copy / paste

[pfhitching]

when copying people who have been selected from one photo onto a new layer with a different background, the people do not seem to be "grounded" even after using the merge all layers feature.  How to i make the people look as if they are grounded and not floating in the air?

[MikeFromMesa]

I have seen that as well, but sometimes I think it is really because I know that I moved the person and that he or she was not really in the photo before. It is more my knowledge that is at fault rather than anything having to do with the placement.

 

Of course it can also be because the size of the person moved doesn't match the surroundings or the light is not right or there is a problem with the shadow or a dozen other things but you might want to consider that the composite really is OK and it is only your knowledge of the move that is causing your concern.

[pfhitching]

thanks for help Mike, but it is not just me knowing people have been pasted into a different picture as a friend saw the family compostie that i had created and said, "why are the people above the ground?"!!

I have tried altering the size of people pasted in but it makes no difference they still seem to float,  There must be some way of grounding them.

 

Best wishes  Peter Hitching

[carl123]

Like Mike said it can be a number of reasons.  The best way to get better advice on something like this is to attach the picture in question

[MikeFromMesa]

Yes. Attaching the photo would help a lot.

[pfhitching]

I thought I had attached one but obviously not, sorry to be dim but how do you attach one? that is if you can't see the one I think I have attached.

The picture is of myself and my wife, selected and copied from one picture and pasted onto a different background with a new layer and then merged together.  I think we are still floating.

 

thanks for all your help, much appreciated

Peter Hitching

[MikeFromMesa]

I do see what you mean in this photo, although I am not sure I would have noticed if you had not said something to begin with.

 

I would try 2 things. First, the selection around the shoes seems a bit rough - perhaps you could try to smooth that out. Second, I would try to add a shadow to make the images seem rooted in the photo. As it is, with no shadow, even a small one, it might seem to some as though the people were not part of the original image. You could even add a small shadow at their feet since the direction of the sun is not clear, and that would help to disguise the rough selection around the shoes. Even a small pool of a shadow would help, I think.

 

Just some ideas.

[smadell]

I see two problems with the copy and paste, as you attached it above. First, the lighting on the couple doesn't match the ambient light. Second, the angle of the feet doesn't seem to match the angle of the patio - this makes my eyes tell me that they're not really standing on that surface. Oh, and there's always that nasty reflection of the exact same guy taking the picture! I don't think I can fix the angle of the feet, nor the reflected doppelganger. But, I tried to make a quick fix on the couple.

 

Understand that this is really rough, and that I'm certainly no expert.

 

The first thing I did was select the couple and put them on a separate layer. You probably already have this as a result of your paste. Then, I made a copy of that layer, filled it with 40% or so grey, and used the transform panel to skew it to look like a shadow. I applied a blur and dropped the opacity (to let the ground show through).

 

The couple is on the top layer. All of the adjustments (see the picture I've attached) were an attempt to make the lighting match. Among other things, I changed the white balance (made it a bit warmer) and decreased the brightness and the contrast.

 

I still don't like the feet, but that's out of my control.

 

[brunzenstein]

There is an excellent tutorial on Affinity's site to cover that problem -

with a monument placed in the landscape. 

 

I found it here for you: "Affinity Photo - Cutting Out"

: 

 

Especially the feet on your photo look like cut out with a scissor and glued - after looking at the video your family will look much smarter :-)

[pfhitching]

many thanks for all your replies, I am not too worried about appearing in the reflection of the window as I was aiming to add other family memebers who appeared at different times for Christmas, so the window will be covered up.  I will have a look at the video and learn some more, as you can probably tell I am new to this!

More trial and error needed.

Thanks for help - any other ideas gratefully received.

 

Peter Hitching

[carl123]

..............

 

 any other ideas gratefully received.

 

Peter Hitching

 

If you look at the edges of the couple in the picture you can see it is jaggy in places, like the lady's left arm and her hair.

 

A simple and quick trick to fix this is to select the Blur brush and using a small size brush just run the brush along the jaggy edges of the couple, which helps the image blend in to the background better.

[mac_heibu]

Definitely not perfect (because of lacking the original files), but good enough to demonstrate, that better cast shadows and a slight adjustment of the overall illumination will improve the integration of the couple into the image significantly!

[pfhitching]

plenty of ideas here for me to be getting on with, after the Christmas Decs and Lights are stored away.

Thanks

Peter Hitching

[furtonb]

Some more contact shadow under the feet should help against the floating feel as well.