I don’t like the typical compositing practice of selecting and cutting an image out and pasting it into a background. You loose hair (on the subject…mostly) and it takes far more editing to make the subject look like they belong in that background. There is a place for that and with the right skills and time you can get some good looks from it.

Now for how “I” like to do it.

The samples on the left are the before and after. In the video below I start with this top image except, to save time, I have edited the model with smoothing skin and dodge and burn.

Then I picked a background, just the simple streamed colored lights. After the video I added yet another background to put some mountains in the background. Same process exactly.

Then I mask the top layer where she is and then set the brush color to a light gray. Most associate making with black and white brushes. I’ve found a great number of cool things can be done masking with a brush that is some intensity of gray instead.

Now, I don’t feel compositing needs to be painstakingly exact. I let backgrounds spill over on the subjects often. I always keep in mind it’s art and just for fun. You can season that any way you like. Remember you have the mixer brush to blend out anything that you might find later that bled over.

Check out the video. And try some of your own. Just remember… To really get good at something you have to fail at it a lot. It’s the process. Play, start over, and get that needed experience.

Some wonderful, and free, background can be found at:

Pixabay and Pexels and Dreamstime