Welcome back to another very exciting tutorial here at the PhotoshopTrainingChannel.com.
My name is Jesus Ramirez and you can find me on Twitter @JRfromPTC.
In this video, we're going to talk about atmospheric perspective and how we can use it to create
more believable compositions in Photoshop.
When combining different images together, you, sometimes, have to fake the depth of
an object in a scene, meaning, how far back does the object recede into the Z axis.
Remember, in Photoshop, we're working in 2D space, and we only have two axis to work with.
We have the Y axis, which moves up and down, and the X axis, which moves left to right.
So, when combining images together, sometimes, we have to fake depth—the Z axis—to make
things big within the composition, and make it more realistic.
The best way to imply the Z axis, or to create depth is by using atmospheric perspective.
And that's what this tutorial is all about.
Of course, there are other things that go into making good composites, things like mass,
lighting, color temperature and so forth.
But in this video, we will only focus on atmospheric perspective, which, also, happens to be one
of the things that beginners often disregard, and is one of the reasons that a lot of composites
have a cut and paste look.
So, how does atmospheric perspective work?
Atmospheric perspective or aerial perspective is the decrease and tonal range of an object
as it recedes into the background.
In other words, the further away that something is from the viewer, the less contrast it will
have between its darkest and lightest point.
Take a look at the sphere closest to us.
Notice the Contrast between the darkest and brightest color.
Now, notice how the contrast decreases as we recede into the background.
This is atmospheric perspective.
Now, look at this photo of a town called Cholula in Puebla, Mexico.
We can see that very same thing.
The objects that are closer to us have more contrast and detail, for example, the trees.
They have pixels that are very light and pixels that are very dark.
As we recede further into the background, the contrast decreases and so does the detail.
And there's not much difference between the lighter colors and darker colors.
Overall, the trees in the background are brighter than the ones in the front.
If you'll look at this tree here, which is one of the trees that is farthest back in
the scene, you will see that it's pretty much one single color—no contrast, no detail.
Keep in mind that the objects far off into the distance, they'll have their shape and
form, but the detail and contrast which is no longer there.
Also, notice how the objects in the background become less saturated and start taking the
color of the sky.
Any object this far enough will simply disappear into whatever color the sky is.
In most cases, the color of the objects in the background will be a bluish color, or
cool color, like in this case, because of the color of the sky.
But, it could be of one color, such as orange, in photos that were taken during sunrise or
sunset.
And to further explain what I've just said with actual numbers, I'm going to open up
the foreground Color Picker and show you how this works by selecting a few colors.
So, we take a look at the trees, again, right here.
If I just select any one of these trees, it really doesn't matter which one, I'll just
click on here.
You'll see that the trees in the foreground have a low brightness percentage—the Luminance
values.
So, it's a Brightness of 8%, Zero is black, and 100 will be white.
So, when we select anyone of these trees here, you'll see that the brightness level is very
low.
If we select trees here, in this area, you'll see that the brightness values start increasing.
See that?
The further back we go, the higher this number becomes.
If we go into the trees back here, look at these numbers now, 66, and we click on one
of these trees way back here, it's 85%.
So, as I mentioned, the further that we recede into the background, the brighter those pixels
become.
Also, if we take a look, for example, maybe, in one of these trees here, again, you'll
see that the warmer colors are in front.
So, warm colors here, but if we start selecting trees that are similar colors in the background,
they'll start getting cooler, and, maybe—I'm trying to find a similar tree---maybe that
one.
See?
The colors are becoming cooler, and all the way back here, again, cooler colors.
And, as I mentioned before, that will be the opposite during sunrise and sunset.
So, the cooler colors will be in front, and the warmer colors will be in the back.
So, things that are closer to us have more contrast, more detail, more saturation, and
are, usually, in the warmer colors.
While things that are farthest away from us have less contrast, less detail, less saturation,
and tend to be in the cooler colors.
Unless it's the sunrise or the sunset, where the cool colors will be in the front and the
warmer colors will be in the back, and I'm just going to press OK.
Atmospheric perspective is caused by density in the air.
Air can contain water particles, mist, smog, and many other things.
For the further away something is from you, the viewer, the denser the layer of air is
going to be between you and the object, therefore, making it harder to see.
Atmospheric perspective will be more intense if there are things in the air like fog, mist,
smoke, or smog.
