How to Create a Composite in Photoshop

To create a composite in Photoshop, open the background image, cut the subject out of a second photo with a selection and a layer mask, drag it into the background, scale it to the scene’s perspective, then match its color and light to the background with clipped adjustment layers and give it shadows so it sits on the ground. The selection gets the most attention, but the matching of light and the shadows are what make a composite believable. This page walks through each step, including how to make realistic fake shadows.

A composite combines parts of several photographs into one scene. It might be a portrait placed on a new background, a product set into a lifestyle scene for product photography, a group photo assembled from several frames so everyone’s eyes are open, or a fantasy scene that could never be photographed at all.

Plan the Composite Before You Shoot

Most failed composites fail before Photoshop is opened, because the source photos do not agree with each other. When you can shoot the parts yourself, match these four things:

• Light direction and quality. Every element must look lit by the same source. Note where the light comes from in the background, whether it is hard or soft, and its color, then light the subject the same way. Hard sun casts crisp shadows; an overcast sky casts almost none. Quality of light explains how to read this.
• Camera height and angle. Shoot every element from the same height and tilt. A person photographed from waist height will never look right in a background shot from eye level.
• Focal length and distance. Similar focal length and subject distance keep the perspective and the amount of lens compression consistent.
• Resolution and edges. Use the highest resolution files you can, since scaling down is safe but scaling up loses detail. Photograph subjects against a plain background that contrasts with them, so the selection is clean.

Also photograph the empty background without the subject. That clean plate is useful for hiding a stand, a spotter, or a gap.

Step 1: Prepare the Background

Open the background image first; it becomes the base document and sets the light, color, and perspective that everything else must match. Decide where each element will go and how big it should be. Make basic corrections to exposure, color, and crop now, so you are matching the other parts to the final background rather than to a version that will change.

Step 2: Cut Out the Subject

Open the subject photo and make a selection. Photoshop offers several tools, and most composites use more than one:

• Select Subject finds the main subject in one click and is a good start for people and clear objects.
• Object Selection and Quick Selection let you drag or paint over an area while Photoshop finds the edges.
• The Pen tool draws a precise path and is best for hard-edged objects such as products and buildings.
• Select and Mask (Select > Select and Mask) refines any selection. Use the Refine Edge Brush along hair and fur, adjust Smooth, Feather, and Shift Edge, tick Decontaminate Colors to remove the old background’s color from fine edges, and output to a new layer with a layer mask.

Always finish with a layer mask rather than deleting pixels. A mask can be painted back at any time, while deleted pixels are gone. For a full walk-through of cutting out a person, see how to remove the background from a portrait.

Only need to swap a sky, not build a whole scene? How to replace the sky in Photoshop covers the faster sky-only workflow.

Step 3: Place, Scale, and Fix Perspective

Drag the masked layer into the background document, then right-click it and choose Convert to Smart Object so you can resize it repeatedly without losing quality. Press Ctrl+T (Windows) or Cmd+T (Mac) for Free Transform to scale, rotate, and position it. Recent versions of Photoshop keep proportions by default; hold Shift to scale freely.

Scale is a matter of perspective, not taste. Find the horizon line in the background, which sits at the height of the camera that took it. If that camera was at eye level, the heads of standing adults anywhere on the same flat ground will line up close to the horizon, whether they are near or far. Use that to size people. For objects, compare them with something of known size in the scene, such as a door, a chair, or a car.

Distant elements also look different from near ones. They have lower contrast, lighter shadows, and often a slight blue or haze from the air between them and the camera. If you place something in the distance, lower its contrast with a clipped Curves or Levels layer so it sits back in the scene.

Step 4: Match Color and Tone

Add adjustment layers above the subject and clip each one to it (Alt-click or Option-click the line between the layers, or press Ctrl+Alt+G or Cmd+Option+G), so they change only the subject.

• Match brightness and contrast first. Add a Hue/Saturation layer at the top of the whole stack with Saturation at minus 100, or a black solid color layer set to the Color blend mode, to see the image in black and white. Without color in the way, it is easy to see whether the subject’s darkest shadows and brightest highlights match the background’s. Adjust the subject with a clipped Curves layer, then turn the checking layer off.
• Match color. In the same Curves layer, adjust the red, green, and blue channels separately so the subject’s shadows and highlights take on the same color cast as the background’s. Look at neutral areas such as white clothing, gray stone, or the whites of the eyes.
• Match saturation. A subject shot in studio light often looks more saturated than an outdoor background. Lower it with a clipped Hue/Saturation layer.
• Finish with one grade. When the parts match, a final color grade applied over everything ties them together.

Step 5: Match the Light

Color matching is not enough if the light falls from the wrong side. Check which side of the subject is lit and which side the background’s light comes from.

• Dodge and burn. Add a new layer filled with 50 percent gray and set it to the Overlay blend mode. Paint with a soft white brush at low opacity to brighten the side that faces the light and a soft black brush to darken the side that faces away.
• Add rim light and light wrap. When the background is bright behind the subject, real light spills around the subject’s edges. Sample a bright color from the background and paint it very softly along the edges on a clipped layer set to Screen or Soft Light.
• Add new light sources if needed. Glows, beams, or highlights can help sell the scene; how to create light rays in Photoshop shows one way.

If the subject was lit from the opposite side to the background, you can sometimes flip the subject horizontally. Check first for text, logos, and hair partings that would give it away.

