⏰ Do Now — Start Here
Look at the composite image on the board. What is one clue that gives away it's fake (or, if it's convincing, what makes it work)?
This is exam-relevant
This lesson maps directly to an Adobe Certified Professional (ACP) exam domain. Keep a running personal vocabulary list all year -- it becomes your exam study guide. See the ACP Exam Prep section for a full study guide and practice questions.
🎯 Today's Big Question
- How do professionals make clean, complex selections to combine multiple images into one believable scene?
📈 By the End of Today, You Will Be Able To
- Use at least 3 different selection tools/techniques (e.g. Quick Selection, Select Subject, refine edge/hair details).
- Save and load a selection for reuse.
- Composite 2+ images into one believable scene with consistent lighting and scale.
🧰 What You'll Need
- Computer with Photoshop
- Provided source images with varied difficulty (simple background, complex hair/edges)
📋 Your Plan for Today
Day 1: Selection Tools
- Do Now (5 min).
- Mini-lesson/demo (12 min): comparing selection tools.
- Guided practice (23 min): practice Select and Mask on a tricky image (hair/fur edges); save/load a selection.
- Share (5 min).
Day 2: Compositing
- Do Now (5 min): what's one clue that gives away a fake composite? Independent project (35 min): composite 2+ provided images into one believable scene, paying attention to lighting and scale.
- Peer critique (5 min).
📚 Key Words
- Compositing
- Combining multiple separate images into one seamless final image.
- Refine Edge / Select and Mask
- A Photoshop workflow for cleaning up tricky selection edges, like hair or fur.
- Consistent Lighting/Scale
- Making sure combined elements look like they belong in the same photo -- same light direction, believable size.
✅ What Your Finished Work Should Include
Final composite scored with a rubric: clean selection edges, believable lighting/scale, and evidence of at least 3 selection techniques used.
Exit Ticket: What is the hardest part of making a composite look believable, and how did you address it?
📊 Before You Leave
Quick, anonymous class check-in -- takes less than a minute.
🎓 ACP Exam Prep
This lesson connects to the Photoshop Adobe Certified Professional exam: Domain 4: Creating and Modifying Visual Elements
🔗 Want to Learn More?
🚀 The Extra Mile
Cross-Class Connection: The same careful-observation and precision skill a Biology dissection lab or a Chemistry titration demands.
Career Connection: Compositing is a core, testable Photography and Digital Designer skill, tested directly on the ACP exam.
Go further -- turn this into a portfolio piece:
- Composite yourself into a real historical photo you're studying in Social Studies, researching lighting and scale to make it believable. Start here: study the historical photo's light direction and sketch an arrow showing where the light comes from before you cut yourself into it.
- Build a "surreal but believable" composite illustrating an abstract concept (time, memory, growth) for a personal portfolio piece. Start here: pick one single concept, not several, and write down one concrete visual metaphor for it before you search for source images.