Photoshop For Artists - Composition

When an idea for a painting combines subject matter
from more than one of my reference photos, I turn to Photoshop or
Photoshop Elements, after I do a quick value study in pencil.
In Portland, Oregon, the horse "tie rings" on curbs are preserved
as an important part of our history.
In an attempt to combine the old with the new, I combined
one photo with a tie ring and another photo of footprints made

on a rainy day. The footprints helped add a human factor to the image.
I was considering adding a ticket or symbol of modern transportation,

when my artist friend, Linda Marie Miller, suggested that the footprints
offered the symbol of modern times.

Two Photos Combined in Photoshop Elements



The two photos that I combined are shown below:














Yes, that is my foot on the left.
It helped me to scale the footprints
to the correct size. I wish I could say
this was deliberate and planned.



The photos above were both opened in
Photoshop Elements. I created  a
new layer in the photo with the tie ring and
enlarged the canvas size:

Menu Bar > Image >Resize >Canvas Size ,
The clone tool was used to create a
large dark in the lower left corner of the photo
with the footprints.

Then I followed the following commands
to move the footprints photo onto
the tie ring photo:

Tool Box> Move Tool> Click>Drag> Drop

I will continue developing the composition
in the next post .