I am trying my hand at merging my models into my landscape photos.

Here is a JPTRR loco and box car at Granite Reef, AZ.



I'll keep trying.

I would suggest photographing the model against a dark background , to alleviate the white border showing on the photo's. One change at a time , so you can see the diff's one at a timer. 'Imbedding' the tracks somehow might help...What program are you using?

Hi Steve,

The program is Paint.NET. Good idea about the darker background. All photos used were shot without thought of merging them. I will try some purpose-shot.

I don't know that program. The work is easy enough, you hafta figure out how that program does it. I use Corel or PShop depending on thw work .
Good luck!

Hey Fred,

while I don't know the program either I'm trying to teach myself the same thing.

I'd sort of recommend the opposite, take your pics against a white background so you can mask them out easier. The slight fuzzy white outline can be trimmed as most programs that allow you to mask allow you to shrink the mask by a pixel (or set amount).

The other thing to do is to either include in the mask the areas that show through white such as behind the wheel spokes so that they are transparent and allow the background through or to airbrush them out in the paint program later. I use a combo of both.

Finally I'd suggest fiddling with the light/contrast brightness of the image to match the background. I tend to darken and soften the highlights, plus you can always airbrush in a filter on some areas ....

cheers
Brent

Heres a few I've done ....

Hi Brent, Steve,

I will try those ideas. I used to have a free trail version of P.S. but it doesn't work on my "new" (in 2010) laptop. One of these days I will quit buying models and save enough $$ for a new P.S. suite.

Brent, Your images - esp. the DH2 - look great!