“There’s really not that much magic to it,” Aaron Goodman recently told me regarding compositing in Photoshop. “If you shoot everything properly in camera adhering to your original sketch, the digital can go extremely smoothly.”
Goodman’s comment makes perfect sense. As a New York-based photo illustrator working on tight deadlines, he always works from a concept sketch that has been approved by his client. There is no time to sway from his original vision and so he stays focused, and so his compositing goes smoothly.
Although Goodman’s comment about there not being much magic to his compositing might make sense, it still came as a surprise to me. For one thing, my compositing skills are basically nil and so Goodman’s techniques do seem like magic. For another thing, I have talked to a number of skilled compositors who often don’t know exactly what they are going to get until they delve into postproduction.
Andrew Matusik is photographer who is a postproduction über wizard, and whose aesthetic depends on the composting magic he works. Like Goodman, Matusik often needs to get in and out of post fast — sticking to a plan. But he’s shared with me how much he relishes the opportunity to explore his vision while compositing, discovering unique possibilities for a specific image in an organic, unplanned manner.
Clearly there are two polar extremes to how one can approach a compositing workflow in Photoshop. One is to have a crystal clear vision going in, stick to it, and then get out as fast and smooth as possible. No digressions allowed. The other extreme is to have an open-ended vision going in, and to have the time to make discoveries while compositing. Digressions expected.
Photoshop compositing of this image was easy fro Aaron Goodman because. . .
Clearly there is a whole spectrum of composting workflow options between these two extremes. What seems most important is that we know exactly where we are on this spectrum of compositing approaches for each project we are working on.
This might seem like a obvious statement. But I think Continue reading “Smooth Photoshop Compositing Requires Clear Pre-Vision”
