Step 5 - Add the painter and his shadow
What we are going to do here is we would be adding the painter who at the moment is painting. We would make him look like he is the one responsible for painting or creating the field images on the walls. Open the “painter” stock image, and then activate the Polygonal Lasso tool (L) and use that to select the painter against its background. When you’ve successfully selected the painter, move him by using the Move tool (V) to our canvas. Resize the painter stock image appropriately when it is in our canvas.
Let’s retouch the light hitting the painter and his overall shadow. First, let’s edit the Brightness/Contrast of the painter stock image to make it blend with our picture. From the Menu bar, click on Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast and input the following values:
- Brightness: 21
- Contrast: -32
Since our image has a low contrast, reducing the contrast and increasing the brightness of the painter stock image would make it blend in with the whole image. Activate the Dodge tool (O). We will be using this to brush light on specific areas.
Once it has been activated, let’s use it on the area shown on the image below:
Now activate the Burn tool (O) from the Dodge and Burn tool contextual menu. It’s time we added some dark areas to the painter stock image.
After that, let’s now create a layer for the shadow of the painter. Create a new layer (Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + N) and rename that layer to “painter’s shadow”. Remember to put this new layer under the “painter” layer. Then activate the Brush tool (B) and input the following values:
- Brush size: 60px
- Hardness: 0%
- Mode: normal
- Opacity: 15%
- Flow: 100%
Our image should now be similar to this:
Step 6 -Retouch the image
In this step, we would be editing the overall light, contrast and image tone of our photo. To get started let’s retouch the image’s brightness and contrast. Create a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer from the Create New Fill layer/ Adjustment layer button. When the box opens, input the following values, respectively:
- Brightness: 5
- Contrast: 15
Next, let’s add a Solid Color adjustment layer; input the following value on the “#” box.
- #: 00001c
Then change its Blending mode to Exclusion and its Opacity to 100%.
Create another Solid Color adjustment layer, and input the value below:
- #: 4f2c12
Then change its Blending mode to Soft Light and its Opacity to 30%.
Create a Gradient Map adjustment layer then pick the Black and White gradient (similar to Step 3). Change its Blending mode to Luminosity and set the Opacity to 50%. Finally, let’s edit the image tone. Let’s make the color temperature a little bit cooler. Create a Color Balance adjustment layer and input the following values, respectively:
- Color levels: -12, 5, 1
- Tone Balance: Midtones
- Preserve Luminosity: Checked
Step 7 - Sharpening and saving as PSD
Now that you have completed the image, we shall save it as a PSD file so we can edit the layers if the need may rise. Just click on File > Save as… and on the “Save as” box, you’d notice that the format is set to PSD which is the default Photoshop file. Just rename the image and click on OK. After that, go back to the image and you may now click on Flatten image. Once you’ve done that we will do a little sharpening. Go to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen and input the following values:
- Amount: 125%
- Radius: 1.0
- Remove: Gaussian Blur
- More Accurate: Checked
Now you may want to adjust the local contrast which can be achieved through the Unsharp mask. To do that go to Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp mask and input these values:
- Amount: 20%
- Radius: 50.0 px
- Threshold: 1 level
If the output is too strong, you may lower it down on the Opacity box.
Step 8 - Make the image look like a scene from a movie
In this step, we would be resizing the canvas to make the image look like it is a snapshot from a movie. To do that go to Image > Canvas size then when the box opens, change the unit of measurement, instead of inches which is the default, change it to pixels. Just click on inches and a drop-down menu would appear. We would need to increase the height of the canvas so change the default value which is 2480 pixels to 3508 pixels and change the Canvas Extension Color to Black; when you’re done just press OK.
Step 9 - Saving the file as a TIFF file and as a Jpeg file
After you’ve done the sharpening, you may flatten the image by right clicking on any layer and clicking Flatten Image. You may want to save it as a TIFF file first, from the Format drop-down menu. Saving it in TIFF format would allow you to do some quick changes to the image, like adjustment layers and fill layers without reducing its quality. You can view cracks in the image through the Histogram. Finally, save it as a .jpeg image and pick the highest quality which is 12.
Note: Over edited .Jpeg files would reduce the image’s quality, especially in print.
Final Results
