|
|
A popular technique is blending: a photograph, or pattern, superimposed upon a background, with the main image repeated in the foreground. Blending is also popular when creating more graphical layouts, for example like magazine advertisements, where again it can act as a backdrop to the focus of a page.
As with all digital techniques, the key is practise: much depends upon the photograph you choose and the background paper. Here is a quick way to start practising blending: I want to blend the left hand photo into the background paper.
The first thing I try is Layer Blend Modes so I can see how the photograph behaves with the background paper. In the Layers Palette just click on them one by one and see if one gives a good result – I told you it was practise!
Here are all the Layer Blend Modes and I have started with Overlay to see what it looks like.
This is good for a “quick” blending effect, but it’s perhaps a little too bright, so lowering the Opacity of the layer may make a difference.
Now that would be perfectly good enough for a quick blending example, but I like to see what else can work. This time I’m going to changed the Blend Mode to Luminance(Legacy). You can see in this example the photograph is more defined, so the Opacity will need to be altered.
Here I have changed the Opacity to 20% and I like how the photograph looks, although you can see a dark edge on the right hand side where the photograph ends.
Sometimes just using Blend Modes is not enough, and you will need to “blend” further, perhaps using a mask. However, for this purpose of easy blending I am going to use the Eraser tool: a large sized tip with softness and a low opacity to reduce the dark edge.
I used a default round brush tip, Size=400, Hardness=3, Step=10, Density=100, Thickness=100 and Opacity=25. Then I just brushed gently down the side of my photograph until the harsh dark edge disappears.
Now my photograph looks part of the background paper.
This was an easy photograph to blend, and I did not need to play around with the Eraser too much. On less detailed paper backgrounds you may find you need to graduate the blending even more because it is still too defined. Simply change the Eraser tool preferences until you get the effect you want: change Opacity or Density as needed and keep working alongside the edge you wish to blend, from the outside towards the middle of the picture.
© Copyright by Scrapbook-Bytes.com
Top of Page
|
|
|
|
