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redfivewritingby · 7 years

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A Game of Inches: Part 1 (A Hannigram Super Bowl AU)

Many thanks to @the-winnowing-wind, @confusedkayt and @cannibalhouse for being with me Sunday night as I slowly unraveled during the most insane Super Bowl ever. Of all time. Jesus Christ. Seriously. But by the grace of Fannibal magic, many hugs, and judgmental leopards did I not die of a heart attack during that fourth quarter.

As promised and witnessed by the football gods who saw fit to bless the Pats with the most absurd comeback in Super Bowl history, here is part one of my fourth quarter sacrificial offering: a Hannigram football AU lifted directly from the game. Some liberties were taken with the game clock, but both of these absurd plays actually happened Sunday night. Thus they shall be honored before we get to the victory smooches. Post game smut and riffing on the hilarity that is football commentary to come with such lines as “Wow! He saw that hole and certainly took advantage of it! What a tight fit!” Get excited, y’all.

Now, I am proud to introduce to you, your very own Baltimore Ravenstags, Hannibal fandom!

(Who maaaaaaaaaay or may not closely resemble another team elsewhere on the northeast coast. Mwhahaha.)

It had been a punishing three quarters, an apparent disaster to the naked eye. 9-28. The Minnesota Shrikes still leading. It was an unprecedented deficit to overcome on the largest stage of a player’s career, but the mood on the Ravenstags sideline was shockingly calm because of him…because that’s who he was. As bleak as the scoreboard looked, there was never any doubt who had controlled the time of possession in this game. If just a few more plays had gone their way, it would be an entirely different story right now. For the Ravenstags, it was a question of momentum.

Hannibal Lecter stood on the sideline glaring down the opposing offense with his hands on his hips and murder in his eyes. His jaw was relaxed and his shoulders loose like he didn’t care how much time was left. But Will, who knew the quarterback better and more intimately than anyone else on the team, could see the small signs of distress–the little chinks in the armor that could spell disaster for the team. Hannibal had ceased bothering with his sweat drenched bangs which fell into this eyes. The tilt of his hips also betrayed a slight favoring of his right leg, a reminder of the nearly career ending injury that had taken him out of the 2008 season. These things worried Will. The opposing defense would soon see them too, and next, Hannibal would begin seeing ghosts on his bad side. Errant passes into triple coverage would follow if the tone of the game didn’t change soon.

But Will had to disguise these feelings and bury his empathy on the sideline because when you were Hannibal Lecter’s knife there were as many eyes were on you as they were on him. It was an inevitability, and one that Will resented because it interfered with his ability to look after the man beneath the legacy.

The Shrikes called a timeout on a crucial third down to confer with their defensive coordinator. On the Ravenstag sideline, Coach Du Maurier slid up to Hannibal’s side and tugged on the sleeve of his jersey. They exchanged a few words and turned as one unit towards Will.

He swallowed as Hannibal beckoned him over with a hooked finger and an even more lopsided smile, which was never a good sign. Hannibal and Coach Du Maurier were cut from the same cloth: genius strategists with a flair for the dramatic. Their unorthodox play calling allowed them to dominate the League year after year. They had confounded defenses and analysts alike through four championship runs together and seven total Super Bowl appearances.

“What’s the angle?” Will asked because he could only assume that they were reaching into Bedelia Du Maurier’s infinite bag of tricks wearing smiles like that.

“Clarke Kent,” Coach answered eliciting a groan from Will. The situation was as desperate as all that? Yikes!

“Come now, Clarke,” Hannibal laughed and rested his hand on Will’s hip. “You flew so well the last time.” This was a ridiculously hammy way of referencing the now infamous trick play that made use of Will’s experience as a college quarterback at Kent State.

“I think you just want to wreck my QB rating, Lois.” Will gripped. “Mine is still at 100%. What’s yours again, grandpa? 97?”

Hannibal’s honey-colored eyes narrowed dangerously in response to his least favorite insult, but a sudden commotion on the field tore his attention away before Will could regret his choice of words. Their defense had stopped the Shrikes advance and now, it was ‘go time’.

“I’ll get us to the fifty! Be ready!” Hannibal shouted amidst the flurry of activity as the Ravenstags defense came off the field.

