I have been working on a brochure design for the Lancaster Archery Foundation and wanted an image that I could wrap around the front and back of the cover. However, this original image was not nearly as clean as I would like it to be, so I tossed it in Photoshop and began to clean it up. Below is the original image.
As you can see, there are a ton of tree branches, poles and wires throughout the background. The right side of the photo is on the front cover of the brochure so I definitely needed to remove the branches to the far right. Using various Photoshop tools such as the clone tool and patch tool, I was able to remove the clutter in the sky on the right side. On the left side, however, there was a bit too much to still keep the integrity of the coloring of the sky. I still roughly blended out the branches, but needed to find a stock image to replace the area behind the targets.
After searching for photos on Adobe Stock's website, I found the below image that I felt I could manipulate to work as part of the background. The perspective was similar and I wanted to keep the rural farm scene since the Foundation is in Lancaster, PA. While the color is way off from the original image, I knew I could adjust it so it will all work together.
I ended up only using the left part of this image, and in fact, I used it twice. The farm in the distance is shown in my composite, all the way to the single tree. I then actually flipped the image to complete the background behind the archer. I blended the sky so that it wouldn't be obvious that the photo has been reflected and used in two different parts of the composite. I carefully masked out the stock photos to blend with the background of the original image to create a seamless transition from the foreground and background.
After editing the colors in Camera Raw and using different curves layers, the pieces really began to work together. I also added a Gaussian blur to mimic the original photos depth of field. Of course, I had to clip out the targets in front of the new background, as well as the archer. I had to reconstruct some of the strings of the bow as well but creating shapes and blurring them to resemble the originals.
Once I felt that the images worked as a whole, I began to add some effects that were applied to the entire photo. I wanted to recreate the warm glow in the sky that is in the original image. I added a yellow oval, significantly blurred the shape, adjusted the opacity and adjusted the blend mode. I also added a photo filter layer to the composite to further tie the images and lighting together.
Overall I am very happy with how the Photoshop composite turned out, and am now able to implement it in my brochure design. Stay tuned for a future post on the final project!
