How To Make a Photo Montage Page ~ Enhance Photography Skill

The wonders of modern technology have demystified the process of creating a photo montage. Now, from the comfort of your desktop, you can create realistic art from your photographs. A montage is a great way to combine two photographs for an interesting narrative. In this tutorial, you will blend several photos together using tricks in Adobe Photoshop. You will also learn how to create unified lighting when using multiple photos.

Instructions

Open Photoshop and create a new, transparent image, sized 1024 by 768.

Open the image that you'd like to add by going to File and selecting Open. This tutorial uses a forest image, available in the links section. Next, select the Window menu bar and go to Arrange, and then Tile to equally arrange all the opened images. Drag the image into the new file you just created. Resize each image by going to Edit on the menu bar, then Transform, then Scale. Click on the Maintain Ratio Aspect icon to keep images from distorting.

Repeat for the process for the boy image, also available in the links section.

Lock the two bottom layers (Layer 1 and Layer 2) by clicking on the lock icon on the Layers palette. Select the Eraser tool from the tool bar, and start erasing around the boy image.

Select the Lasso tool from the tool bar, and begin to slowly outline the image of the boy. It may be easier if you zoom in to 300% or more and hide the forest layer. Press the "Delete" key on your keyboard to erase the unwanted parts of the image.

Select Levels from the Fill/Adjustment icon in the Layers box, and input the following into the RGB Channel: 64 1.00 225.

Return to Levels and select Color Balance. Input the following color levels: +19 +86 +6 in midtones; +43 -18 -23 in highlights; 0 +54 0 in shadows.

Right-click on the layer and select Gradient Blending, then choose Drop Shadow.

Open all the vegetable images, then transfer them over to the main image.

Create a folder in the Layers box by selecting the Folder icon. Move all vegetable images into the folder. Next, move the folder under the boy layer.

Click on the first vegetable layer. Go to Blending Options, and add a Drop Shadow, Inner Shadow, and Inner Glow. Change the Blending Mode in Inner Glow to Color Dodge. Click Okay. Right-click again, and select Copy Layer Style. Next, right-click on each vegetable layer and select Paste Layer Style.

Liquify the asparagus. Go to the asparagus layer, select Filter from the menu bar and choose Liquify. Using the Pucker and Twirl Clockwise tools, distort the asparagus so that it looks like an ominous and spooky character.

Duplicate each vegetable layer. On the copies, which should be on top of their originals, create a Gaussian blur effect. Do this by going to Filter, selecting Blur, and then Gaussian Blur. Change the radius to 6.1 px. Next, in the Layers box, select Color Burn. Repeat for each vegetable layer.

Return to the boy layer, and add a Drop Shadow in the Blending Options. Change the Drop Shadow Blend Mode to Normal, and the distance to 4 px, spread to 20% and size to 59 px.

Merge all the vegetable layers together. Hide all of the other layers by clicking on the eyeball icon in the Layers palette, so that only the vegetable layers are visible. Next, go to Layer and select Merge Visible.

Right-click on the newly merged vegetable layer and select Blending Options. Select Drop Shadow, Inner Shadow, and Bevel.

Create a new layer, and draw faces over the vegetables, adding an animated quality to the work. Select Blending Options, then select Drop Shadow and Inner Shadow.

Save your work. You're done!