Learn how to insert and adjust images in a digital scene, specifically focusing on adding a sky to a West Coast cityscape. This article provides a step-by-step guide on how to manipulate and enhance a sky image to make it appear as a realistic background for a virtual city scene.
Key Insights
- The article demonstrates how to insert a sky image into a digital background by using the File, Place Embedded functions in an editing software. This is followed by a discussion on size adjustment, positioning, and layering to make it appear behind the city buildings.
- To enhance the realism of the scene, the article recommends adjusting the vibrance and saturation of the sky image. By reducing these elements, the sky appears less vibrant and more fitting for the cityscape.
- The article also mentions the insertion of other elements such as a crane and a hiker to the scene. These elements are not only inserted but also adjusted in size and position for better incorporation into the virtual city environment. The article points out the need for removing unnecessary parts of these added elements for a cleaner look.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
In this video, we’re going to be adding a sky to our background for our West Coast scene. In order to do so, let’s first insert the sky image into our background.
To do so, we’ll go to File, Place Embedded, as we already have the file we’ll be inserting. And in this case, we’re going to be adding our Clouds and Field JPEG. And we’ll click Place.
Here, we have our Clouds and Field image. However, we want to use the sky for our background behind the buildings of our West Coast scene. To do this, let’s first zoom out using CTRL + MINUS (-).
Next, let’s simply expand our image. We’ll make sure it takes up the entire artboard. And next, we’re going to move it below the West Coast scene so we can see it in the background.
Here, we get a good feel for what the sky would look like. And we’ll drag it to a point where we don’t see the field below, but we can see the clouds in the sky. We’ll then hit ENTER.
We now have a West Coast city with nice blue clouds in the sky. To see what it looked like before, we can change the visibility of our top two layers and select the visibility of our original. As we can see, our new image looks a lot more inviting.
Let’s change the visibility of our West Coast Original. And while I like the blue sky here, it does look a little too vibrant compared to our current scene. So let’s change the vibrance of our Clouds and Field.
To do this, we’ll select Clouds and Field and go to Adjustments. And next, we’ll select our vibrance adjustment layer. Here, we have the ability to change the vibrance and saturation.
In this case, I’m simply going to drag the saturation down and the vibrance down, as this feels a little more appropriate for our scene. If we hide this layer, we can see the difference between what we had and what we currently have. While I like vibrant images, I think that the adjustment we’ve made has made it more appropriate for our current scene.
So let’s click outside the layers in the Layers panel. And now we’re ready to begin adding our elements. We’ll go to File, Open.
We’re going to be adding both the crane removed Photoshop file layers as well as the hiker on path adjusted Photoshop file. If we hold Control and select Hiker on Path Adjusted and Crane Removed, we can click Open. Next, we’re going to select our Hiker Removed first within the Hiker on Path Adjusted Photoshop file.
And selecting this layer, we’ll hit Control + C and then go back to our West Coast Scene Photoshop file. We’ll hit Control + V to paste them. And we can drag it down to the bottom.
Next, we can go to our Crane Removed image and select both the logo as well as Crane Removed Branded. We’ll hold Control and select the bottom layer, then hit Control + C to copy these layers.
We’ll go back to our West Coast Scene Photoshop file and again, we’ll hit Control + V to paste them. We’re now ready to begin making modifications to these different elements to incorporate them within the scene. First, let’s start by linking the Phase 10 Construction Logo and Crane Removed Branded.
So with both selected, we’ll right-click and select Link Layers. Next, we’ll hit Control + T to transform our images. Then, we’ll simply shrink it down.
With this image, it’s going to be relatively small. In this case, we won’t need to add to our construction crane like we did in the London image.
Instead, we’re going to need to detract from it. Zooming in, this looks like a good size. I’ll drag it up slightly and hit ENTER.
Now, we need to remove the bottom from our crane image. To do this, let’s zoom in, scroll to the right, and zoom in a little further. Now, we need to remove the bottom of our image.
We’ll hit Control to close off our polygon. Right-click, click Fill, and with Black as the contents, we’ll click OK.
We’ll then hit Control + D to deselect. And if we zoom out, we can see that we have our crane in the background. However, we will need to remove some of the edges of our image.
Let’s save our work for now using Control + S on the keyboard. In the next video, we’ll remove edges from our crane as well as adjust our height control. See you there.