“Don’t screw this up, you twitchy little man.” Coach Du Maurier warned and pinched Will on the ass for good measure.

The Ravenstags switched to an uptempo offense with Hannibal calling the plays from the line of scrimmage instead of from a huddle in order to wear down the defense and save precious time. Hannibal diligently marched the team to the fifty yard line and called the risky play. “Clarke! Clarke! Fifty one is the mike!” he screamed signally to the offense where he saw a problem developing on the defense. Two seconds of nerve-wracking scrambling occurred on both sides of the line. It was a third down now. They only had one shot at this.

The snap was called. Will dropped back to catch the lateral pass from Hannibal.

Time slowed as it always did when he practiced this play. Being a receiver required a different mindset than that of a quarterback, but it was a mindset Will understood having been one himself in his youth. Will detached from himself. He detached from the defenders that were hurtling towards him. He detached from the hopelessness of their circumstances. To be a good quarterback you needed to create a reality where only you and the field existed. He went through his progressions and saw Jimmy gaining some separation from the cornerback that was assigned to him. Will stepped back, visualized the moment when the ball would leaves his hands, and threw it. His movements were instinctual because no matter how far he’d come in his career as a wide receiver there would always be some part of him that was still a quarterback. He’d never win any awards for aesthetics. He was not like Hannibal, but they understood each other. For both men, football was a blood sport, but Will’s ethos was about utility and lethality.

He watched the ball arc through the air with bated breath. It had a good spiral on it, and Hannibal would not be able to give him lecture on his throwing motion tonight. But downfield, Jimmy had fallen behind. The ball bounced off his fingers ending another fruitless offensive drive for the Ravenstags.

Will ripped off his helmet and spiked it onto the ground “Dammit!” he screamed and looked for Hannibal, but Hannibal had already left the field.

Dejectedly, Will picked up his equipment and trudged back to the sideline. Hannibal sat on a bench with his head bent over a tablet in conversation with Coach Du Maurier. Will’s standard place at Hannibal’s side was left open for him and he could think of no excuse to avoid it. Will plopped down, stared at his feet, and considered whether he should apologize or not for not being good enough. But he worried about the cameras. It would be disastrous to be picked up on the jumbo-tron groveling for approval from his lover. The rookies needed their generals to be strong.

Will grabbed a bottle of Gatorade from a passing waterboy and shifted on the bench so his knee touched Hannibal’s. ’I’m sorry,’ the gesture said when words could not be spoken.

Hannibal never broke character, but he widened the spread of his legs so that their thighs touched. ‘I know.’

A cheer went up when the Shrikes quarterback came onto the field at the moment Will felt at his lowest. Cheers that rightfully should belong to Hannibal in his opinion. At thirty-nine, Hannibal was a better player than he was a decade ago. A four time Super Bowl Champion; three time MVP; Hannibal had more wins than any other quarterback in history. But Hannibal was also Hannibal, and frankly, he was kind of a dick in addition to be entirely unrelatable being both an art snob and actual nobility.

‘I WILL do better,’ Will vowed. He looked up into the the bright stadium lights, and let the noise inside. The discordant melody filled him, and he transformed those cheers into anger. When he got up off the bench after another critical stop by the Ravenstags defense, Will Graham was ready to kill.

A penalty gave the Ravenstags a much needed first down, but Hannibal slowed the tempo to a crawl by calling the team to the huddle. It was a suspiciously cautious move with ten minutes left on the game clock. “Will, I want you to dart up the middle. Get out fast and get ahead quickly. If you draw double coverage, Z should have an opportunity on a outside.”

“I want the ball,” Will growled getting a laugh from the other ten men.

“You always want the ball,” Hannibal smiled. “Let Z have it this time, pet. Does everyone understand their assignments?”

Will glared at Zeller, the other slot receiver on the team, and gave him his best ‘don’t you dare drop it because I will murder you’ look. There was admittedly a bit of a rivalry between them since Zeller had tried to steal Will’s locker besides Hannibal’s during Zeller’s first season on the team.

“Adapt! Evolve! Become!” The team shouted as one to break up the huddle and affirm that they understood. The ball was snapped. Will ran his route flawlessly drawing three defenders instead of two but felt a prick at the nape of his neck alerting him to danger. Will looked over his shoulder and saw with horror that Zeller had gotten stuck in the box while the pocket of protection collapsed around Hannibal.

