Fantasy Landscape

Composite picture of three photographs.

As I was studying my “Photoshop Elements 10 - The Missing Manual” book I was wondering if I am able to create photo composite on my own. I had background already loaded since I was working in Lightroom 4 on some recent sunrise photos. Next question was: what do I add to make it interesting. Big orange Sun was nothing to sneeze at so I picked my favorite shot of Sun with transit of Venus. Now was the time to start working in PSE. I duplicated background as a layer mask and imported Sun with a layer mask. The resulting composite looked interesting but something was still missing. After browsing my catalog for ideas I came across a shot of flying Tundra Swans. Using a Magic Extractor I have separated one swan and erased the rest of the flock and the background sky.

Fantasy Landscape was done in under 10 minutes, thanks to this great book and Adobe videos on YouTube.

I remember when such a complex programs like Photoshop Elements with their huge learning curve would come with manuals going well over 1000 pages and weighing few pounds. These days, NOTHING, not even basic instructions.

Here are photos used in the landscape.

Screenshot of Levels in PSE10. Notice how the Sun was revealed in copy of background layer mask. The order in which the layers are stacked is all important.

Intermediate Landscape. Something is still missing here!