Photoshop with Steampunk Backgrounds

We worked with Battleground Hobbies creating several cool Steampunk props. You can see how they were built on the Battleground Blog. There is the Raygun Pistol, sword and holster, Goggles, Raygun Rifle and Power Claw. Some of the posts show photos of the entire ensemble and many individuals asked where the location shots, like this one,  were taken.

Well, they weren't in any exotic location, they were all taken in a nearby urban neighborhood. The beautiful backgrounds were taken throughout Europe and supplied by Kosmograd.net. You can view his Photosteam on Flickr. Using the wonderful tool of Photoshop, we did photo composites of the individual photos.

Take the image above. The "Steampunk Vostroyan Guard" came from this photo:

And the Kosmograd background titled "Where's Waldo" taken in Belgium looked like this:

First, he background was flipped horizontally so the lighting matched better. The Guard was cut from the group photo, inserted and scaled to fit. His lenses were darkened and hat brim lowered to cover the space above the goggles.

Using the "levels" highlights and shadows were adjusted and the "dodge" tool was used to lighten the right side of the hat and shoulder. The final touch was a lens flare. Gotta love the lens flares.

This was another shot on the front porch. Not very appealing as a background.

So we found this one from Kosmograd. I immediately fell in love with it. The background  from an old plant in Germany, lighting matched almost perfectly

Once the guard was outlined we dropped him in and adjusted his color.

The last image is from a water supply also in Germany. The lighting was truly beautiful.

After cutting the guard out, he was inserted and the lighting needed adjusted. Adding in the orange glow to the guard was the finishing touch.

Have to say we had a blast building the props and compositing the images.

Enjoy!