He saw Hannibal’s eyes searching desperately for an opening. This was it. This was the nightmare scenario. Will had only a second to adjust knowing full well what was coming next. Will twisted on the balls of his feet changing the direction of his forward progress. He dropped his right heel into the Astroturf at the exact moment Hannibal’s eyes locked onto his. Will pushed himself forward as the ball left Hannibal’s hands. He reached as far as his arms could stretch and felt the impact of three defenders crashing into him.

The ball was tipped by a defender before Will reached it. He knew with absolute certainty it would just miss his hands and fall instead into the outstretched arms of the safety for a devastating interception to end any chance the Ravenstags had of recovering this game. The emotional despair Will felt was more crushing than the physical weight bearing him down to ground, but the winds of fate suddenly shifted. Miraculously, the ball bounced off the ankle of Nicholas Boyle. It hovered in midair, six inches off the ground, and somehow, Will managed to get his hands beneath it before it touched the turf.

The instant Will had his hands on the pigskin, he reeled the ball into his chest and curled up around it at the bottom of a dog pile. The Shrikes grappled with him for the ball hoping to knock it out of his hands before he had full control of it, but Will held onto the rock as if his life depended on it.

His teammates eventually pulled him out from underneath the pile. There was hugging and shouting and signs of life on the Ravenstag offense. Will gave the ball to a lineman and risked a brief glance at the uprights not wanting to get his hopes up. Forty yards to go and another four downs to do it in. They still had a chance! Christ. The Ravenstags were a wink and a nod away from the red zone now after the most improbable catch of Will’s career. It just didn’t seem real.

“Will.”

Will turned towards the sound of the one voice he knew better than all others. Even at a whisper, Will could always pick out Hannibal’s voice above the roar of the stadium. His quarterback came towards him wearing a look of shock and reverie. It was a face Will loved to see in the privacy of a hotel room or their Baltimore home, but it was not appropriate now–not when they had everything to win!

Will ran at Hannibal at top speed and grabbed him by the face mask. “I told you!!! What did I tell you!?! Give me the damn ball, and I’ll bring the whole damn world to its knees for you!” he shouted into Hannibal’s face and brought their helmets crashing together.

Hannibal looked dazed at the receiving end of a Will Graham headbutt, and that served him right. Will had acquired the habit from him after all. The violence did its job, and brought Hannibal back into himself. Will saw the competitive fire reignite in his eyes, and his heart swelled with affection and pride for his quarterback.

“Let’s kill them all, Will.” Hannibal said. He pushed Will away and slapped him on the ass as Will trotted past.

Will raised his voice and howled with the thrill of the hunt. Adapt. Evolve. Become. That was the Ravenstag way. “Let the game begin!” we shouted defiantly at the deafening roar of the mob.

For context, here is what these two plays actually looked like in real life for anyone curious. Numbers 12 (Hannibal - Tom Brady) and 11 (Will - Julian Edelman) are the players you want to watch.

Clarke Kent: I wasn’t able to find video of it from last night’s game, but here, watch the time it actually worked. (It’s better this way :p) Edelman really is a former QB from Kent State. I don’t know what the actual play is called, but a pun seemed appropriate for our boys. This is also my favorite play in the Patriots’s playbook so I wanted to share. I’ve been writing “Edelman has to QB for various reasons” fic long before it ever happened in a game. Seeing it last night was just “AHHH! *hearteyes*” even if it didn’t work out as hoped for.

The Catch: JESUS H. CHRIST! Mother fucking triple coverage! I don’t know how he did it. In the game last night, the play came after the pats had closed the gap to 20-28, but I didn’t want this piece to get too long or technical for the non-sports fans.

Anyway, thanks for humoring me. Part two will be less sports ball and more fucking. I hope you enjoyed this presentation of the NFFL - National Fannibal Football League. ;-)

#hannibal #hannibal lecter #will graham #hannigram #hannibal AU #red five writes

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preciousmetals0 · 4 years

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Bitcoin Hits $10K, Coinbase Controversy, Buffet with Buffett: Hodler’s Digest, Feb. 3–9

Bitcoin Hits $10K, Coinbase Controversy, Buffet with Buffett: Hodler’s Digest, Feb. 3–9:

Coming every Sunday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.

