【Shoost Tips】 Fundamentals of Attractive Composition, Part 2 - Color Correction and Lighting for Background Integration

Hello, everyone!

This is a continuation of the three-part series on composition fundamentals that I started in the previous article. Last time, I talked about eye level and perspective lines—essentially discussing layout concepts.

Today, I'll be covering color correction and lighting. I'd like to explain how to harmonize colors to match your background!

Key Points to Consider When Matching Colors

The main points to focus on when integrating characters into backgrounds are saturation, brightness, and contrast.

Personally, I think "brightness" is especially important. If the brightness doesn't match, the character will look out of place. Conversely, if the brightness is properly matched, it will look natural even if the colors are slightly off. For this article, I'll focus on explaining brightness!

Techniques for Matching Brightness

To match brightness, it's good to start by converting the screen to black and white. Use the Color Correction in the EFFECTS section and set saturation to -1.

Once you've done this, add a Color Correction or Levels effect to the character layer.

Adjust using the color and brightness values.

While observing the brightness of the sky, walls, and floor in the background, it's good to adjust to a similar brightness level. White walls and floors make it easier to match.

When you restore the saturation in this state, it looks like this.

It still doesn't feel quite integrated. Rather than just darkening it, it looks better if you reduce the saturation as it gets darker and add a slight blue tint to the color.

The key point when darkening is to reduce saturation rather than simply overlaying blue. Just add a touch of blue color.

Visualizing the Background environment

What becomes important when making adjustments is visualizing the background environment.

Imagine where the character is positioned within the background (environment) and what kind of light is hitting them.

For example, even in a dark room, if there's lighting around the character, simply matching it to the background brightness will make the mood of the picture feel off.

In this case, I think there's lighting near the desk, so color adjustment matching that lighting is necessary. Adjust based on the brightness of the desk where the light is hitting.

The method is the same as when matching the background—I adjusted by converting to black and white and matching the brightness. Like this, rather than just matching the background colors, also consider where the character is positioned and what kind of light is present.

Even with the same background, the atmosphere changes by thinking about what kind of light is hitting and adjusting accordingly, so please give it a try.

Left: Everyday lighting atmosphere.

Right: A slightly lonely feeling, incorporating the character's emotional state into the lighting atmosphere.

Tips for Brightening Characters

Finally, let me introduce some tips for when you want to brighten characters.

You might think you can simply brighten them after matching colors to the background, but that's not quite right. You need to think that as it gets brighter, it returns to the normal color.

This is the state after adjusting brightness to match the background. Let's say we brighten it with lighting from this state.

Left: Just increased brightness.

Right: Restored to normal color as it brightens.

It becomes clearer when you compare them, but if you just brighten it as is, it gives a bluish-white impression.

Like this, if you think of brightening as gradually returning to the normal color, you can create bright scenes without making the character's appearance look strange. The idea is that dark areas are affected by environment colors, while bright areas show the character's original colors.

Depending on the lighting, colors may be added while brightening, so please remember this as a basic concept.

Conclusion

This time, I explained how to integrate characters into backgrounds using color correction and lighting.

Before starting production, it's important to first firmly visualize the background environment, think about where the light is and where the character is positioned, then begin working. When matching colors, just converting to black and white and matching brightness will help things blend nicely. Please give it a try!

Next time, in Part 3, I'll explain "Finishing techniques"! Stay tuned.