affinity photo Completing my fanfiction composite - Creating a rain/storm Effect, adding a vehicle

[SolidSnake2003]

Here is a different composite I started working on:

Here is the base image: 

This is the base image of the ambulance used:

This is the the image used to change the license plate to a vintage 1980s Maine one:

I tried my best to match the look from the original movie:

[SolidSnake2003]

Hope it is ok I shared another composite I've been working on.

[SolidSnake2003]

Hope I have done a decent job on recreating a rain storm.

[SolidSnake2003]

I hope I did ok placing the ambulance in the image, and making it look like it is in the driveway.

[SolidSnake2003]

Should I add any lights to the ambulance or the house?

[SolidSnake2003]

Here is a new preview where I added more shadow underneath the ambulance and added a light to the porch:

[Gibinna]

I do like that the front porch light is on in it. it draws your eye there. 

[SolidSnake2003]

30 minutes ago, Gibinna said:

I do like that the front porch light is on in it. it draws your eye there. 

Thanks, should I add any lights on the ambulance?

[carl123]

On 8/13/2023 at 12:12 PM, SolidSnake2003 said:

I hope I did ok placing the ambulance in the image, and making it look like it is in the driveway.

You might want to consider straightening the ambulance, moving it so it is more central on the drive and making it a bit larger.

From what I can see in the original ambulance image it looks quite large compared to the man next to it (not that I have ever seen one in person)

 

1 hour ago, SolidSnake2003 said:

Thanks, should I add any lights on the ambulance?

In the original image the lights are on.

In your image the lights look a lot darker but at nighttime I would expect the lights to look brighter than in the day. So, yes, I would "add" some lights

 

Great work on the porch light by the way. it really emphasises that the photograph was taken in the evening

 

[SolidSnake2003]

2 minutes ago, carl123 said:

You might want to consider straightening the ambulance, moving it so it is more central on the drive and making it a bit larger.

From what I can see in the original ambulance image it looks quite large compared to the man next to it (not that I have ever seen one in person)

 

In the original image the lights are on.

In your image the lights look a lot darker but at nighttime I would expect the lights to look brighter than in the day. So, yes, I would "add" some lights

 

Great work on the porch light by the way. it really emphasises that the photograph was taken in the evening

 

The scene is actually happening during a thunderstorm/rain storm

[carl123]

24 minutes ago, SolidSnake2003 said:

The scene is actually happening during a thunderstorm/rain storm

I don't think that it is immediately apparent when looking at the image

If you have V2 there are some free Rain Overlays in your account that you can download. You may want to have a look at them to see if one of them can be manipulated to create an effect you like

Also, a bit of lightning tends to immediately convey a thunderstorm

 

[SolidSnake2003]

7 minutes ago, carl123 said:

I don't think that it is immediately apparent when looking at the image

If you have V2 there are some free Rain Overlays in your account that you can download. You may want to have a look at them to see if one of them can be manipulated to create an effect you like

Also, a bit of lightning tends to immediately convey a thunderstorm

 

I didn't know there were free rain overlays I could use. I used to use an older Photoshop, and still have Photoshop Elements for certain actions that aren't in Affinity Photo. I used the add noise and motion blur filters to create the rain I have in the composite.

[SolidSnake2003]

5 hours ago, carl123 said:

I don't think that it is immediately apparent when looking at the image

If you have V2 there are some free Rain Overlays in your account that you can download. You may want to have a look at them to see if one of them can be manipulated to create an effect you like

Also, a bit of lightning tends to immediately convey a thunderstorm

 

Here is an updated preview of the composite. I have straightened the ambulance, updated the rain layer to make it more pronounced, and added a copy of the ambulance set to hard light blend mode to start adding the lights:

[SolidSnake2003]

Here is a new preview of the composite. I have added a GSD on the front lawn and color corrected to match the brightness:

[SolidSnake2003]

Here is another preview where I have added some lightning using a brush I found for Photoshop:

[SolidSnake2003]

I hope I did ok on adding the lightning, and correcting the ambulance to be more aligned with the driveway.