Top Stories This Week

Bitcoin price hits $10,000 for the first time in 2020

U.S. Fed is exploring potential for digital currency, says board member

Mastercard CEO reveals why the company left Libra

Some Coinbase users can’t withdraw more than $10 in Bitcoin a day

Tron founder Justin Sun finally met with Warren Buffett for charity lunch

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $10,089.42, Ether at $227.87 and XRP at $0.28. The total market cap is at $287,790,964,403.

For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most Memorable Quotations

“I see more and more large accounts getting educated and set up to be accumulators of $BTC and believe on a risk-adjusted basis it’s the best place to bet on crypto.”

Mike Novogratz, venture capitalist

“It was really an honor, and I’m grateful for Mr. Buffett’s dinner, wisdom and vision.”

Justin Sun, Tron CEO

Anthony Pompliano, Morgan Creek Digital co-founder

Tom Lee, Fundstrat Global Advisors co-founder

“If you get paid in Libra […] which go into Calibras, which go back into pounds to buy rice, I don’t understand how that works.”

Ajay Banga, Mastercard CEO

Prediction of the Week

Bitcoin price may hit $27,000 all-time high by summer, predicts Tom Lee

FUD of the Week

Unknown number of major league baseball players lured into crypto Ponzi scheme

Report: North Korean hackers created realistic trading bot to steal money

Craig Wright accused of confusing trial proceedings

Best Cointelegraph Features

Crypto goes IPO — Ripple could lead the blockchain industry’s charge

As Joseph Birch explains, 2020 could be the year that crypto companies step forward and take the plunge into going public.

The Cointelegraph Top 100

Check out our list of the most important and influential people in the cryptocurrency and blockchain world, as chosen by Cointelegraph’s editors.

Alexander Vinnik claims injustice while now fighting charges in France

After 30 months in detention, alleged Bitcoin money launderer Alexander Vinnik has been extradited from Greece to France. Osato Avan-Nomayo takes a closer look at the case.

#Timor Invest

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pauldeckerus · 6 years

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Guest Blog: Educator & Photoshop Magician Bret Malley

LIFE IS A COMPOSITE

Hello everyone! For this guest blog post (thank you Scott and Brad for the wonderful invite to contribute!), folks are probably hoping to eek out some super slick tips and tricks about compositing, both for shooting and editing alike (and I’ll definitely deliver on those—I promise!).

But I also wanted to get a bit more philosophical about the nature of compositing and its greater possibilities and implications in my own life’s grand composite—and perhaps yours as well.

For those that could care less about the musings and meandering background of a super Photoshop wizard/nerd and just want the goods, feel free to jump down to the header “Five Tips for Shooting and Editing Composite Images” (you’re welcome :-)!

For everyone else feeling either a bit more curious, pensive, or similarly introspective, please read on!

Put Daddy Down, Please

Like creating any new image, I like to start at the beginning with sketches of the process and figure out some kind of endgame. So here we go with a medley of biography, discovery, and realization—but first, an overview!

Filtering and searching way way back, some of my earliest memories are of making art with computers—and after teaching Photoshop for over a decade at the university and college level (yes, big time-leap there!), and writing two books on compositing in Photoshop, I realize the lens through which I perceive the world and life in general has been forever altered. It’s helped me shape my own creative direction. As my (nearly) six year old son now describes his dreams to me in terms of Photoshop tools and features (and accurately I might add!), I see that my focus has even spilled (just a bit) onto my family as well (sorry, family!).

I also realize that I’ve always been a compositor in life—or at least a collector, editor, and creator in some form for nearly my entire 33 years of being. I also believe that we all are compositors to some extent, whether or not we realize it; after all, life is essentially one mega composite we piece together one experience, moment, scar, and laugh at a time… I know, deeeep, right?

But seriously, there is a lot to be said about having a creative career concept, a goal, and using the pieces you have at hand (some garbage and some pure gold)—and seeking out or creating the ones for the concept we’re after. Yes, this is one big “compositing is a box-of-chocolates” life metaphor/story (please excuse the metaphor merge here). So for those interested in going a bit deeper into these layers, here’s a bit of my own composited story… And no, it does not start with a floating feather picked up by Tom Hanks—but that was a pretty damn good composited intro for its time!

