Five simple tips for epic composites

You know how sometimes, you build a composite and it looks ok, but not great? Something just feels a little bit off-ish? Yeah, this happens to everyone! There are actually a few easy tips that can up your compositing game significantly. Robert Cornelius just shared five of those tips and they will take your composites out of the dark dimension and into Asgard. (Yup, saw the Avengers on the weekend, it was awesome!).

We did a before/after for each of the tips so you can see the impact of using each of the techniques.

1. Shoot your models against a similar backdrop to the final composite

While most of the model would be OK no matter what backdrop you used, some of the model, mostly the hair or other edges, will pick up the color of off your backdrop. Using a backdrop that is a similar color to your final image composite will save quite a bit of photoshop time

2. Make sure your light is motivated

It’s hard to trick our brains. If we see a light in a photo, we wonder where the light was coming from. If you had light in the studio, you wanna make sure there is something to motivate it in the photo, check the two photos below, and see which one makes more sense for you.

3. DOF Matching

This is a quick one, but it makes a lot of sense if you are coming from a photography background. Since the models are close to the “camera” than the backdrop, it makes sense that they will be sharper (assuming the photographer nailed focus). Make sure to “re-focus” the objects near your “focal point”.

4. Add atmosphere

Some atmosphere can help place the models and meld them with the backdrop. adding some smoke, fog, and other particles both in front and behind the models really help to establish the feeling that the models are in the environment.

5. Add noise

This kinda sounds counter-intuitive, I mean we try so hard to avoid noise with camera settings and lighting. But the fact of the matter is that different assets in your composite will have different noise patterns. Applying a layer of noise over the composite helps meld everything together.