You can see an example of this, here, in this area, where there is smoke coming out of this
building.
Notice how the air in this area is denser, and we start losing detail, saturation, and
contrast, much like we would, if we're looking far into the distance.
So, what we're going to do now is look at two examples of how we could composite objects
onto these scenes, and how we can use atmospheric perspective to make the composite more realistic.
First, we'll try to composite several castles onto this photo.
If you want to follow along, you can just download this file from my website PTCVids.com.
There should be a link to it right below the video.
So what we're going to do is we're going to work with this castle and I'm going to open
up this group, just so you can see what we have.
We have a background, which is this background here, and we have the castle.
And what we're going to do in this project is we want to place several different castles
on the edge of these cliffs, and we want to make them look realistic.
Now, as I mentioned before, we're not going to worry too much about scale, perspective,
and those things, only atmospheric perspective.
So, I'm going to click on the castle, have the Move Tool selected.
I'm going to Click and Drag, and put it up here.
I'm going to press Ctrl T, Command T on the Mac, to Transform, click on one of the corner
handles while holding Shift, and scale that into position, maybe, right about here.
Now, it might not be obvious to you, but right away, there's a big difference between the
castle and this area here.
There's already some mist in the air, so the contrast of the castle is much higher than
the rocks and grass that it's sitting on.
If you compare it to this area here, you'll see that there's more contrast.
One of the tricks that I like to use to make sure that things match is create a Black and
White Adjustment Layer.
So I'm going to do that.
I'm going to go into the Adjustment Layer icon, and click on Black and White, and it's
going to create this here.
I don't have to change any of the settings in the properties.
I'm just going to collapse that, and you'll see the castle.
I'm going to press the Z key in the keyboard to get the Zoom Tool, and I'm going to Zoom
In.
And I'm going to pan by holding the spacebar, and you'll notice that, right away, there's
a big difference between the castle and the background.
You can see that the darkest values of the castle do not match the darkest values of
the area that it is sitting on, so we have to match those.
As I mentioned before, the objects in the background start taking the color of the sky.
So, I'm going to Zoom Out and we're going to use the colors of the sky to match the
atmospheric perspective.
So I'm going to double click on the castle here, and bring up the Layer Style window,
and I'm going to click on Color Overlay, and we're going to change the color to the color
of the sky.
So, I'm just going to double click here, and just select the color of the sky, and it's
going to be this whitish color.
But, maybe, I want a little bit more color than that, so, maybe, some of the color here
that's got just a hint of blue; so, right up here.
I'm just going to press OK for now.
Obviously, that's not what we want, but I want to enable the Black and White Adjustment
Layer, again, and I want to Zoom In into this area, and I want to bring up the Color Overlay,
again.
Just double click, and then, Color Overlay, and Photoshop is going to open up this window
with the Color Overlay selected or ready.
Then, I can decrease the Opacity, and once I match the Luminance values of the castle,
and the area it's sitting on, we should be okay.
So, maybe, right about here, and notice that if this were a black and white image, then
the castle wouldn't stand out.
Things look like they fit.
So I'm just going to press OK.
I'm going to disable the Black and White Adjustment Layer and notice how things match.
I'll Zoom Out.
Now, I'm going to select the Move Tool, hold Alt, Option on the Mac, and, maybe, we want
the second castle right about here.
I'm going to scale that down, again, by holding Shift and clicking on one of the corner handles,
and then, moving it around and placing it in the right area.
I'm going to hold Z, tap to Zoom In, and, now, I can add more of that Color Overlay
to match the Luminance values.
This time, I'm not going to use the Black and White Adjustment Layer, and I'm just going
to give it just a little bit more Opacity on that Color Overlay, and then I'm going
to press OK.
And as you can see, the composite is looking more realistic because we're taking into account
the luminance values and the color of the sky.
And I can do one more here, but I'm not going to just to save a little bit more time.
I'm just going to do the one back here.
So I'm going to hold Alt, Option on the Mac, Click and Drag to Duplicate.
Scale that down, and use the arrow keys on the keyboard to place that accordingly, then
I'm going to Zoom In, and then, use the arrow keys once again just to find the right spot.
Double click on the Color Overlay here, increase the Opacity, and once the luminance values
match, just press OK.
Then I'm going to Zoom Out, and you can see now how the castles look like they belong.