A Little Personal History Panel Scrolling way back again into my own childhood, I was doomed to be an artist from the onset. Starting with lining beans up into a perfectly (obsessively) straight line on some craft paper, my mother had me pegged at only a year or so of age. I believe her gardening journal for that day read something prophetic such as, “he’s definitely doomed to be an artist.” Okay, she probably did not use the word “doomed” but the realization was definitely meta tagged in there.

And while my mom was hobbit level earthy, my dad was equally Tron level nerdy as he ran his own “cutting-edge” computer business in the 80s. Dual custody between the two was like going back and forth from PC to Mac every week—blast you Ctrl vs Cmd!

However, when living with my dad on his week with me, I had access to gadgets such as those early scanners (the kind you had to hand roll over your images with) and the very first digital art applications. I discovered that when bored enough, there was definitely quite a bit you could do with nothing more than a pencil tool and paint bucket.

I was constantly inspired with the fantasy garden dreamland of my mom’s place and was jacked into the Grid at my dad’s. This all happened with a backdrop of living near Yosemite as my non-virtual backyard. This combination made for some interesting early digital art to say the least! Hidden metaphor tip in this—pick out an interesting background if you can.

Fantasy Landscape featuring some good old archived Yosemite imagery. Mac OS is not the only one that gets inspiration from this place!

Learn From Failure And Success Unfortunately though, my first memory of inspirational and creative failure hit deep (definitely a destructive edit). Apparently the local county fair art competition judges did not understand digital art of any kind (there was definitely no category for it in the early 90s). I suppose I can dismiss my “honorable mention” non-award award, in that I was perhaps a bit too ahead of my time as the crayon drawn house with a crappy looking rainbow took first place that year. Solid play on that kid’s part though—and it’s a good thing I’m still not bitter about it… because that would be one strange snapshot of childhood to travel around with waiting to use as a background to motivation.

Speaking of which, these are all literal (mental) pictures in my life I that have inserted into a number of life compositions and choices. Some imagery we just have with us, and it shapes what we can do with it, who we are, and where we’re going with the pieces. My mental archive to this day is my most cherished inspirational material. Sometimes for texture, narrative, concept, or adding some atmosphere—or revenge! Check out my composite from ten or so years ago (notice the house with a rainbow? Take that, first place-winner kid from childhood!).

Rainbow’s End, a fantasy composite of over 200 layers created from my own photography archive back in 2008.

Each Composite Has Its Strengths, Difficulties and Elements of Contrast Scroll down/forward a bit to an awesome artsy Waldorf school education and my dad tragically passing away when I was nine years old (yeah, that one sucked). Regardless of what the life experience is, both joy and drama can definitely add dimension to the composite—and this too had a hand in heavily shaping the direction of my ongoing layering and the direction I have since taken the composition.

From then on, it was entirely up to my mom to see my interests in digital arts continued and supported—and for that she essentially made sure we had a computer loaded with art programs (thank you, mom!) including an early version of Adobe Photoshop (version 2), and the rest was up to me.

An interesting counterpoint complication to this form of creativity was the influences of my school. A large part of the Waldorf School philosophy was/is to heavily discourage computer and screen-time use for children (even back then) of any kind, so I was always a bit of a closeted digital art nerd.

This snapshot of minor intrigue and juxtaposition came in handy though, at least creatively—I was a well supported digital rebel. And contrast is always a nice touch for just about any final image. So is community and family support for that matter.

To Create Is To Play By the time I was released into the public high school along with my friends, we all had computers (finally!), and we were soon killing each other on networked computer games of extreme violence and gore. But even then, I was somehow the ultimate class creative nerd, even in gaming—and would use my super art/design magic to create beautifully elaborate and intricate game levels to then brutally trap and murder my friends within (what are besties for after all?).

This was another technical direction to the development of my creativity—and my friends definitely paid the price with their avatar lives. I learned that like legos, building your vision is incredibly fun and rewarding. Imagination could be made tangible—and even playable. This is how I think of digital creative tools to this day. Only with less gore.

