Introduction

No matter how hot your visual comes off the render press there are always a few (or many) post production touches to be done in an image manipulation software such as Photoshop.

This article will explain those image transforming steps that you need ticking off to bring your visuals to life.

What’s in this Article

Composition

Populating the Scene

Lighting & Atmosphere

Foreground Details

Context

👇 Find out more

1. Composition

It's intuitive to have a wide camera angle set for your render. However, having the FOV set between 30mm to 50mm makes for far more architectural composition. Give it a whirl, constrain your composition and focus on the architecture.

This step is technically before any post production but is equally as important. You want to make sure the render you are importing into photoshop is off to a good start!

2. Populating the Scene

Well placed people can transform your image into an interesting scene. Don't fall into the trap of posing png people they are unoriginal and superficial. Take your time selecting the right people that help tell the story you're trying to create.

3. Lighting & Atmosphere

There are some epic lighting and atmospheric tricks that can use to elevate your CGIs overall feeling into the stratosphere.

In short, select a descriptive sky as a start, harmonise every layer of lights and darks so they are consistent (as they are meant to be all under the same lighting conditions) and brush in some atmospheric fog for depth. That's a good start. PSD available for download.

4. Foreground Details

These pesky details are painstaking but oh so worth it. Some foreground details to consider are; light trails, falling leaves, ground reflections/puddles, & subtle shadows under feet (to combat floating people). All these details will help keep the eye engaged with your image for longer.

5. Context

It is very important to show your architecture in context, after all, hasn't it informed your design? An image without context can look like an incomplete empty canvas. Download the PSD here.

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