How to Create a Composite in Photoshop – Day 30

Create a Composite That Reads as One Photograph, Not Several

This is the final day of 30 Days of Photoshop, and it exists to prove a point: almost nothing here is a new technique. Blend modes, Select Subject, layer masks, Smart Objects and the Camera Raw Filter have all appeared earlier in the series. The composite is what happens when you stop learning them one at a time and put four of them in a row.

The goal is a portrait wrapped in light streaks that looks like it was captured that way, rather than assembled. Everything that follows serves that single test — and the order you create a composite in matters more than any individual step.

What Makes a Composite Convincing

Nothing Gets Cut Out

The light streaks arrive on black backgrounds and blend modes remove that black. No selections, no erasing, no edges to give the game away.

Light Passes Behind and In Front

A streak that runs only over the subject looks stuck on. Making some pass behind them is what puts the person inside the effect rather than under it.

One Treatment at the End Unifies Everything

Individually adjusted layers still read as separate. A single pass over the flattened result is what makes the whole thing feel photographed.

Drop In the Light Streaks

1. Open Your Subject Image and Drag the Streaks In

   Photoshop imports dragged files as Smart Objects automatically, which matters later when you start copying filters between them.

2. Set Each Streak Layer to Screen

   Screen makes black invisible and keeps the bright parts. This is the whole reason light-streak images ship on black backgrounds — the “cut-out” is free.

3. Clean Up Any Visible Edges With Levels

   Cmd/Ctrl + L, then drag the black input slider right until the near-black areas go fully black and disappear. A faint rectangle around a streak is always this — the source isn’t quite black enough, and Levels fixes it in two seconds.

Wrap the Light Around the Subject

4. Select the Background Layer and Run Select Subject

   You need the selection to come from the layer that actually contains the person.

5. With the Selection Live, Click the Layer Mask Icon on a Streak Layer

   That streak now appears only on the subject — light falling across them.

6. Press Cmd/Ctrl + I to Invert for the Opposite Effect

   Now the streak appears everywhere except the subject, so it passes behind them. Do this on some layers and not others: the interleaving of in-front and behind is what creates depth.

7. Unlink the Mask to Move the Streak Independently

   Click the chain icon between the layer thumbnail and its mask. You can now Cmd/Ctrl + T and reposition the light while the mask stays exactly where the subject is. This is the small piece of layer mechanics that makes the whole composite adjustable.

Push It Further

8. Try Multiply on Some Layers

   The inverse of Screen — light areas vanish, dark ones stay. Useful for adding shadow or texture rather than glow.

9. Copy a Smart Filter Between Layers by Alt/Option-Dragging It

   Hold Alt/Option and drag the Smart Filter icon from one Smart Object onto another. Set an effect up once, then apply it to five layers in five seconds.

10. Duplicate the Subject and Use Advanced Blending for Colour Separation

    Cmd/Ctrl + J, then double-click the layer to open Layer Style and turn off individual channels under Advanced Blending. A slight offset produces the chromatic-aberration look, and it’s subtle enough that people read it as lens character.

11. Add Motion Blur to That Duplicate

    Filter > Blur > Motion Blur on the duplicated subject layer, masked back where you want it.

Unify the Whole Thing at the End

12. Go to Image > Apply Image at the Top of the Stack

    This builds a single flattened copy of everything below it without merging your layers. Everything underneath stays editable.

13. Convert That Layer to a Smart Object and Open the Camera Raw Filter

    Now you’re treating the composite as a photograph rather than a stack.

14. Add a Vignette, a Radial Gradient and a Little Lens Blur

    Darken the edges, lift the centre, and let a small amount of blur soften the light effects. That last one is what makes generated light read as photographed light — real light isn’t perfectly sharp.

Where Composites Fall Apart

Every Streak In Front

Flat. Invert half the masks so light passes behind the subject too.

Visible Boxes Around the Streaks

The source black isn’t black. Levels, black slider, right.

Skipping the Final Camera Raw Pass

This is the step that converts a collection of layers into an image. Don’t stop before it.

Flattening Instead of Apply Image

Flattening ends the edit. Apply Image gives you the same flattened pixels while keeping everything underneath alive.

Too Many Streaks

Three placed thoughtfully beat nine. Composites fail from excess far more often than from restraint.

Why the Last Lesson Is a Project, Not a Technique

Thirty days of individual tools teaches you what each one does. It doesn’t teach you the thing that actually distinguishes people who are good at Photoshop, which is knowing which four of those tools to reach for and in what order.

That’s why the final day is a composite. The order here is not arbitrary — blend first because it removes the need to select, mask second because you now know where the subject is, embellish third because the structure is settled, and unify last because unifying is only possible once there’s something whole to unify. Learning to see that shape in a job you haven’t done before is the skill the whole series was building towards.

Create a Composite of Your Own Today

Drag your light streaks in, set them all to Screen, and clean the edges with Levels. Download the seven free sample images and the sample PSD and take it through properly — Select Subject on the background, mask each streak, invert half of them so they pass behind, unlink the masks so you can move the light freely, then finish with Apply Image and one Camera Raw pass for the vignette and lens blur. For compositing built by hand from the ground up, our PRO Ultimate Guide to Manual Compositing is where to go next.

Quick Reference: Keys, Menus and Settings

• Blend the streaksDrag the files in, blend mode Screen; Cmd/Ctrl + L, black input slider right
• Light behindSelect Subject on the background, layer mask icon, Cmd/Ctrl + I to invert
• Move the lightChain icon to unlink, Cmd/Ctrl + T; Cmd/Ctrl + ] brings a layer up
• Reuse a maskAlt/Option-drag it to another layer; Cmd/Ctrl + J duplicates a streak
• Ghost the subjectCmd/Ctrl + J, double-click > Advanced Blending channels; Filter > Blur > Motion Blur
• UnifyNew layer, Image > Apply Image, Filter > Convert for Smart Filters, Camera Raw Filter: vignette, radial gradient, grain, Lens Blur
• Copy smart filtersAlt/Option-drag the smart filters onto a new Apply Image layer