I've noticed a few people trying out composites which is really cool :)....these can be greatly improved when they have good realistic props....and the best new is the technique is easy

This tutorial was made in PS CS2....but I'm sure most other photoshop is the same....as is PSP etc...



1. You have a composite all cut out and stuck, but it doesnt have a prop....



2.Go into FS and take a head on picture of the aircraft with its engine off



3.Load it up into PS



4.With your preferred method (I use the pen) cut out just the prop and the spinner....



5.Open a new image with a transparent background which is about twice the diameter of your prop high and wide, and paste it on



6.Select a circle around it as tight as possible, this may take a few attempts



7.Go to; Filters - Blur - Radial Blur



8.Make sure it's set to spin and select a low amount, such as 10, and press OK



9.Then do the same again, except this time make the amount higher....something around 30 is fine



10.Now that looks too blurry....so we go to Edit - Fade Radial Blur

The fade tool basically gives you the option to fade between the last two operations, so in our case, the 10 radial blur, and the 34 radial blur



11.Set the fade around 60-70% and that will give you a nice blurred effect



12. Then copy your blurred prop and paste it onto your picture



13.Then Edit - Transform - Scale



14. Scale the prop down until it's about the right size compared to the aircraft...if you hold down shift, the aspect ratio doesnt change



15.When your scale is about right, go to; Edit - Transform - Distort



16. By dragging the corners you can change the angle of the prop....try and make it line up with the aircraft...it really helps to think in 3D at this point



17. After your prop is in the right area and at the right angle, you have to erase the flat spinner that you added with the prop



18. So select the eraser tool and do a better job than I did , making sure to erase all the spinner, as we want the nice 3D one on the original picture.



19. Now go on with blending....using colours and highlights etc....let your creative side run wild



20. The finished composite, after blending....this was done quickly, so it isnt that great....but spend some more time on it and it will look amazing





I hope that helped some people....and now I am running out of characters, so I'll stop there

.mic

Great job Mic! I use the same method and I'm sure this tutorial will enhance many other people's composites. 

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Use the pen tool

I always wondered how you add the prop. Great tutorial.

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As far as I know, basically you should increase the size of the picture - the bigger it is, the more exact your cut. Then move all around the plane drawing lines and left clicking at the end of every tiny straight segment untill you get back to the start again. Then press enter. There are many fine details to it I expect, but that's what I did when I experimented with cut outs a while back.

Mictheslik wrote on Aug 19^th, 2007 at 11:15am:



Definitely not. In paintshop they have a tool called "background erase" where you can literally erase the background in under a minute

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It seems to work fine for me. I noticed that if you make a cut-out after you resize the image, it will come out with bad edges, but if you cut it out when its still 1204 x 1024 or whatever, it looks great. Look at my most recent edit (here), and you tell me if the cut-out is that bad 

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Where... There are some areas around the edges that were damaged by compression, but that has nothing to do with the cut-out