You're a Wizard, Harry!

I am creating a composite holiday card for a client for the second year in a row. Now I don't want to name names and I don't want to ruin the surprise, but I did take one element out of the final image to create a new composite just so you can see composite photography in action. It's called a speed edit and it's meant to show you the steps it takes to create a new world.

However... upfront, I'll admit that this isn't the complete edit. This is about the first 45 minutes of it, sped up to 8x it's actual speed. Real-time compositing is as slow as weight loss. As I wrapped up the recording of the edit, I realized I made a most basic blunder. I didn't blur the background image, just one of the very first things you do when you make a composite. So I had to back up many of the steps to do that. And really, who wants to see that, or quite frankly, actually do that. Ugh. Hate when that happens.

So after I stopped recording, I actually did about another half hour on it, mostly finish work. You'll see the tone is slightly different. And I added a light flare on Harry's wand, which greatly added to the verisimilitude.

That's one of the things that's so fun about compositing... the tiny little details you add that are actually hard to notice but once pointed out, you realize, oh yeah, that would be like that. For instance, in this final image, that flare is casting just a hint of red against Harry's face and body. And on the cloak, there is a tiny bit of orange and blue that is part of the light spilling on to it. And you can see how much shadow has been added to the front of the dog because of the backlighting. It wasn't photographed that way, it had to be added on later. And in actuality, as if there is anything real about Harry Potter, the lightning bolt scar is on the left side as you look at him and in this image it was in the middle so I moved it over a bit.

Now you may not want to watch the whole thing but one thing I love about it... the music! The song I licensed for it just fits so well, I'm so happy I found it!

So here is the composite from the beginning to the final image. Enjoy!