A tutorial to a composite image in ?Sin City? style. You will find below all the steps I did to achieve the results shown here All steps shown below do not require any special 3rd party filters or other gimmicks, just the built-in features delivered with Adobe Photoshop and an intermediate level of knowledge about using Adobe Photoshop. We start with the collection of the ?requisites? for our composition. We?ll use the shots as shown below: 2 shots from Porto, a bank house and the promenade near Pont Louis [extimg]http://www.xoverip.info/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/cc_bankhouse.jpg[/extimg] [extimg]http://www.xoverip.info/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/cc_promenade.jpg[/extimg] A Chevrolet Bel Air, shot taken in Bern, Switzerland [extimg]http://www.xoverip.info/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/cc_chevy.jpg[/extimg] and finaly, a shot of myself, taken in studio in a blue screen environment. [extimg]http://www.xoverip.info/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/vt_blue.jpg[/extimg] I wanted to have this composite big enough for a poster, so I choosed the canvas size of 40 x 60 cm at 300 dpi. As the next layer we drag the promenade shot and desaturate it [extimg]http://www.xoverip.info/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/promenade.jpg[/extimg] After that we drag the chevy on the left corner. Using a soft brush with 10% opacity and blending mode set to ?soft light? we paint the car lights of the chevy (painting with light). With strg+u we do a partial desaturation of the chevy layer app. 30%. [extimg]http://www.xoverip.info/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/chevy.jpg[/extimg] We switch back to the promenade layer and add a lens blur to simulate a DOF referring to the chevy in the foreground. I used 24%. Now we place the bank house and use the perspective function to match the perspective to the promenade. When this is done, we desaturate the layer completely using ?strg+shift+u?. Like shown above, we apply the lens blur to this layer as well. The background is almost done but it needs some correction. Using layer masks we "erase" the hard borders and edges to become a ?fluid surface? between the three layers. [extimg]http://www.xoverip.info/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/bankhouse.jpg[/extimg] In the next step we load the studio shot and remove the blue background color. After that we place the new layer on the composition [extimg]http://www.xoverip.info/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/vt.jpg[/extimg] We add a new layer with strg+shif+n and fill it with black color. Using a soft brush with 10% opacity and blending mode set to ?soft light? we paint some lines and then apply radial blur to the layer. [extimg]http://www.xoverip.info/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/cc_fog.jpg[/extimg] We have now created a kind of fogand apply the ?screen? blending mode to the layer. [extimg]http://www.xoverip.info/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/fog.jpg[/extimg] At this moment we add another layer and increase the lights of the car by painting with light. [extimg]http://www.xoverip.info/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/lights.jpg[/extimg] Now comes the most interesting part, the typicaly ?sin city? rain. We add a new layer and fill it with black color. Then change the blending mode to disolve. Using the motion blur filter, try to adjust the rain drops trails to your needs [extimg]http://www.xoverip.info/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/rain.jpg[/extimg] After applying the blur filter, change the blending mode of the layer to ?linear dodge. We add an additional layer draw some diagonal lines and process it like the fog layer mentioned above without applying the radial blur filter and set the blending mode to ?screen?. [extimg]http://www.xoverip.info/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/helicopter.jpg[/extimg] With these two layers we have now the rain and kinda helicopter lights [extimg]http://www.xoverip.info/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/cc_rain.jpg[/extimg] With a ?S? curves layer we increase the contrast and make the whole composition a bit darker [extimg]http://www.xoverip.info/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/darker.jpg[/extimg] As the last step I used a hue / saturation layer to give a slight blueish touch. Below you see the whole composition in photoshop with all the layers [extimg]http://www.xoverip.info/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/efsc_layers.jpg[/extimg] and the final image [extimg]http://www.xoverip.info/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/icy_finish.jpg[/extimg] I hope you can follow the steps easily and use the workflow to create your own ?Sin City? ideas. Your Feedback is very much appreciated. Thank You. A big "Thank You" to Mal for editorial reading. Have fun :-) Cheers VT

Hey Vernon!

Thx for this Tutorial.
A good look in your workflow and a creativ "kick".

cheers
André

Superb tutorial. I will attempt creating something like this myself some day.

Your bluescreen environment looks quite big - I guess you don't have that at home, do you? :)

/ Jacob

...an excellent tutorial Vernon...very many things to learn...thanks for sharing your knowledge...
...all the best...
Codrin

no, it is at our photo club studio :) (size 15 x 10 x 6 m)

Nice tutorial, I want see more tutorial here :)

Awesome workflow. I found out a lot of new things. Thanks a lot. I wish I could post a tutorial myself one day on OE.

Thanks.

Wow....i must try your tutorial...thank vernon

Great to see how others work - thanks for sharing!

Tim

Great! Thanks for sharing this. A lot of ideas popping up in my head ...

Very cool!
I will surely try it out..
Thanks a lot, Vernon :)

Thanks for sharing! Realy cool picture.

Vernon, this is a very cool tutorial. But, revealing my ignorance, can you explain in a touch more detail the making of the rain? For some reason I am missing a step or something when I try to follow your instructions above, and am not getting the "rain" when applying motion blur to the black layer in dissolve mode.
Thanks!

Ohh..this is great!! thanks for sharing, Vernon.

I realize this post is ages old, but in case the author is still watching - is there any benefit to using bluescreen instead of chroma? Just curious.

Great tutorial, love the image

Thanks for sharing!

great work........................

thanx for sharing......................

;o)

Ahaha, love it.

Thanks ,very informative

Brilliant!

Very cool!

Nice one. I'm looking for that topic. I'm a newbie here. Thanks for sharing about that.
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Awesome tutorial! Thanks for allowing us to look behind the curtain and get a peek into your digital darkroom.

Thanks for share. I will try it myself soon. :)

Many thanks for this interesting tutorial .... I'd like to do something like this :-) I'm going to work immediately ...

Wow... a very nice tut indeed!
I think it's always nice to see how others work... nice for inspiration. Thank you!

Vernon, this is really a really awesome tutorial. But, revealing my ignorance, can you clarify inside a touch much more detail the producing from the rain? For some cause I'm missing a action or some thing when I attempt to stick to your guidelines above, and am not obtaining the "rain" when applying motion blur towards the black layer in dissolve mode.

Thanks a lot!

sound nice