Experiment And Push Your Creativity To The Edge Throughout high school though, I never took an actual art class until darkroom photography (which blew my mind and forever changed my life—more on this soon) my final term of senior year. Even without any traditional art classes for four years of high school, I was misguidedly voted on by my peers as “Most Artistic” student of our class (which I bet confused the hell out of those art teachers I never met).

However, it was the photography class that truly had the most impact as I found a catalyst for my creative medium. Even back then, I began compositing, Jerry Uelsmann style, in the darkroom, combining everything I shot.

At 18 years old I took a trip to Europe with some close friends, and started scanning and compositing the resulting images in Photoshop before I really knew what compositing was. Experimenting a bit and pushing yourself creatively is an important goal for any big project.

As mentioned, taking that photography course opened my eyes to the pure magic of a new kind of image creation. It also most definitely made me wonder why I took band as an elective for all those years instead of photography (what was I thinking?!)… But then again I may never have met my wife as she was first chair clarinetist, so there is that.

In any case, I went on to UC Santa Cruz for a degree in Film and Digital Media, then immediately on to graduate school at Syracuse University for an MFA degree in Computer Art. This is where I took my self-taught Photoshop skills to another level and started winning awards and various features—and my first master class tutorial in Advanced Photoshop magazine.

That, unfortunately, gave me the first inkling that I could indeed write a book on the subject. This was also a great lesson that just because you could do something, does not mean you should—but that’s another story entirely! (Sorry for writing the book, family! And the second one too).

Advanced Photoshop Magazine Master Class tutorial on Fantasy Landscapes.

Refine Your Concept/Goals and Find Your Drive During graduate school I also directed and edited an award winning feature length documentary on Greenwashing (Greenwashers 2011). Oh, and I also used my minor in electronic music to co-score the feature film as well. For some reason this still gets screened internationally at various festivals and educational institutions (as the concept is still fairly relevant across the world).

This epic filmmaking experience is where the concept of compositing comes back into more relevance. Each of these mediums (for myself at least) are nearly indistinguishable from a creative standpoint. For documentary filmmaking, it is about collecting, gathering, imagining, pre-visualizing, then shaping, arranging, layering, building, and whittling to the core of the concept and balance of the story and composition. It’s a different dimension of the same processes as compositing in Photoshop. Same with music composition as well—you build, piece by piece, layer by layer, getting each element in the appropriate location, at the right level of intensity and emotion—everything needs to resonate and blend seamlessly, intentionally. In this layer of my life (well, more like a smart object, really), it awakened the realization of power behind the combination of intent and craft. Results were the results (obviously?).

Enjoy your Inspiration Moving to the Pacific NW, my wife and I soon had a son, Kellen (okay, my wife obviously did all of the real work on that part of creation some six years ago), and my world became both smaller and much much larger all at once. The only creative outlet and interest I really had was in raising my little super-dude, so this became a literal compositing theme in my Photoshop work.

We all use the tools and resources we have at hand, so I unabashedly drew my family into my creative obsessions. Out went any need for gaming, and in came a new level of digital play that was more addicting than any high score or Facebook like (though I have to say, those were nice as well). This realization paralleled my earlier theme of finding out that creating is play in itself as back when I created my own video game levels. Though in this creative play, the gore was definitely replaced with the stinky kind waiting to attack me hiding in some little guy’s diaper—and I definitely paid the price this time around.

Make The Plan, Pursue The Goal With most of my own imagery archived deep, ready to pull out when needed, the most recent elements I had to plan, pursue, and persistently capture at just the right angle, lighting, and timing. From national and international client work, teaching at universities and colleges full-time, in addition to teaching online with Craftsy, CreativeLive, and now with KelbyOne (yay!), these pieces don’t always just fall into place on their own, but take quite a bit of shooting and reshooting to get done right.

I wrote the first edition to Adobe Master Class; Advanced Compositing in Adobe Photoshop before I turned 30, then when that one sold out everywhere, I wrote the second edition (aka tortuous-rewrite/expansion) which just came out this last December. Super proud of this one, though I’m still not sure anything is worth that much slogging at three chapters a week (one new, two edits). Okay, done complaining about my feather.

