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Final Composite

The article is at the bottom.

Compositing Process

I used Adobe Photoshop for this project because of its efficiency with single frame timelined compositing approach. (Although, for further editing of the images, a node bases structure could be better- not as much data is lost.)
First, I had to find images with the right camera angle and lighting. After that I had to cut the primary images and project them over the background images. To manage the hierarchy I used the Layers window. 

Much of the work needed to make the image's edges match up composed of using the erase, move, blur, dodge, burn, and marquee select tools. Move tool: to position the images. Dodge tool: to lighten areas of the image. Burn tool: to darken edges of the image and apply shadows. The blur tool was very helpful to blur the edges of the images so that they wouldn't look too sharp -helping it blend in. The image to the upper left shows how I used the marquee tool to select the duck's feet and copy/duplicate them. I flipped the duplication, lowered the opacity and blurred the image to look like the ducks reflection.

One rule of thumb for me is to always do as much color correcting as I can before I convert the images into greyscale. This blends the images up nicely before we loose their color data. Before I converted the images to greyscale, I color corrected the color intensity and contrast of the images to match using the Levels and Brightness/Contrast features shown below. I then matched up the lesser quality (pixelated) images to the cleaner ones by using the film grain artistic filter.

Centaur Olympics Source Images

The runners are moving in the opposite direction, but it would have been obvious if I flipped them horizontally (vertical axis) to match the horse and runner. The runners have letters on their jerseys which would have made an image flip a dead give-away.







The image quality of the horse is low, so the quality of the other images had to be reduced to fit. Since this is for a tabloid magazine, it is not that much of a problem.













The lighting for the main runner had to be lowered. The contrast also had to be raised to give him less of a washed out look.

Source Images - Goose Story

One of the most challenging parts of this composition was finding an image of the bowling lanes that would helped place and position the goose correctly.

Tabloid Article

- Centaur Wins Olympic Gold

Romanian Olympian Gandor "The Stallion" Kazziski qualified to run the 400 and the 800 meter track and field running competitions during this summer's 2008 Olympics. There was much opposition from other qualifying countries across the globe for letting Kazziski, who happens to be a centaur compete. "The Olympics is no place for half humans- only whole humans!", stated runner Bigby Jones of Canada. "Indeed, Kazziski is half horse half man, but there is no Olympic rule that disqualifies a partial human-being from completing.", stated one member of the Olympic Board Committee during a press conference. 

Kazziski ran with race-horse speed for his country and ended up receiving gold in the 800 and  a bronze in the 400 meter events. Although, the controversy doesn't stop here. Further blood analysis tested Kazziski positive for horse tranquilizers that may lead to a post-disqualification and a medal repeal. Upon further questioning, Kassiki commented with a brisk "Neeeeeeehhhhhh!".

-Goose Bowls a Perfect 300 Game

Pappy O'dannar entered his goose into this year's the New England Pro Bowler's Tournament in Bryson, New Hampshire. It was amazing to see that his goose, Bessie, was actually fully trained and ready to hit the lanes. "Her average score is usually around 275," stated O'dannar, "but this week she has really pulled her game together." 

Bessie started her hobby of bowling by rolling her rotten laid eggs out of the chicken coop. Pappy noticed her talent in this endeavor and quickly started training Bessie to roll heavier objects into precise locations, such as cantaloups into trash cans. Within a few weeks she was capable of bowling. It took a while to get permission for Bessie to use the local bowling alley, but not long after she was rolling strikes! She became the lead member of her bowling team, "The Pins Pals" and eventually developed a street reputation for being a bowling alley hustler. 

People thought it was a joke when Bessie stepped up to bowl in the New England Pro Bowler's Tournament, but after Bessie's third strike, spectators weren't calling out "Turkey!!!" for three strikes in a row, but rather "Goosey!!!!" Bessie cleared the boards with a perfect 300 score and won the tournament along with a $200,000 first place prize. She intends to donate all for her winnings to PETA, under the assumption that it will also help fund the Save the Fowl Foundation.