Now, in this castle here, the color is not very accurate, so you don't have to stick
with the same color.
You can just select the color here, and just select the colors that are nearby, maybe,
white in this case, and then, just, maybe, even adjust it a little bit and something
like that.
I think that looks just a little bit better.
If we have yet another castle, way off into the distance here, maybe this one's an island
of some sort, maybe, like right over here, we would need to, essentially, make it almost
all white, because it's really, really far, and there's a lot of atmosphere between us
and that castle and that island there.
And, again, there's no real island here, I'm just using it as an example.
So, I could just increase that, and, maybe, leave it there.
So you can barely see the castle, press OK, and I'm going to Zoom Out, and now we have
these castles that look like they're actually in the scene, because we took atmospheric
perspective into account.
Now, as you notice with this castle, having the same color of the sky doesn't necessarily
always give you the best results.
Sometimes you get to find the right color to use as the atmospheric color.
So, I'm going to disable this group and I will enable this one here, which is the city
of Cholula.
I'm going to enable a tree.
So, now, we want to composite giant trees onto this city, and what I'm going to do first
is create my Black and White Adjustment Layer, just like it [00:11:54], and make sure that
my contrast matches the area where my tree is sitting.
I'm going to click on the Move Tool, click in, maybe, put this tree here, and at least,
to my eye, this tree seems matched.
So I'm going to hold Alt, Option on the Mac, Click and Drag, and, maybe, you want to put
a giant tree here, but I want to scale it down first.
And, maybe, this tree lives right about here, and what I'll do is I'll give it a Layer Mask,
and just mask out the bottom part of the tree, just because it might be sitting behind other
things that we can't really see the entire tree.
But the problem now is that it's too dark.
We need to lower down the contrast and the saturation, but if we select the color of
the sky, it's not going to work.
So, I'll do that just to show you.
I'm going to press Color Overlay, select the color of the sky, and now, if I bring down
the Opacity, it's really not going to work.
So in a situation like this, what you can do is find similar items in your scene, and
use that color as the atmosphere color.
In this case, we have other trees, so I can select the tree that is in the same area,
maybe, this one here.
Make that the Color Overlay, and try to make it match.
And if it doesn't work, you can select another color, like this one here.
Then use the Opacity Slider to match the Luminance values of the tree and the area that it's
sitting on.
And I can, also, maybe, scale it down a little bit more.
I think it might be a little too big, so I'd just bring it down and place it in the right
area.
Now, if we take this tree, and hold Alt, Option on the Mac, duplicate it yet, one more time,
and, maybe, we have one of those giant trees back here, and I'll use the arrow keys in
the keyboard to sort of place it in the right area, and I'm also going to Zoom In.
We, obviously, need to select a different color, so I'm going to click on Color Overlay,
click on the Color Picker, and I'm just going to find a color to help me match the tree,
so, maybe, this color right here, and play with the Opacity.
I'm actually going to place this like right about there.
And I'm going to Zoom Out, and I'm going to do one last tree.
So, I'm going to select that tree, hold Alt, Option on the Mac, like we've been doing,
and just duplicate that, and we're going to put this on top of this mountain, right up
here.
The farthest tree we're going to have is going to be one of these giant trees, and I'm going
to Zoom In, select the Color Overlay, and select the color of one of the trees that's
nearby, so, maybe, that tree there, and increase the Opacity, maybe, all the way up to 100%
at this point.
Press OK, and if I Zoom Out, you will see now that these trees look like they belong.
They don't necessarily look fake.
The only one that doesn't look too realistic is this one here, and that's mainly because
of the mask.
I didn't really do a good job of masking it, but in terms of atmospheric perspective, they've
all matched the scene.
Notice how this tree, way back in the background, really doesn't look out of place.
It looks like a giant tree, which is what it is supposed to be, but it looks like it
belongs.
If we would have let the same contrast, color and detail as, say for example, this tree,
it wouldn't look realistic at all.
Also, you don't have to use a Color Overlay Layer Style.
The technique really doesn't matter as long as you get the atmospheric perspective right.
And by getting the atmospheric perspective right, your compositions will always look
more realistic.
And that's it for this tutorial.
I hope that you enjoyed it and that you learned something new.
If you have any comments or questions, leave them down below.
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Thank you for watching and I'll talk to you again, soon.