A skiff inserted into a photograph of Lake Michigan.

The photograph of the skiff was taken in Capri, Italy. I loved the skiff’s simplicity and faded colors, but the surrounding area left a lot to be desired to capture a good photo.

One day I was looking at some photographs that I took of Lake Michigan and decided to see if I could insert the skiff into a beach photo and make it work. I first processed the skiff to pop the colors, then I cut it out. I brought both the cutout and Lake Michigan photo into Photoshop and combined them: adjusted colors, luminosity, and cloned sand around the bottom of the skiff. I decided to add some texture by using the  Oil Paint filter under Stylize. Then to finish the composite I created a mask and lightly brushed the filter out in different areas. I did not want a lot of texture in the skiff. Finally I went into Photoshop Elements and added the border.

This exercise is a really excellent way to experiment and use tools that you don’t often get to use in normal photo processing. I must say I learned a lot!