Step 17: Building a Background - Outdoor

For our next background, we are going to be putting our character into an outdoor scene. We will repeat many of the same actions from Step 16, but we will also take the time to give our character the appropriate lighting for basking in the sun. Let's begin by getting our files open...

1. Open Cartoon
2. Open the Outdoor.psd file located in your Background folder

Lighting for an outdoor scene is different from what we have been doing so far. Sunlight on a clear day tends be tinted with yellows and oranges (what is referred to as warm light). This differs from ambient light, which is light reflected from the sky or light created by artificial sources such as light bulbs, in that ambient light (which is what we have been working with so far) tends to be tinted with blue (which is referred to as cool light). If we simply place catgirl in an outdoor setting she will not look right because she is lighted for indoor. We need to change her up a bit...

3. In the Cartoon file, select the Shade layer
4. Click Image then click Adjustments then click Levels; your Levels window should look something like the graphic below...
   
   don't freak out if your levels do not match the graphic above - you will change the channel in the next direction
5. Change the Channel to Blue - again, do not freak out if your level still doesn't match the graphic above, it may or may not resemble mine - just keep following the directions...
6. Drag both arrows on the Output Levels (remember, these are the arrows at the bottom of the window) slider in (look at the graphic above to get an idea of where to move them to - be careful here and do not just type in the numbers you see above as your levels will be different from mine, just use the graphic above as a guide)
7. Click OK

Moving the left arrow (the black one) towards the right will make the darkest shade of blue in the layer lighter - in other words, blue will be added to the dark areas of our Catgirl. Moving the right arrow (the gray one) towards the left will make the lightest shade of blue darker - in other words, the lightest colors will loose their blue tint and appear more yellow.

By the way, if you have dragged the arrows in and he appears dark and dull, you have most likely not done direction 5 above - if you move the arrows on the RGB channel he will simply darken and appear lifeless. In this instance just undo and actually follow the directions above.

The differences between the natural light shaded Catgirl and the un-natural light shaded Catgirl are subtle but important. Take a look at the two graphics below. The left image is what he looked like before working on him in this step, and the one on the right is after. Notice how the left image appears washed out while the right appears to have a sun-lit glow.

Without Natural Light Shading:

With Natural Light Shading

Now that we have him the correct color, we can perform the steps necessary to get him into our image.

8. Refer to directions 3 - 19 on Step 16 and follow them to get Catgirl into your Outdoor image
9. When you reach direction 15, replace the 60 you typed in Step 16 with 50 (this will make him slightly smaller in this graphic)
10. Follow the remaining instructions on Step 16 to put him in the correct place (see the graphic below) and to add in a shadow (be sure your shadow matches the other shadows in the image!)

We are now done working with the Cartoon file, so let's go ahead and close it. Remember, we DO NOT want to save the changes we have made to this file - if we do will not be able to complete the steps that follow.

11. Close the Cartoon file and when Photoshop asks if you want to save it click No

You should still have the Outdoor file open. You will need to save this as a separate file so it can be graded and you can return to your original Cartoon file for the steps that follow...

22. Click File
23. Click Close
24. Photoshop will ask Save changes to the Adobe Photoshop document "Outdoor.psd" before closing?
25. Click Yes (yes, you will be saving over the original Outdoor file you opened at the start of this step, but that is OK because we do not need to use it for anything else)
26. Photoshop should close the Outdoor file
27. Remember NOT to work with this file in the future - it should be left with the indoor background - when you move on to Step 17 you will need to open the Cartoon file back up and continue working with it

Now move on to the next step...