I am in the midst of my semi-annual frog and reptile workshop in St. Louis, and I photographed this blue Asian monitor lizard yesterday against a black background. This was a new addition to the workshop, so I was excited to do something with it creatively. In Photoshop, I selected the black background and then chose Select > inverse. This selected the lizard and its perch. I then copied the selection into the clipboard with Edit > copy followed byEdit > paste to composite the reptile into a misty river scene I’d captured in Borneo. These monitor lizards are native to Indonesia, so this was appropriate. The challenge was matching the diffused, low contrast background with the lizard which I’d photographed with an on-camera ring flash. To do that, I chose the eye dropper tool and took a sample of color from the muted green foliage in the background. I then filled the lizard and the branch on which it was resting with 20% opacity of that color (Edit > fill). I added the reflection by using the plugin Flood, and finally brushed over the foreground with the brush tool set to 15%. This added more 'mist and fog' to the scene. My settings for the original shot of the reptile were 1/200, f/32, and 800 ISO.
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