Conclusion In general, and in case it was somehow missed, this entire story is a bit of a composite in itself, right? It more or less has just the pieces that I feel fit with the concept, creatively, professionally, and personally. Quite a lot has obviously been masked out in this story, but I think that’s the point of compositing in general. Concept to finish, usage of vignettes, paying attention to eye-flow, hierarchy, it all matters in how we move forward and finalize the idea behind it all. We all have choices as to what we bring to our subject and narrative—and how we can better blend the elements we’re perhaps stuck with and the ones we still need to go out and gather.

With proper planning, imagination, numerous fails, attempts and more attempts—and loads of creative drive and obsession, we all composite to some extent. Hopefully we like the results and have a load of fun along the way. For myself, I’m doing my best to think big and make the most of each element I have. My final concept? Have a magical adventure and make it a blast! Okay… that sounded a little bit like I want to take a trip to Disneyland, but I think (hope) you get the point.

And now, as promised, here are some actual relevant tips on shooting and compositing in Photoshop—enjoy!

Five Tips for Shooting and Editing Composite Images

For shooting in-frame composites (ones where all the material is in the same framing), lock down your camera and settings, and use either an intervalometer—or better yet, the wifi or bluetooth wireless tethering capabilities of your camera and phone/tablet app if it has it. Not only can you see and control the live image on your phone or tablet screen, but you can easily see exactly how to better position every single element and push your concept and pre-visualization to the next level.

Again, for in-frame compositing, select each piece you want to bring into the composite using the rectangular marquee tool (M) and give loads of room around each element you drag to select—then copy (Cmd+C/Ctrl+C) and use paste in place (Cmd+Shift+V/Ctrl+Shift+V) in your master composite file. This will paste the selected content exactly where it was copied from, leaving out the guesswork and the wasted time spent having to tediously move the element to properly match up with the background content. Mask as needed—you may not even need to use Select and Mask, and rather, just paint with a soft brush around the subject and edges of the copies (if there is nothing overlapping behind it).

Sometimes a single layer can be slightly too light, too dark, too warm, cool, etc. than the others (even those shot during the same shoot!)—use clipped adjustments when this happens. This tip is an obvious one for some, but if you are not yet using clipped adjustments, you are definitely missing out on the amazing potential to isolate adjustments from layer to layer without globally adjusting your composite from the top down. To clip an adjustment layer to affect a single layer, place the new adjustment (or any layer with an altered blending mode that you want to only affect the one below it) directly above the one you want to clip to; next, hold down Alt/Opt while you click directly between the two layers. Just before you click, you should see the mouse pointer change to a clipped icon indicating the hotspot for this killer feature. Adjustment layers also come pre-equipped with this capability in the form of a button at the bottom of the properties panel for the adjustment layer.

When shooting composites such as adding a subject to a completely different background (such as those shot in studio being transported to outside or a different location in general), don’t just match lighting direction and quality (this should be a given, hopefully ;-), but match both original background shot focal length (check the essential metadata in Bridge or Lightroom to see your settings) as well as frame position and distance of the subject to the camera. This will not only make your compositing SO much easier in post, but it will definitely make it look more believable as our eyes pick up on even small things that are off—even if we can’t exactly put our finger on it.

One trick I use to better color continuity in all composite scenarios is to desaturate all the various elements, then bring in your own color cast effects or filters—then increase the vibrance as a global adjustment (not saturation). For warmer tones, try something like a new solid fill layer that is a yellow-orange. Change its blending mode to Overlay and decrease the layer’s saturation to under 15%. This always adds some nice warmth to a composite without muddying the highlights like the Photo filter often does. Another thing to play around with is the Color Lookup adjustment layer as this adjustment has some quite interesting presets that you can toggle through much like phone photography app filters. You can always use the adjustment layer’s opacity slider to bring in however much you want or don’t want for the desired effect.

And with that, I will leave you all to ponder the meaning of your own composites, whether in the grand picture of life—or more literally within Photoshop. Either way, rock on!

You can see more of Bret’s work at BretMalley.com, check out his classes on KelbyOne, and keep up with him on Facebook and LinkedIn!

The post Guest Blog: Educator & Photoshop Magician Bret Malley appeared first on Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider.

from Photography News https://scottkelby.com/guest-blog-educator-photoshop-magician-bret-malley/

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