step By step Pane-less compositing skills

learn how to use the Blend if command and layer masking to replace a window scene

01 Drop in the city

Open window01 and 02 in Photoshop. Get the Move tool then go to 02. Drag the image up to the tab of the 01 document, then down and in to copy the image over. If you need to resize the added image, hit Cmd/ Ctrl+t then hold Shift and drag the corners of the box.

02 Blend the pixels

Go to the Layers Panel (Window>layers). Doubleclick the top layer to open the Layer Style dialog box. Go to the ‘Underlying layer’ sliders at the bottom and drag the black point to about 120. Hold Alt and drag the right half of the slider to split it for a nice transition.

03 paint a mask

Click the Add Layer Mask icon in the Layers Panel. Grab the Brush tool and hit D, then X to set the colour to white, then paint to hide parts of the city layer that shouldn’t be there. Try painting at a lower opacity in the corners to slightly fade them out.

04 adjust the colours

Highlight the top layer and click the ‘Create Adjustment Layer’ icon in the Layers Panel and choose Hue/saturation. In the Properties Panel click the square ‘clip to layer’ icon at the bottom, then decrease Saturation and increase Lightness like so.

05 reposition the window

If you want to move the window scene, highlight the middle layer then click on the link between the image and mask thumbnails to unlink them. Highlight the image thumbnail then hit Cmd/ctrl+t and use the bounding box to reposition and resize the scene.

06 Blur and tone

Go to Filter>blur>gaussian Blur and add a touch of blur to the outdoor scene. Hit OK. Finally, press Cmd/ Ctrl+shift+alt+e to merge a new layer at the top of the stack. Go to Filter>camera Raw Filter. Use the tonal controls and sliders to finish off the image as you like.