Puting a Shark in Tim's Pool

[kurthzone]

For any who are interested, here are the steps taken to put a shark in Tim's pool:

1] First I looked for an appropriate shark with a google image search, one that was a suitable looking species, believable perspective, man-eater attitude and resolution that would reduce nicely in the pool. There were certain details on the shark I chose that I knew wouldn't be too much problem because I was reducing quite a bit, the curled mouth from hook and line tugging up. This was actually a shark that was being pulled up to a boat and although it was not a Great White it seemed threatening enough.

2] I copied and pasted the shark into the JPEG of Tim's pool which created a PSD file and layer with the shark on it. Then I clipped the shark at a much larger size than the final using the eraser tool in airbrush mode with some fade and transparency set to keep edges smooth when reduced. Using the transform function I then reduced the shark to a size relative to the pool. Next I switched the layer setting from normal to multiply. This allowed the reflective highlights and shadows cast in the water to show up on the shark.

3] At this point I added two adjustment layers, "curves" and "color balance" and selected the previous layer as a clipping mask for each. The curves adjustment was made at the shadow level up to make the shark lighter and the color balance adjustment was was made at the midtone to get the shark more in line with the blue hue of the pool and still retain some silver undercoat of its own.

4] Once I was confident that the shark layer was the size and color I wanted, I made two copies and turned them off until I was ready to use them later on for the shadow and fin. Zoomed-in and using the eraser tool with anti-aliasing turned on I clipped the skimmer hose area over the shark so he would appear to be under the hose.

5] At this pointe I turned off all layers except the copy of the shark layer for the shadow. Using the magic wand tool I selected all of the non-shark area in the layer and inverted it so the shark became the selection. I then filled this area with a color I had sampled from the shadow of the side of the pool. Then I gave the shadow a gaussian blur with edges relatively the same as the shadows of the hose and sides of the pool. Since all layers were multiplied to retain the watery look it was necessary to clip the shadow away from the shark otherwise the shark would look transparent. Also used an adjustment layer here with clipping mask to lighten the shadow a little. Also added a little transparency to this layer.

6] I turned on the shark layer and the layer for the fin only. With the fin layer aligned with and on top of the shark layer I cut away from the water line down giving the appearance of the fin sticking out of the water. This layer is set to normal not multiply and I made a slight lightening adjustment with a curves layer and clipping mask.

7] One last problem to solve, the shadow of the hose and the shark were distinct and in reality any layered objects will cast a unified shadow. So I selected the shark shadow layer and using the cloning tool I defined a source point near the edge and about where the hose shadow was. Then I selected the pool layer and cloned the area where the hose shadow came across the shark shadow.

8] I saved a copy as a JPEG and optimized in Image-Ready for quick loading web use.

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;o)>

[GTG]

I knew that was a fake! I just knew it!

GTG
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Good things come to those who walk.

[Davis2001R6]

[desertgirl]

Very cool - Thanks for sharing
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Photos: http://www.pbase.com/desertgirl/galleries
Life is but a dream ...there is no end to what you can dream!