Is there a difference between blending and compositing?
Is there a difference between blending and compositing in post-processing? Some make no distinction between the two. But some do. Let’s have a closer look!
Is there a difference between blending and compositing in post-processing? Some make no distinction between the two. But some do. Let’s have a closer look!
The term “texture” is a catch-all term for adding either abstract images, detailed photos, or patterns of different surfaces, like metal, cracked paint, sand, etc. as an overlay on your image. This is a type of “compositing”, combining multiple images into one finished work. Adding textures to your images can change the mood, create special effects, strengthen the composition, or help better tell a story. These five concepts will help you add textures more easily, realistically, and quickly in Adobe Photoshop
Personal experiences and emotions have long been potent sources of inspiration and ideas for creative minds. For Spain-based fine art photographer Frank Diamond, photomontage (or
In photography a texture image or “texturing” is used to enhance or accent some part of the image in your digital darkroom. Â Although they can help you create eye-catching works of art, textures also can be very easy to overdo. In this article I’ll explain my process for adding textures to my photography, using Adobe Stock and Photoshop, Â to create more impact, transform the mood of the image, or improve on the composition.
For this composite, my goal was to produce a version of my galloping wild horses image that looks like it’s been drawn and woodburned onto an old board. Not sure why, I just thought it would look cool, the inspiration behind many my composites. Having an idea of what you want to make before you start usually produces the best results. But, don’t be so in love with your idea you can’t change as you create your composite.
At this point, I have my horse picture processed and saved as a high resolution TIF file, and have found a nice wood texture I want to use as the background texture. Ideally you want these texture files to be high-resolution also, so that you can print your finished piece later. Using a 400 pixel wide texture will result in a blurry grainy mess, it’s too small to print it big later.
In the digital darkroom, we can take two paths with our images. The first is to use your photo processing software to get your image looking as close to what you saw when you took it. This is your standard digital darkroom workflow, adjusting your exposure, getting rid of spots, cropping, etc., with more of a focus on realism.
The second path is to take that photo and transform it into something completely different. It may be combined with other photos as a composite, have various effects applied, and generally will look completely different from what you started with, but in a good way! Here the focus is on creating something new, using your original image only as the first ingredient. This is compositing, combining multiple images and effects to produce an original piece of art. In this article I’ll take you down the second path, introducing how to use Skylum’s new Luminar 2018 to start doing your own composites. Â