Compositing to fix depth-of-field problems

You have been asked to do use this pair of shots for a tourism brochure the Air force uses when its personnel are being stationed to Holoman AFB just Northeast of White Sands National Monument.

As you can see, they are expecting the normal miracles the uneducated think is easy. They want the foreground from the left shot and the mountains from the right one. Plus, they are muttering something about the dingy sky. Click on the pictures to download the high resolution JPEG (217K).

First select the bottom picture by marqueeing.

Select the marquee tool to marquee the bottom image. The switch to the Move tool (V) [so you won't copy the marquee instead of the pixels within that marquee]. Cut it [Command+X].

Open a new file

It will show the dimensions of the pixels you just cut to the Clipboard. Accept the dimensions given, select RGB, and hit Enter to execute the command to make a new file. Then paste in the copied image.

Then choose Image>> Canvas Size and add a half inch to the bottom of the image:

Return to the top half of the original image and use the Pen tool to select the foreground dune.

Convert it to a selection using the Paths panel. Then select the Move tool again so you can cut/paste the newly selected dune.

Move the dune down into position.

Unless you are remarkably good with the Pen tool (and, in this case, that is probably not worth the time) you will have some of the dark color left in the edge (as you can see in the sample above.

Choose Layer>> Matting>> Remove Black Matte as many times as it takes to virtually eliminate the non-sand colors (I did it 4 times).

Then use the Magic wand to select the white edge produced and delete it to transparent.

Then use Layer>> Matting>> Defringe at about 2 or 3 pixels to get rid of the remaining bad color.

The edge will still not look too good. We need to smooth it out a little.

Command/Control click on the layer thumbnail to load the selection.

This will select all the pixels in that layer that are not transparent.

Choose Select>> Modify>> Border>> 4 pixels.

This will select a 4-pixel wide shape that runs around the enttre selection

Then choose Filter>> Blur>> Gaussian Blur and blur the edge a minimal amount.
The result should look like this or better.

Now Select the sky in the original layer you pasted in.

Use the Magic Wand and the Rectangular Marquee to select the sky in Layer 1. Set a feather of 2 pixels. Then use the Eyedropper to select a dark and light blue out of that area selected. Use the Gradient from foreground to background (dark blue in top down to a lighter blue at the horizon) to smooth out the sky.

Then Image>> Adjust>> Hue/Saturation to make the sky look more like the deep rich blue of a New Mexico sky.

Clean up the image

Double-click on the Magnification tool to enlarge the image to 100%. Hit the Home key to go to the upper left corner and use page down/up keys and the scroll bars to clean up all dirt using the Staml and Healing tools.

Then save your file as a high quality JPEG and email to your instructor for a grade.

It should look like this or better.

Grading

You start with 60 points.

PENALTIES:

• 9 points per missing piece
• 7 points off for bad color
• 6 points off for jagged layer edges, bad fringes
• 2 points of for each dirt speck