[Gibinna]

I really liked what you did with the lightening in the version where it was not as bright. It draws attention to it, but not overly so and you get the understanding that it's a serious storm happening.  

I found a lot of "commercial use" rain overlay brushes on Creative Fabrica. None of them are free, but I did find one of them which said it has 80 overlays for .60 cents on sale. I don't know if that helps or not, but since I saw, it wanted to pass that info along. I don't know much about photoshop or how photoshop brushes work with Affinity and haven't gotten that far in my own journey, but if it's helpful to you awesome. 🙂

I think I like this darker one the best so far as far as the house, the lighted porch and the lightening goes. To me, the ligthening looks pretty realistic and isn't over done. And, given it's a dark day it looks like it's a natural part of the image with the subtle lighting around the lightening too. The ambulance isn't overly bright since it's a dark stormy day which seems okay, but the corrected version in the recent one makes it more ponounced and lighter, and I like that too. I like how you brightened up the lights to make it stand out more and bring attention to it, and the license plate which is now a lot more visible too. I actually didn't really notice the license plate as distinctly as it was darker in the first few, so lightening up the ambulance brought that out a lot more, and it's straightend out on the driveway also. 

The only thing I don't think really goes well, is the dog. He seems out of place somehow, but I can't specifically say what it is that seems off about it to me, but maybe it's just me. 

Either way, this is really impressive and you've put a lot of time and hours into it!      

[SolidSnake2003]

8 hours ago, Gibinna said:

I really liked what you did with the lightening in the version where it was not as bright. It draws attention to it, but not overly so and you get the understanding that it's a serious storm happening.  

I found a lot of "commercial use" rain overlay brushes on Creative Fabrica. None of them are free, but I did find one of them which said it has 80 overlays for .60 cents on sale. I don't know if that helps or not, but since I saw, it wanted to pass that info along. I don't know much about photoshop or how photoshop brushes work with Affinity and haven't gotten that far in my own journey, but if it's helpful to you awesome. 🙂

I think I like this darker one the best so far as far as the house, the lighted porch and the lightening goes. To me, the ligthening looks pretty realistic and isn't over done. And, given it's a dark day it looks like it's a natural part of the image with the subtle lighting around the lightening too. The ambulance isn't overly bright since it's a dark stormy day which seems okay, but the corrected version in the recent one makes it more ponounced and lighter, and I like that too. I like how you brightened up the lights to make it stand out more and bring attention to it, and the license plate which is now a lot more visible too. I actually didn't really notice the license plate as distinctly as it was darker in the first few, so lightening up the ambulance brought that out a lot more, and it's straightend out on the driveway also. 

The only thing I don't think really goes well, is the dog. He seems out of place somehow, but I can't specifically say what it is that seems off about it to me, but maybe it's just me. 

Either way, this is really impressive and you've put a lot of time and hours into it!      

Thanks for the advice, I have removed the dog, adjusted the lightning to make it more realistic, and blended out some of the edges to blend it in better:

 

The biggest part I'm trying to finish now is the lighting on the ambulance itself. I know there is a few red lights, blue lights, and regular lights. I'm not sure how to create the different colored versions for each light since the HSL adjustment doesn't have a colorize function

[SolidSnake2003]

Plus I'm unsure if I should extend the shadow of the ambulance and how far to stretch the lighting on the driveway.

[carl123]

38 minutes ago, SolidSnake2003 said:

Plus I'm unsure if I should extend the shadow of the ambulance and how far to stretch the lighting on the driveway.

The shadow looks fine but I'm not sure what you mean by... "and how far to stretch the lighting on the driveway."

Though, you might want to consider adding some lights to the house. It looks a bit strange having an ambulance in the driveway but no one at home in the house.

 

[SolidSnake2003]

9 hours ago, carl123 said:

The shadow looks fine but I'm not sure what you mean by... "and how far to stretch the lighting on the driveway."

Though, you might want to consider adding some lights to the house. It looks a bit strange having an ambulance in the driveway but no one at home in the house.

