Composite Image Lesson Plan
Lesson Plan April 14, 2016
Composite Photo Project: Due end of class April 18th.
Objective: Creating a composite photograph from two or more photographs in Adobe Photoshop.
Teks Correlations: 130.96 The student develops a technical understanding of imaging.
Performance Objective: Upon completion of this assignment, the student will understand how to use layers and masks to create a composite image.
Specifically:
1. Select and copy information from one image to another.
2. Using layers in industry standard photo editing software.
3. Transform, scale, rotate smart objects.
4. Apply and use masking appropriately.
Warmup: Creative photo captioning in 6 words or fewer.
Direct Teach: Ms. Hoffman will walk through Photoshop compositing step by step as class follows along.
Videos will be available on the website for each of the following steps.
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Selecting from one image and copying to another image.
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Creating a smart object.
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Transforming an object.
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Masking.
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Saving with layers.
Since it will take quite a bit of effort to complete, today’s work is both a daily grade for work completion done today and a project grade for the final composite due Monday. Projects comprise 25% of your grade. We will have six short-term projects in this six weeks grading period, so each counts about 4 points toward your score of 100. Daily grades comprise 60% of your grade. We will have ten this six weeks, so the daily grade portion of this assignment is worth 6 pooints. In all, this assignment is worth 10 points toward your average.
Materials: Four photos of Ms. Hoffman’s children (and their shoes—ha!) for compositing.
Adobe Photoshop.
Rubric:
Points Requirement
20 Portions of source photographs are correctly selected and copied to photograph you are using as the working image.
20 Masks are correctly applied to each layer.
10 Correct brush sizes, softness and opacity are selected and applied.
10 Selections are converted to Smart Objects and rasterized as needed.
20 Objects are transformed to the correct scale and rotated as necessary for realistic application.
20 Image as saved as a .psd file with layers so that Ms. Hoffman can check your work on your computer.
Composite Image
Written Instructions
Vocabulary--Click on the term to access Adobe Visual Dictionary or Adobe help pages.
Source Document--Also called the source file or source image--refers to the place the digital information originally came from
General Steps:
Open Documents
1. Choose and open into PS an image document to add to and make into a composite image.
2. Choose additional image documents that contain elements you would like to use in your composition. Open those into PS also.
3. Save and rename your “Working” image as a photoshop file: “Image name+composite” .psd.
Cut and Paste Selections
4. Go to your first source image and, using the lasso tool, loosely select the portion of the image you would like to copy.
5. Use your shortcut key commands to cut and paste into the new image.
“Cmnd+C” (Ctrl+C if on PC) to copy.
Go to new image.
“Cmnd+V” (Ctrl+V if on PC) to paste.
6. You will see that a new layer has been created with the pasted selection.
Transform the Selection
7. Manipulate the selection until it looks realistic. This may take several tries, but if you do the steps correctly, you will not need to start completely over because you first created a smart object.
First, right click on the layer containing the selection and choose “Create Smart Object” from the dropdown menu.
Choose the move tool from the top of the tools palette, and move the object to the general area where you would like it to be in the end. This will allow you to “eyeball” the scale as you make changes.
Now, choose Edit from the Main menu at the top. In your dropdown menu, there is an option to “transform.” You will navigate from Edit to Transform, and then to Scale or Rotate in the final dropdown menu. Choose scale or rotate depending on the change you would like to make. Make your changes accordingly. Pressing “enter” or “return” and then selecting “commit changes” will exit you from the transformation.
8. Rasterize the layer so you can Mask it.
Right click on the layer and choose “rasterize.”
Mask the selection
9. To create a layer mask, select the layer by clicking on it if it is not already selected. Then move your mouse to the third icon at the bottom of the layers panel. That is your mask icon. Click on the mask icon and choose “Create Layer Mask.”
11. A brush tool is used on the layer mask to either mask or show what is underneath. When you paint with the black brush on a white layer mask, you will reveal what is on the layer below. To change your mind and mask it again, you will toggle the brush color back to white and then paint over the selection again.
12. Common mistakes:
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Brush is too hard or too fluffy.
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The layer isn’t selected.
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The mask isn’t selected.
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You are painting on a layer that is underneath the visible layer.
Repeat with additional selections until your image is complete and correct. It should look seamless and real! Complete and correct means you have followed the rubric and example videos, and in this particular case that you have specifically made Lincoln look like he was thrown into the wall and held in place with Livvy's spell! AND, you need to put shoes on my kids. ; ) Have fun!