Step 6: Add Shadows So Nothing Floats

Everything that stands on a surface casts shadows on it. Without them, a pasted subject looks like a cutout hovering above the ground. Most composites need two kinds: a contact shadow and a cast shadow. Put the shadow layers below the subject layer, set them to the Multiply blend mode, and build them on their own layers so you can adjust them later.

Contact Shadows

The contact shadow is the dark area right where the subject touches the ground, under feet, shoe soles, or the base of an object. Very little light reaches there, so it is the darkest and sharpest part of any shadow, even on a cloudy day. Paint it on a new layer with a small, soft black brush at about 30 to 50 percent opacity, keeping it thin and close to the contact point. This one shadow does more than anything else to make a subject sit in the scene.

Cast Shadows

A cast shadow is the shape the subject throws across the ground away from the light. Skip it under overcast light, where shadows are just a soft darkening under the subject. In directional light, make it like this:

1. Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the subject’s layer mask thumbnail to load its shape as a selection.
2. Create a new layer below the subject and fill the selection with black.
3. Use Edit > Transform > Distort to lay the shape down along the ground, pointing away from the light source, with its base touching the subject’s contact points. A low sun makes a long shadow; a high sun makes a short one.
4. Blur it with Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Match the blur to the background’s shadows: crisp in hard sun, softer in hazy light.
5. Real shadows get softer and lighter as they get farther from the object. Add a layer mask with a black to white gradient so the shadow fades toward its far end, or duplicate the layer, blur the copy more, and mask the two together.
6. Lower the layer opacity until the shadow is no darker than real shadows elsewhere in the background.

Shadows are not pure black. Outdoors, they take a slightly blue tint from the sky; indoors, they pick up the color of nearby walls and floors. Sample a color from an existing shadow in the background and use it instead of black, or add a clipped color layer to the shadow.

A Quick Fake Shadow for Simple Images

For a product on a plain background, a flat logo, or a graphic, the Drop Shadow layer style is often enough. Choose Layer > Layer Style > Drop Shadow and set the angle to match the light, then adjust distance, size, and opacity. To reshape it, choose Layer > Layer Style > Create Layer, which separates the shadow onto its own layer so you can distort and mask it like a cast shadow.

Want to see how real light and shadow behave before you fake them? Shadow photography shows how shadows change with the light.

Step 7: Match Focus, Grain, and Edges

• Depth of field. A subject placed in front of a soft background should be sharp, but anything placed in the background must be as blurred as its surroundings. Use Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur or the Blur Gallery on the smart object.
• Grain and noise. Every photo has its own grain. If the subject looks smoother than the background, add Filter > Noise > Add Noise in small amounts until they match at 100 percent zoom.
• Edges. Zoom in and check for bright or dark halos left from the old background. Paint them away on the mask, shift the edge inward in Select and Mask, or reduce their color with a clipped Hue/Saturation layer.

Work Non-Destructively

A composite is adjusted many times before it is done, so keep every step reversible:

• Use layer masks instead of erasing.
• Convert layers to smart objects before transforming or filtering them.
• Use adjustment layers, clipped to the layer they change, instead of direct adjustments.
• Group each element with its adjustment and shadow layers, and name the groups.
• Save as a layered PSD file.

New to how layers combine? Photoshop blend modes explains Multiply, Screen, Overlay, and the rest used in this tutorial.

Common Mistakes

• Light from two directions. The subject lit from the left in a scene lit from the right is the most common giveaway.
• Missing contact shadows. Feet and objects that do not darken the ground right beneath them float.
• Shadows that are too dark or too sharp. Compare them with real shadows in the background, not with your idea of a shadow.
• Wrong scale or horizon. People who are too tall or short for their spot on the ground look pasted in.
• Hard, haloed edges. Leftover background color around hair is easy to see once it is pointed out.
• Different sharpness and grain. A crisp, clean subject on a soft, grainy background never quite belongs.

Try This

Photograph a mug on a table by a window, then photograph the empty table from the same position. Take a second photo of a different small object anywhere in your home. In Photoshop, cut out the second object, place it beside the mug, and match its brightness, color, and light direction to the mug. Then give it a contact shadow and a cast shadow that point the same way as the mug’s. Toggle the shadow layers on and off to see how much they matter.

Compositing Questions

What is a composite in Photoshop?

A composite is a single image built from parts of two or more photographs, combined with layers and masks so the result looks like one scene. It can be realistic, such as a portrait on a new background, or obviously imaginary.

How do you match lighting in a composite?

First check that the light comes from the same direction in every part, flipping or reshooting if it does not. Then match brightness and color with clipped Curves layers, and paint light and shadow onto the subject with a dodge and burn layer.

How do you add shadows to a composite?

Paint a small, dark contact shadow where the subject meets the ground, then make a cast shadow from the subject’s own shape, distorted onto the ground away from the light, blurred, faded with a gradient mask, and set to Multiply.

How do you make a fake shadow in Photoshop?

For simple graphics and products, use Layer > Layer Style > Drop Shadow. For a realistic shadow on the ground, fill the subject’s shape with black on a layer beneath it, distort it along the ground, blur it, and fade it as it gets farther from the subject.

Why does my composite look fake?

The usual causes are mismatched light direction, missing contact shadows, wrong scale for the horizon, and differences in sharpness or grain. Check each one in turn, viewing the image in black and white to judge brightness.

More Photoshop Tutorials: Browse all Photoshop lessons | Take the compositing quiz