Mysterious in black

The first day of my Venice workshop was today, and I passed two of my favorite costumed models on a street. The sisters Mona Rose and Annette looked dramatic in all black. Of course my mind immediately imagined what I could do with this in Photoshop, and I came up with this composite. I had photographed the foggy forest at dawn about an hour from Venice several years ago, and it provided the mystery and eerie atmosphere that I felt was perfect for these costumes. To place the models behind the foreground tree, I first selected the women in Photoshop, copied them to the clipboard with Edit > copy, and then I selected the tree in the background image. I then chose Select > inverse. This selected everything except the tree, which was the entire background. Next, I used Edit > paste special > paste into to place the selected models into the forest. With the move tool, I moved the women in place. Finally, I lowered the opacity of the models to 85% so the costumes took on the cyan-blue color of the forest.