 

What I was meaning by stretching the lighting on the driveway is how much light from the different lights on the ambulance will be on the driveway. I hadn't gotten to adding lighting into the windows yet, but planned on doing so, and not sure if I wanted to try to find a background for any room.  But yes there is people in the house even after Georgie and his mother are in the ambulance. The biggest reason I didn't' think of adding a background inside of the ambulance is because the window was black and I thought that you couldn't see inside of it.

 

I will give the basic setup for the scene to provide full context for how it is being setup. This is like I said before with the other composite I have been working on is for a fanfiction based on Stephen King's IT. The fanfiction is primarily based on the movie, IT: Chapter One which came out on 2017, but takes more cues from the original novel by Stephen King as well as the 1990 made for TV mini-series with Tim Curry. So beware of minor spoilers for the IT story if you haven't seen either the 2 part movies, or the TV mini-series or read the original novel. I have also recast the actors that played the Denbrough parents cause there were very few scenes with them in either movie. I am also utilizing part of the 1990 mini-series into the story as well where the parent's and uncle's childhood in Derry is explored. I have also changed the house where the Denbroughs live. This is the house used in the movie: https://i.imgur.com/AmNNsEy.jpg There weren't many shots of the house used in the movies and it didn't look like there was much of a backyard, and there is no fence around it to keep Maggie in the yard. I picked the house from WandaVision cause it was also the house used in Christmas Vacation so it was around the 1980s and it looked more retro than the other one.

 

Spoiler

The story starts in October 1988 where Georgie Denbrough is playing with a paper boat made for him by his older brother who is sick with the flu. Georgie sails the boat down the rain filled streets where the boat falls into a storm drain where Georgie tries to find the boat, but ends up meeting Pennywise the Dancing Clown who attacks him. In the original story, he was killed when his arm is ripped off and he bleeds to death before he was found by a neighbor. In the first part of the movie he is dragged into the sewer, and declared missing. In my story Georgie doesn't lose his arm, instead it just nicked by claws, and he is saved by his uncle who lives in the house across the street from the drain(who is the one that found him in the book, I made him his uncle on his mother's side) as well as by a German Shepherd named Maggie who lives in the house next to the uncle who's owner just dies in her sleep. The uncle's wife is a nurse who wraps Georgie's arm to try to control the bleeding, they get him to the Denbrough house, call 911 for help with Georgie and the neighbor. The Denbroughs end up up adopting Maggie cause she saved Georgie's life, and because Georgie and Maggie form a special bond. The reason I added a dog is cause according the original novel, Pennywise is a shapeshifting alien that the kids of the novel simply refer to as IT. IT came to our planet billions of years in the spot that eventually becomes Derry, Maine where the story takes place. IT had to wait until humans came before it could feed. I figured it had to be because animals could see through it's disguises and that dogs protect their family no matter the danger. Plus I picked a GSD because they are very protective of their family.

 

[SolidSnake2003]

19 hours ago, carl123 said:

The shadow looks fine but I'm not sure what you mean by... "and how far to stretch the lighting on the driveway."

Though, you might want to consider adding some lights to the house. It looks a bit strange having an ambulance in the driveway but no one at home in the house.

 

How did you create the brighter parts of the clouds to create the lightning effect?

[carl123]

Smoke & Mirrors:

I replaced the sky on the original image with a new one (shown below). I just used the bottom part of it

Then I placed a lightning bolt (from an online png file) at an appropriate position, which just makes it look like it lit up the clouds in that area

 

[SolidSnake2003]

27 minutes ago, carl123 said:

Smoke & Mirrors:

I replaced the sky on the original image with a new one (shown below). I just used the bottom part of it

Then I placed a lightning bolt (from an online png file) at an appropriate position, which just makes it look like it lit up the clouds in that area

 

Here is an updated preview where I switched out the clouds with an image of cloud to cloud lightning and turned off the overall coloring to redo it so everything flows more:

[carl123]

On 8/19/2023 at 1:02 AM, SolidSnake2003 said:

The biggest reason I didn't' think of adding a background inside of the ambulance is because the window was black and I thought that you couldn't see inside of it.

You could try opening the doors to the ambulance and then placing Georgie and his mother inside the ambulance

PS It had stopped raining whilst I was doing this, hence the lack of rain at the moment.