James, I do a LOT of what you’re trying to do, and the pictures are very believable. I don’t know if I can post my site on here or not, but I’ll try. But first, I do it the way Norbert said. I erase, and I feel it is the best way. Extraction will get you there quickly, but to make it the most believable, you have to put in the time. In addition to the erasers, you also need to adjust the size and pressures of the brush, adjust lighting, hue and saturation, contrast, curves, cloning, sometimes filters like noise, sharpen, blurs, etc. Nobody can tell you exactly how to do it because every single picture you try this with will call for different variations and adjustments and there’s a million combinations in PS. Only YOU can decide. Everything you learn about PS will add to your options of tools and techniques. Instead of looking for ways to blend pictures, dive in and explore it all. If you don’t have your book, there are a million fun tutorials on the web. Try them all. You’d be surprised which ones will work for what you’re trying to do. Many are listed in previous posts here, so go back through the archives and explore. I suppose if you posted a link to the pictures you’re talking about, you could get a little more detailed information. My site is <
http://DaydreamsArt.com>
The contortionist is not really on the post but on a picnic table, the fairy is really wearing flower petals and those are real bug wings, (she’s not really in the flower), the mother isn’t really in the desert, the baby is really on her lap, the girls walking on clouds are really walking on bales of hay (and are very much alive). The angel really is an angel. I only use PS7 and photographs, and I’ve been doing this about 7 years.
~Cindy
