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404 CHAPTER 10 ADVANCED COMPOSITING Figure 10-32. A pattern in Grain merge mode adds extra texture to an image. Stacking Images Have you ever marveled at a space shot, like the ones from the Hubble Space Telescope? Did you know that the raw images straight from the camera are hardly ever that good? Astrophotography is one area where image compositing is an essential tool. Professional observatories, NASA, and amateurs in their backyards all use a set of related techniques known collectively as stacking. The first image stacks were just that: photographic negatives or slides stacked directly on top of each other. When these stacks were viewed on a light table, or printed, the result was a photograph with much higher contrast. With stacking, details that weren t visible in any single original became easy to see. Of course, today, stacking is usually done by computer. Stacking multiple images of the same object is very similar to the self-compositing you ve already used earlier in this chapter. But compositing several different but similar images is better than self-compositing in many cases, as you ll see. Sometimes astronomers get carried away with stacking. The famous Hubble Deep Field photo captured more than 1,500 distant galaxies in a tiny patch of sky 1/30th the diameter of the full moon. The Deep Field project shot 342 images over 10 consecutive days, and used 276 of them in the end. Of course, the Hubble team uses much more complex stacking methods than simple layer modes. But many of the basic principles are the same.
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CHAPTER 10 ADVANCED COMPOSITING 403 Figure 10-31. Burn mode can combine a sky or other light, colored area with another image for an interesting effect. Using Grain Merge to Add Texture To add texture to a photograph, use the photo as the lower layer, and fill the upper layer with a tileable pattern, or noise created using Grain extract. For instance, using the GIMP s built-in pattern named Crack as the upper layer in Grain merge mode, on top of the sailboats, gives the result shown in Figure 10-32. As always, when dealing with layer modes, the results of any particular combination tend to be unpredictable. These examples can point you in the right general direction, but experimentation will often give surprising results. You can duplicate layers and use multiple modes with varying degrees of opacity to create almost anything. It s fun and easy to try several options, and it s almost always rewarding.
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402 CHAPTER 10 ADVANCED COMPOSITING Figure 10-29. Difference adds color to the previously dark areas of the mask. Making Eerie Colors with Burn When the background picture has very distinct darker and lighter areas, like the tree silhouettes in Figure 10-30, it can seem to turn into a mask when Burn mode is used (Figure 10-31). In this case, the trees blot out the strange rock formation, but the lighter sky alters its colors to appear otherworldly. You ve probably seen effects like this used to illustrate science-fiction book covers. Figure 10-30. Burn works best when one image has distinct light and dark areas.
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CHAPTER 10 ADVANCED COMPOSITING 401 Figure 10-27. The gull s light and dark areas can make a mask for the building. Figure 10-28. Use Subtract mode to make a mask for another image. Difference will give a slightly different and weirder effect, turning the dark colors into a different color (Figure 10-29).
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400 CHAPTER 10 ADVANCED COMPOSITING Figure 10-25. It s hard to see how these could relate. Figure 10-26. Addition mode can combine dark areas of two images. Using Subtract to Make a Cut-out Mask Subtract usually inverts dark and light on the layer being subtracted. You can use it to take an image that has light and dark areas, such as the gull in Figure 10-27, and make a mask for another image, as shown in Figure 10-28.
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CHAPTER 10 ADVANCED COMPOSITING 399 Using Screen to Get a Lighter Effect Screen, too, is a useful tool for combining images but it has a very different effect. Screen brightens the image, so instead of ghostly, looming figures, the brighter image will stand out (Figure 10-24). Figure 10-24. Sailboats in front, in Screen mode; Shiprock in back Using Addition to Complement Light and Dark Addition mode can be useful when you have two dark images that might work together, or two images with complementary light and dark areas (one is light where the other is dark), such as in Figure 10-25. Combining them in Addition mode gives the result in Figure 10-26.
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398 CHAPTER 10 ADVANCED COMPOSITING Figure 10-22. Unrelated images: Shiprock, New Mexico, plus real sailboats But sometimes you might not mind ghostly images. For instance, the ghostly sailboats in front of dark, looming Shiprock give a nice effect (Figure 10-23). Figure 10-23. Overlay tends to make dark images, creating a moody effect.
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CHAPTER 10 ADVANCED COMPOSITING 397 Figure 10-20. Two unrelated images to be composited Figure 10-21. Combine the two unrelated images with Soft light. Using Overlay for Dark Images Overlay has an effect quite similar to Soft light, and is always worth trying to see how the effects compare. Overlay is also good for adding elements of an image on top of darker areas in another image, like the photographs in Figure 10-22. You ll still see elements of both, of course it s not a substitute for painstakingly selecting an object and pasting it into another picture.
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396 CHAPTER 10 ADVANCED COMPOSITING Figure 10-19. Use Blur and then Grain extract for a tintype effect. Compositing Unrelated Images So far, you ve used layer modes to combine an image with itself (perhaps after minor modifications such as blur or offset). But, of course, you can use layer modes to combine two different images as well. Using Soft Light for Combining Images Soft light mode is a real workhorse for combining just about any two images (Figure 10-20). Copy an image and paste it as a new layer over a different image, and you ll probably get a fun result (Figure 10-21). As a rule, use the less distinct image as the background, since it will slightly dominate the combination. You can also use Soft light to give the effect of objects reflected from water or glass. As a strange side-effect, self-compositing with Soft light doesn t do what you d expect: it doesn t soften the image. Instead, you ll get a very nice increase in brightness and contrast. Even pictures you think are just fine can be surprisingly enhanced, with no fake look at all.
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CHAPTER 10 ADVANCED COMPOSITING 395 Figure 10-18. The top layer was moved five pixels to the right and five pixels down while in Grain extract mode. Adding Blurs and Other Tricks for Artistic Effects Gaussian Blurring the top layer instead of offsetting it before using Grain extract gives an effect like a tintype photo (Figure 10-19). Reversing the layers putting the blurred layer beneath the original rather than above it gives a similar effect except that the colors are reversed the flowers are darker than the background, instead of lighter. Sometimes you can use Gaussian Blur instead of an offset when using other layer effects, like Divide. Typically, a blur gives a somewhat weaker, more subtle effect than an offset. Edges won t be emphasized as strongly. There s a compromise between the two: use a Motion Blur, which blurs in a specific direction. Since it s directional, Motion Blur acts a lot like an offset; but it smooths out the effect, giving less emphasis to the edges and more to the gradations within the image. The color accents are also muted. The difference can be subtle, but try it and see whether you like it better. By now, you probably see what s going on. Most images will have sudden changes in color where they transition from one object (a flower) to another (the background). These artistic effects all capitalize on those transitional edges. Anything that causes the edges to spread or interfere will give an interesting and sometimes unexpected result when you use Divide, Difference, Subtract, or Grain extract.
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