I loved this pose by Jyothi, which was shot in studio. The thought had crossed my mind that it would look great in a water setting.
I had been anxious to try a composite with the image, and when I learned of the Flood 2 Photoshop plugin by Flaming Pear Software I decided it was the perfect image to try it on.
I had a background plate from the beach shot at sunrise, so this was not terribly hard to do. I cut Jyothi out, placed her in the scene, and then used Flood 2 to create the water and reflection. I really like this plugin as it gives you complete control over the water: waves, highlights, ripples, you name it.
I wanted a very serene scene, with the water almost calm and reflective like a mirror. No problem. It does take some time to figure out, but it came together very quickly once I understood the gist of how the tool operates.
Plugins like this allow a great deal of creativity. It’s tough to create a separate background plate and have the water be perfect for the effect; the beauty of creating elements from scratch is that they can be blended organically into the scene with the exact perspective and scale required.
Technical discussion on flickr.
