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- [Instructor] High key images,

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these are bright images usually with white

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or mostly white backgrounds,

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are naturals to place

on a background file.

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Images with white backgrounds themselves

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can look stark by themselves,

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but can become spectacular and subtle

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once they've been added to a background.

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Essentially, the white

space in the background

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doesn't add anything to the image

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so one's not losing the

context of the image

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when you put it on a background.

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Photoshop blending modes

make adding a high key image

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to a background easy.

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The best backgrounds for a high key image

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are usually light toned and fairly subtle.

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When you look at the images

I have open in Photoshop,

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you'll see an image of poppies

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and a fairly light toned background

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created from a scan of a piece of papyrus

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I found in an arts supply store.

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By the way, your Photoshop

may not look like my Photoshop

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and that's fine.

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There are many ways to

configure Photoshop.

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I do wanna point one thing

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about my Photoshop

configuration out to you however

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and that is that I have Photoshop

set to not open as tabs.

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This is in the Photoshop

Preferences Workspace panel.

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The third checkbox down

is open documents as tabs.

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By default, that is selected.

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My advice is to deselect it.

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Once you've deselected it,

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you have to click OK and you

have to restart Photoshop

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for it to take effect.

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The reason that I don't like

to open my documents as tabs

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when I'm dealing with

backgrounds and textures

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is these can get very complicated

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with many different documents

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and when you open them as tabs,

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it becomes quite difficult

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to simply copy them over each other

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and to see what you're doing.

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So my recommendation to you
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is that for this purpose you not use tabs,

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although of course the choice is yours.

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So I have what amounts to a recipe

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for adding a white high key image

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to a background such as the

scan that you can see here.

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First you need to copy

the high key image file

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over the background.

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Ideally, the image should be constrained

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so that it appears in the

center of the background.

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You can click on the

image using the move tool

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and Shift + Drag it over,

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releasing the mouse before

you release the Shift key

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to do this.

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Alternatively, going back,

with the source image selected,

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you can do Select All,

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Edit Copy, and then with my

background file selected,

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you can go Edit Paste.

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Once that's accomplished,

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whether you do it via the

move tool and the Shift key

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or via Edit Copy, Edit Paste,

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you have a layer with my poppies

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which I'm gonna call poppies

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over a background which I'm

gonna call scan of papyrus.

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If you look at the way these

two layers appear right now,

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you'll see that the white layer is on top

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and a separate thing.

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It's not really integrated

with my background

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and that's the problem.

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To fix this problem,

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you change the blending

mode of the top layer,

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the poppies layer, to 15% opacity.

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Next, you duplicate the

layer, Layer Duplicate Layer,

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and you set the blending mode to Multiply.

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You set the opacity to 85%.

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Of course, the 85% is approximate.

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You can have any value there

between about 80 and 90%.

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But when you're satisfied with it,

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you've successfully added the

poppy to the background layer

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and you can see it's done in a kind of way

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that presents a holistic

image where the poppies

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while they're placed on the background

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are also part of the background

and at the same time,

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the clarity of the poppies

themselves has not been reduced

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by the process of adding

it to a background.

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So here is the formula for

adding an image to a background.

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You want the background

somewhat larger than the image.

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The image should have a white

or at least a light tendency.

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Copy the image over using

whatever method you prefer

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with normal blending mode

and set the opacity to 15%.

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Duplicate the image layer a second time,

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set the blending mode to multiply,

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and set the opacity to 85%.

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Like a recipe in the kitchen,

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this is something that you

need to season to taste,

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maybe add a little more salt,

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maybe add a little less salt.

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When you're satisfied with

the way your blend looks,

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you can archive the image as

it is with layers and save it.

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And then after it's been saved,

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to make use of your images,

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you need to merge down your layers.

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You go Layer, Flatten Image

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and then you do another

Save As of the flat images

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like that and voila, you have a wonderful,

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light high key image that's

been placed on a background

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in a holistic way.