Superimposing a Landscape Plan onto Existing Site Photos

Note: The following catalog of content covered in this webinar is time stamped to allow you to follow along or skip to sections of the video that are relevant to your questions. You can also search for content on this page using the FIND command in your browser (CTRL + F in Windows, Command + F in Mac OS.)

• Intro/TOC
• Place a Plan Directly Over an Aerial Image
• Create a Perspective View of a Design Over a Photo of the Site

0:00 – 2:55: Intro/TOC

2:56 – 15:59: Place a Plan Directly Over an Aerial Image

Aerial image setup (2:56)

Pulling a Google Earth image of the site into Photoshop (4:00)

Dragging a rendered plan of the site into the Photoshop document (4:23)

Dropping the opacity of the plan layer and rotating the plan to match the angle of the site in the Google Earth image (5:00)

Sizing/scaling the plan to fit the site (6:00)

Distorting the plan to match elements in the site image (6:50)

Warping the plan to fine-tune its reference elements to match the site image (8:40)

Adding a layer mask and applying a soft brush to it (9:55)

Airbrushing elements out of the site image and further integrating the plan with the image (10:55)

Copying the new layers and merging them together to create one flat image (12:50)

Adding post-processing effects, including a Gaussian blur (13:20)

16:00 – end: Create a Perspective View of a Design Over a Photo of the Site

Creating a reference for the perspective of the photo using SketchUp (17:00)

Note: Several of the processes in this section are covered in more detail in our Using Photoshop in Post-Production Renderings webinar.

Adding some essential site linework to the reference (18:15)

Merging two site photos using the Photomerge tool in Photoshop (20:30)

Cropping the image and adding your preferred aspect ratio (21:55)

Using the Clone Stamp tool to remove unwanted elements from the photo (23:30)

Copying the base layer (30:00)

Adding the references from SketchUp and matching them to the site photo (30:40)

Adding a mask to the ground plan to provide a blank canvas (33:00)

Adding a ground texture (34:20)

Using the Magic Wand tool to add elements, such as a path (36:20)

Creating a curb cut using the Warp feature within the Free Transform tool (37:50)

Adding a gradient to create depth (39:20)

Adding background elements, including plants, and integrating them into the gradients (41:18)

Creating a brush preset and adding shadows (45:30)

Adding groundcover images (48:24)

Adding a sunlight effect using copied gradients (54:40)

Adding post-post-production effects, such as a sepia effect and a raw filter (57:40)

Fine-tuning elements such as saturation, vibrance, balance between lights and darks, noise reduction, etc. (1:02:00)

The final product juxtaposed with the original site photo (1:04:20)