Photoshop Compositing: A Garden of Delights

Adobe Photoshop is a powerful tool for creative professionals and one that is difficult to learn to use because of its depth of features. For photographers, it is particularly well-known and valuable for its ability to composite images together in a seamless manner. The challenge for photographers is mastering these compositing techniques in order to give life to their imaginative visions. To perfect these skills, this online workshop takes advantage of the technical expertise and artistic sensibilities of Ryn Clarke, an experimental artist known for her magical “garden of delights” floral composites.

In this three-week workshop, Ryn shows you how to create composite imagery by constructing “emotional spaces” rather than literal scenes. Layered imagery can express experiences that words often cannot. She helps you master the illusion of a new reality using Photoshop and images created from your iPhone or digital camera. During each hands-on two-hour session, she illuminates the ins and outs of her inventive techniques, sharing the tools that enable you to produce visual magic tricks. And just as it is with any magic trick, those techniques must be flawless or the illusion is lost!

Using creative Photoshop strategies that make your composites more engaging, we create contemplative visual environments that reconnect viewers to memory, atmosphere, and emotional presence. We explore ways to use visualization, light, coloring, and blending modes. We examine special apps and plugins specifically geared toward compositing. If time permits, we also explore the little-known features of your iPhone that may help elevate your creative imagery. As we experiment with AI-generated artistic programs, we discover even more pathways to creative expression—all while developing a series of composite images that invite stillness and reflection while demonstrating your progression and understanding of the software and its capabilities.

Whether you are new to compositing or want to expand the skills you already have, you come away from this workshop with an expansive virtual tool chest and the know-how to assemble your own creative masterpieces.