites

Take any subject you like and add it to another photo, with Jon Adams

Composites are mixtures of different picture elements that, when combined, take on the guise of a genuine photo. Provided you can make a good, accurate cutout of a subject from one scene, it’s really simple to place it into another picture, then match up the relative scales of subject and background.

The viewer’s eye won’t accept the composite as ‘real’ unless a few additional burdens are met, however. First, the light source has to come from the same direction in both picture components; and second, you’ll need to add a shadow if the ground is in shot. The obvious temptation will always be to pick a new background that’s in harmony with the subject, but here we’ll take a rhino from its zoo background and place it in a tourist-laden street scene!

The first task is to cut out your subject in Photoshop. There are lots of ways of doing this, but it’s worth learning how to use the Pen Tool: because it’s fully manual, it will always give you an accurate selection. Select the Pen Tool, then zoom in to the edge of the subject. Click on it, then click further round the edge, dragging slightly to create a curve. Do this all the way round the edge until you return to your starting point, then right-click inside the path and choose Make Selection... Apply a Feather Radius of 0.5px, then press Ctrl/Cmd+J to punch the selection into a new layer. Press Ctrl/Cmd+C to copy the cutout. You can now delete the Background layer and save your cutout as a Photoshop PSD file, in case you use it again.

Open your pic with the new background, and press Ctrl/Cmd+V to paste in the subject. Drag the handles in Free Transform (Ctrl/Cmd+T) to resize and position it. To make a shadow, press Ctrl/Cmd+J to copy the layer. Press D to default the colours. To fill the selection with black, select the lower cutout layer and Ctrl/Cmd-click on the Layer thumbnail, then hit Alt+Backspace. Press Ctrl/Cmd+D to lose the selection lines. Free Transform the shadow; while holding Ctrl/Cmd, pull the handles to distort the shadow in the right direction. Set the Blending Mode to Multiply, and reduce Opacity until it matches other shadows in the photo. Make a new layer above the shadow, and paint in a small contact shadow where the subject connects with the ground.