Thank you all for your help and comments. Here is the picture I was finally able to merger with two photographs in Photoshop Elements 15. My question, how can I improve this? I am thinking that the photo of me stands out too much against the snow covered background. Critique and suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
I appreciate any suggestions anyone can make on making this look better. Thank you all for your help.
One idea: The "color" of the snow is pink/purple, but face and scarf do not "match" that same tone. Can you adjust the color of one (or the other) photo first before you merge them?
Hi Henri, I'd suggest having a look at some of Scott Kelby's compositing videos. He has lots of neat tricks for balancing the colours between shots and so. To make a convincing composite you essentially need to balance the colour temperature, focus/depth of field, angle and noise levels of the shots. It can get quite involved but is a fun thing to learn.
Personally, I would try marching colors in the menu adjustments/color matching.
Besides a little feather (5 po) when cutting out your self portrait could also make you merge better with the background. You could also follow the borders of your selfie (in a separate layer) with a soft rubber with 25% (or less) opacity
I like the idea of the tone matching. The hat would be removed from your portrait easily with Topaz Labs Remask. If you are going to do lots of these kind of images then it would be well worth the purchase. I might have blurred the background a little to show depth of field. For a first attempt you have done a great job.
@houser934 Wow, Kathryn. That does make a lot of difference. I will definitely look into this more. I have so much to learn about this layering thing. I'm not really sure how I managed to get this one done. I never thought of adjusting the colors in the photo. Thanks for your suggestion.
@humphreyhippo Thank you. I will definitely have a look at Scott Kelby's compositing videos. I have so much to learn and I appreciate all the suggestions I am receiving.
@k1w1 Thank you for your ideas. I will look into this too. I don't know that I will do a lot of this, but I am thinking I may need some of the tips and tricks for the 52pom2018 challenge. So, I would like to learn more about PhotoShop just for my continuing learning challenge to myself.
@henrir I love Photoshop. It was a joy learning it and although I am not a super advanced user I have mastered many aspects of the program. I am happy to help and answer questions for you :)
@k1w1 Thank you so much. I have saved all the suggestions and have tried to get back to where I layered the pictures and have not gotten there again. But I was able to adjust the colors on the pictures. So there is that. I think I need to watch more videos of the step by step to understand.
If you are using the guided photo merge in Photoshop Elements, it will give you the option of auto adjusting the color to match them better. I find that it does a pretty good job at matching them.
@homeschoolmom that is Good to know. I intensified in this in expert (ha ha) mode. I now do know to work on matching the tones before nutty to merge them though. Thanks for this but of advice.
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Besides a little feather (5 po) when cutting out your self portrait could also make you merge better with the background. You could also follow the borders of your selfie (in a separate layer) with a soft rubber with 25% (or less) opacity