Layer (1) I shot the foreground by placing a photo on top of a wooden cupboard and shooting a shallow depth of field image using my 16-35.
Layer (2) I shot the main image using my 70-200 and 2x converter at Castle Howard at a power boat race. It was set against some trees in the background, which made the water spray stand out.
Layer (3) The last shot was another powerboat race image that I nearly used for the main image, but for which I had already masked out the water well - I used the extra spray to create extra drama in my shot.
I tried post processing this shot several different ways. Ultimately, it was easiest to expose an underexposed version of layers (2) and (3) from RAW, on which I could use the magic wand to make a good selection of the water spray. I applied the selection to make a layer mask. I applied the layer mask to a properly exposed version of the image (in fact, an HDR version of the image) to mask the background.
I created a black rectangle on a new layer and used transform to make it match the shape of the photo in layer (1) that I wanted to replace. I used magic wand to create a selection, and then I used the selection as a guide to tidy up the layer mask in layer (2) to show the foreground water.
I took the water spray from layer (3) and used it to add extra spray in several places (using transform to change its shape and size for different areas, and blurred versions to add background spray to add to the shallow DoF look that I wanted).
I experimented with different levels of opacity in the layer mask to allow some of the background through. I did this selectively by using light strokes in the layer mask affecting layer (2).
I applied some light blurring to the foreground of layer (2) to match the DoF of layer (1).
Flattened, resized, sharpened at various levels in various layers, flattened, saved for web.
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Place: 76 out of 573 Avg (all users): 6.3547 Avg (commenters): 7.3125 Avg (participants): 6.2602 Avg (non-participants): 6.5918 Views since voting: 1448 Views during voting: 413 Votes: 172 Comments: 23 Favorites: 5 (view)
This is such a cool idea and nicely done - might like to see it with the action taking up a bit more real estate in the overall composition next time. My first thought was "I want to learn how to do this!" :D
Excellent photoshop skills - no doubt about that. But IMO it's an example of creating an effect just for the sake of that - and not to enhance the picture in any way. Others might look at it differently (and I'm sure a lot of others do), but to me this is just a show-off case and not worth more than a 5.
The type of picture I wish I could do... I think the powerboating scene alone would have been enough but you've given it that extra dimension that works really well here. Kudos.
I love the concept, and it's well executed. I am not so sure that the woodgrain backdrop is the best choice here, to me it looks sort of out of place. Just my opinion though :) ~8
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