Clone Commanders

02a
Originally uploaded by gfrenkel78

Garrison Carida just did a run of trading cards and Wally asked me to edit this photo of him and Tom. I found this picture of tall prairie grass in Oklahoma and dropped them in. Using photoshop and the ever useful clone-tool I was able to make it look like they were actually standing in the grass.

Then I bumped the reds and yellows and dropped the blues to give the guys a warmer tone to match the environment. However, the light source still didn't match between the two photos. In the photo of the troops the light was from the front, while in the hills it was coming from behind. It looked all right, but not good enough.

I decided to add the blaster flash to create a believable frontal light source. On a separate layer I added the white, then used layer effects to add the blue glow around the flash. I duplicated this layer and added another outer glow of white, but with less of a range.

Next I used the paintbrush screen effect on a low flow setting and added some blue glow to the armor to fake the reflection of the flash. I'd say it came out pretty damn good, and I think Wally was pleased with the result.