UNDER THE SEA!
PART ONE:BUILD THE ENVIRONMENTUsually, when I begin an image, I will deal with the main subject first and let its development inform how the background will look. However, being underwater is a far more alien environment in terms of the way light, shadow and form behave, so it's often best to create the majority of the background first and place your main subject in later. That way, you can work your subject into the scene in a more natural fashion as it reacts to an existing environment..[Edited by User on 6/22/2011 4:09:41 PM]
To create the main background image I blended two sources and painted the rest of the water on various layers on top of them. Don't be put off by the painting part - it isn't difficult, and with a little practice becomes seamless.First, I took a suitable photograph of a road and applied a gradient mask to fade away the unwanted top details gradually. This was to begin the idea of the underwater light darkening with distance - visibility underwater is nowhere near as good as on land.
[Edited by User on 6/22/2011 3:28:34 PM]
Next, I did the same with the top image. A gradient mask applied to the bottom part fades away unnecessary detail and suggests depth and distance. To both these photographs I applied a fair amount of desaturation:IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > HUE / SATURATION, removing most of the colour. Again, this was done to simulate the dampening effect of water on colour vibrancy.Looking at both source images I played around with the colour balance: IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > COLOUR BALANCE, introducing similar amounts of Cyan and Blue to make them appear part of the same scene.
[Edited by User on 6/22/2011 3:30:55 PM]
This left me with some nasty problems to solve - mainly, the great big expanse of white space in the middle of the image. Also looking at the top image, I can see some leftover rock formations that fade to nothing, but would be obvious errors in the final image. These problems were solved by creating three new layers between the two sources - "Water Tone", and "Right / Left Pillar Shade".Using a soft brush set to MULTIPLY, AIRBRUSH and varying opacities from 20% to 45%, I selected the colours from the source image (to ensure continuity) and gently paint in the blank white area. Because the sources have gradient masks applied, with a little care the blend begins to look fairly seamless. You can begin to introduce varing colours here to suggest the path of light through the water, too.
[Edited by User on 6/22/2011 3:38:08 PM]
That still left the problem of the rock formations. To deal with them, I used the PEN TOOL to define the shape I thought they might naturally take if we could see them properly. I made the Pen Path a selection and then used a slightly darker colour with the same settings as before and filled in the shapes. It works, because the shapes only need to be barely visible and in the distance. These layers are the Left and Right "Pillar Shades".
[Edited by User on 6/22/2011 3:42:33 PM]
To finish the basic environment, I add a few more layers above the main ones experimenting with adding light and shade, painting very gently with the brush set to low opacity and LINEAR DODGE mode for light, MULTIPLY for dark. I also tie things up a little with a Level Adjustment layer to intensify the dark / light contrast of the overall background.Looking at the road layer, I felt it was still a little too 'above the surface', so I applied a very subtle OCEAN RIPPLE filter to it. Be very careful using filters - go even slightly too far with them and it will ruin the look of your finished work.
[Edited by User on 6/22/2011 3:47:00 PM]
PART TWO(SUB) MERGING THE SUBJECTFirst, I selected my skater source and created a mask around him. It's worth taking some time over this, as how carefully you mask your subject has a large say in how realistic your final result is. I also reduced his saturation and played around with the colour balance, as I did with the background.
[Edited by User on 6/22/2011 3:49:13 PM]
I copied the skater's mask onto a new layer BELOW the main skater source, then and selected a mid range blue colour from the background. With the new blank layer highlighted, I went to:EDIT > FILL > FOREGROUND COLOUR > NORMAL BLENDING.. Because this layer also has the Skater Mask applied the Fill will form a sort of blue silhouette, underneath the skater, which is an exact duplicate of his shape, defined by the mask.
I go back and highlight the main skater layer. Using a soft brush set to about 30% black (but varying as I go), I paint ONTO THE LAYER MASK. This has the effect of masking more of the actual skater and making him 30% opaque wherever I paint, allowing the blue layer underneath to show through. I vary the opacity of the black as I go, giving different intensity to the blue tone.
[Edited by User on 6/22/2011 5:51:09 PM]
Once the skater is blue toned, I highlighted him (not the mask) and gently paint in some light and shadows using LINEAR DODGE (very light blue) and MULTIPLY (dark blue), low opacity soft brushes.Next, on another layer above the two skater layers, once I again I copied the mask. On this empty layer, I select a SCATTER TIPPED BRUSH, and set it to a very large size, LINEAR DODGE (40% white); then go wild painting light dapples, as if some light from the surface is rippling onto his skin. I go back to a soft edged 100% black brush and selectively remove some light, until I'm happy it looks good. As a tip - the closer you get to the surface of the water, the sharper the effect of light ripples on a surface. (Check out the light on the walrus in the background as a comparison.) The skater is deep down, so the light on him is diffuse and blurry. I add a Gaussian blur to this layer to finish it off.
[Edited by User on 6/22/2011 4:00:31 PM]
At this point, I felt the masks and layers on the skater were getting a bit much to deal with, so I SAVED ANOTHER VERSION of the file. It's very important to do this as you work! I copied the mask again onto a hidden layer as a backup, then selected all the active skater layers and merged them together, losing the masks in the process. Next I copied the hidden mask back onto the active layer.Doing this means all the effects I applied before are now applied to a single layer. It's much easier to work with when dealing with multiple layers; but be sure you keep duplicates in case you need to revise something later.
The skater looked good, but too sharp-edged at this point, so I tightened his mask by highlighting it, then using a Levels adjustment and pulling the black level down to about midpoint. Then, I applied a 2pixel Gaussian Blur to the mask, softening all the skater's edges. This also has the effect of letting some of the background colour spread onto the edges of the skater figure, and ties him in nicely to the background.
[Edited by User on 6/22/2011 4:03:33 PM]
FINISHING TOUCHES1. Details really add to your finished work, and reward the viewer for taking a longer look at the image. So I added little horseshoe crabs and starfish using similar methods as described above, and added shadows under all the subjects using a very soft MULTIPLY 30% black brush on another layer, then gave the shadow layer some blurring, too.2. The bubbles are created by using a custom bubble brush (freely available from many internet sites like BRUSHEEZY.COM), on yet another layer. This time I set the layer itself to overlay mode, and the brush to a very high scatter and size changing ratio. It's all down to experimenting with the brush to get a natural result.3. Light beams and water shadows coming down from the surface were created by creating adjustment levels with extreme, unrealistic values applied; masking them, inverting the mask, then gently painting with white onto the mask to allow some of the intensity to show through. This method of working with light is explained in great detail in BPKelsey's fantastic tutorial HOW TO LIGHT A GIANT ELEPHANT. Remember, the water itself will retain some darkening of form, as well as underwater surfaces.4. For added realism, I paint in some loose, floaty strands of the skater's hair using a very small soft brush, sampling colours from the hair as I go. I soften, twist and pull them using the BLUR TOOL.5. Finally, a great way of pulling all the varying elements together is to make a final PHOTO FILTER layer above all the others, which applies a uniform colour temperature to the entire image. I set this one to UNDERWATER, 20%.
And that's it - good luck with your own submerged worlds![Edited by User on 6/22/2011 4:07:59 PM]