8 Become a compositing Yoda

Zoom in close to capture abstract results then use them carefully to create new scenes

While excessive compositing in Photoshop has acquired something of a bad name, it’s a perfectly valid means of creative expression, as long you are honest and up-front about what you are doing. Photoshop artists such as Erik Johansson and Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in digital art, creating compelling compositions and fantastic scenes that look eerily real, rather than something from Planet Photoshop.

Erik explains how the image below evolved from an idle musing. “One day I thought, ‘What if the power lines could be something else?’ I thought that they could be quite suitable for a big laundry day. I shot some power lines on a sunny day a few years ago in Sweden, then photographed a friend on a ladder and lots of laundry being hung out on normal clothes lines. A few hours of retouching, and this image was born.”

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* However skilled you are in Photoshop, it won’t help much if your source imagery is below par. Take the best source images you can in the best light, rather than relying on software to fix your shoddy shots. * For this image, Erik mainly stacked the images on top of each other and used layer masks, the Magnetic Lasso and the Pen tool to cut the objects out. He then fine-tuned the masks with the Smudge tool and used adjustment layers, such as Curves and Hue/Saturation, to blend all the layers together perfectly. This image consists of about 80 layers in total. * Erik has posted some interesting videos on how he works on his informative website – see www. erikjohanssonphoto.com/about