[nicklovick]

Just finished this one for a pal.
The final print was 17.5cm x 12.5cm and Erlend (the rider) was chuffed with it. But he's a farmer and has no idea about composition, colours or anthing to do with photography.
What do you think?

Created using photoshop cs2 (I have never had any training with photoshop, I've not even done any tutorials. Trail and error is my prefered method).

I have used two photos to make the final image...
The background

The subject


Firstly I went to work on the sky. I cropped the land off the bottom of the sunrise image and then duplicated it in another layer.
Then using the free transform tool I altered the prespective on the sky and fliped the duplicate to make the bottom of the photo.
does anyone else find when placing two images together in photoshop that a line, where the two images conect appears and dissapears when you zoom in and out?

With the background done for the moment I cut round the rider and pasted him onto the background.
I encountered my first problem here. The front screen on the bike is transparent and looked wrong with the sky from the original image showing.
I fixed this by selecting the pixels on the screen that were transparent. Then I swiched to the background layer and made a new layer of the selected pixels. By then placing this small cutout of sky ontop of the screen and then reducing the layers opacity this problem was fixed.

I was now happy with the rider, so I went back to work on the background.
I wanted to create a wake behind the bike so I used the rectangular marquee tool to select the area of background behind the bike and then transformed this selection using the warp and distort functions to make the required shape.
Next, I feathered this selection so it would fade into the rest of the background appearing seamless. Lastly I applied a ripple filter to the selected area and then added some noise to give the efect you see on the final edit.

After merging the distorted layer into the background I repeated this prosses with small selections from round the back wheel. But this time I moved the layers infront of the bike and reduced the opacity to soften the area where the back wheel touches the ground.

The final touch was to add the shadow to the image. I simply duplicated the rider in a new layer then fliped, distoreted and changed the prespective of the rider. I then adjusted the contrast and darkness levels and diffused the layer.

There were many more small steps to create the final image but I could waffle on forever with half the chance

So here it is...


Any sugestions for a caption?

[Dave]

Well Nick you defintely know your way around PS !! Very impressive

Did you play with WB of rider to fit in with sky ?

What about a hint of motion blur off the back of the bike to indicate some movement ?

As for title....well perfect for Insurance Company " WE CAN GUARENTEE SKY HIGH PREMIUMS "

[nicklovick]

As for title....well perfect for Insurance Company " WE CAN GUARENTEE SKY HIGH PREMIUMS "

love it

Did you play with WB of rider to fit in with sky ?

I increased the magenta on the rider and then added a yellow photo filter.

What about a hint of motion blur off the back of the bike to indicate some movement ?

I've added motion blur to the back of the bike and added wind to the background.

[Chris]

Nice work

[Dave]

That's better

Now you just need to shop some decent Dainese leathers onto the rider & a decent visor Actaully just give him a Simpson

[nicklovick]

Funy u should mention leathers, Dass tried on my axo race leathers and the site was comical. He's a good peice smaller than me so they hung off him like lose flesh.

He now has a arai helmet which looks cool as ....
I'll have to get some more shots of him wearing decent gear somtime.