A digital photo-manipulation using a 12 MP shot of a Surfer captured with a Canon 450D at Dixon Park during an international surfing contest called “Surfest 2010”.

I opened a 6 MP photo of a local dilapidated Petrol Station that I caught with a Sony Cyber-Shot in Adobe Photoshop Elements 7. The building was old and drab and there was little real colour in that shot (not even much grass) so I applied a Sepia Filter to that Layer/shot and Promoted the Background Layer to become a Normal Layer which is editable and unlocked. I created a new tinting Layer above the Sepia one by using the Paint Fill Tool to darken the Sepia Effect by setting that Layer Mode To Soft Light and 50%.

Then I decided to import the larger image of the surfer into the smaller Petrol Station image because the surfer would appear to be much larger in the frame/imagery without needing to upscale/transform him – while still preserving the clarity. I selected and deleted the wooden doors of the Petrol Station and then copied, transformed and painted the wooden door frame to make it into a frame for the surfing picture. I selected inside the deleted section of the building, chose Select/Expand and then chose Select/Inverse to delete all of the surfing picture that would extend outside of the frame I was creating for it.

Then I duplicated the Surfer Layer and used the selection tool to just select the surfer and the water spraying above him. I chose Select/Invert and deleted all the rest of that photo. So the surfer and spray Layer is placed above it’s picture frame so it sprays over that frame. To finish, I used the Eraser tool set at about 30 to 50 % transparency to clean up the spray, after having earlier feathered that Selection before I deleted the unnecessary bits.