Catzilla

Ever have a dream where your cat grows to the size of a mountain and bats at a helicopter like a feather on a string?

No? Me neither.

But sometimes a design idea just comes to you, and this piece, which I call “Catzilla”, is one of those ideas. I begun with two images from Unsplash: the swatting cat, and a helicopter flying over a mountain. I was able to mask the background from the cat, being careful not to cut off its hair along the edges. Once masked, I placed the cat on the mountain image, swatting at the helicopter. I then hid the cat’s layer and masked the mountain out of the background and moved it in front of the cat’s layer. With the cat in swatting position behind the mountain, it was time to finalize the image. To create a more seamless look, I used a curves adjustment to ensure all parts of the image had consistent color grading and lighting. Ensuring that highlights, shadows, and midtones are consistent are a key feature of making photo composites like these tie togehter.