How to Composite Photos in Photoshop

How to Composite Photos in Photoshop

Turning cloudy, murky water into something with fish swimming through it means going far beyond a simple cutout, since a flat fish pasted on top of water never actually looks submerged. This tutorial composites several fish into a photo using blend modes, Field Blur, clipped color adjustments, and bubble detail cloned from the water itself, building the kind of layered depth that makes a composite believable.

Placing, Duplicating, and Varying Multiple Fish

Multiple copies of the same fish, each transformed differently, fill out a school without needing several unique source images.

1. Bring In the Fish Images

   Bring in a couple of fish images photographed from above, matching the perspective of the water in the base photo.

2. Scale Each Fish

   Press Cmd/Ctrl+T, link the width and height, and scale each fish down to a reasonable size for the scene.

3. Duplicate and Vary Each Copy

   Press Cmd/Ctrl+J to duplicate a fish, then flip it horizontally or use Warp to reshape it slightly so duplicates don’t look identical.

4. Let One Fish Extend Past the Frame

   Position at least one fish so it extends slightly outside the frame, since a small imperfection like this tends to look more realistic than every element being perfectly contained.

Why Slight Imperfection Makes a Composite Look More Real

A composite where every element is perfectly placed and fully visible within the frame can start to look artificially staged. Letting one fish extend past the edge of the frame introduces a small, natural-feeling imperfection that helps the whole scene read as a real photograph rather than an obvious composite.

Cutting Out and Merging the Fish With Multiply

Fish photographed on a white background can be cut out instantly with a Multiply blend mode, and merging every fish layer together makes the rest of the effects easier to apply consistently.

5. Select All Fish Layers and Set Blend Mode to Multiply

   Shift-click every fish layer and change the blend mode to Multiply, which makes the white backgrounds disappear.

6. Merge the Fish Layers Together

   Shift-click the fish layers and press Cmd/Ctrl+E to merge them into one layer, then reset the blend mode to Multiply since merging resets it to Normal.

7. Group the Merged Layer

   Press Cmd/Ctrl+G and name the group Fish.

Blurring the Fish With Field Blur

Field Blur’s multiple adjustable points make it possible to vary how blurred different parts of the same fish appear, simulating how depth would naturally affect focus underwater.

8. Open Field Blur

   Go to Filter > Blur Gallery > Field Blur.

9. Add Multiple Blur Points

   Click on different parts of the fish, such as the head and the tail, to add separate blur points.

10. Vary the Blur Amount at Each Point

    Adjust each point’s blur amount independently, keeping less blur near the head and more toward the tail to suggest depth.

Why Field Blur’s Multiple Points Beat a Single Uniform Blur

Applying one uniform blur to an entire fish would blur it evenly regardless of any part appearing closer to or farther from the camera. Field Blur’s individual points allow different areas of the same fish to receive different amounts of blur, which is what makes it look like the fish has real depth and dimension in the water rather than being a flat, evenly blurred cutout.

Coloring the Fish With a Clipped Hue/Saturation Layer

A colorized Hue/Saturation layer clipped to just the fish tints them toward the same color as the surrounding water.

11. Add a Hue/Saturation Layer and Clip It

    Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and hold Option/Alt+Cmd/Ctrl and press G to clip it to the fish layer.

12. Turn On Colorize and Match the Water’s Color

    Turn on Colorize and choose a color similar to the water, lowering saturation as needed.

13. Lower Opacity to Retain Some Original Color

    Lower the layer’s opacity slightly so a bit of the fish’s original coloring remains visible underneath the tint.

Blending Water Color Onto the Fish With a Lighten Layer

Sampling the water’s own color and painting it over the fish with a Lighten blend mode makes the fish look like they’re genuinely surrounded by that water rather than sitting on top of it.

14. Create a New Clipped Layer

    Create a new layer and clip it to the fish layer.

15. Sample Water Color and Paint With Lighten

    Sample a color from the water, change the layer’s blend mode to Lighten, and paint over parts of the fish so the water color overlaps and lightens them.

16. Add Variability With a Low-Flow Layer

    Create another clipped layer, lower the brush Flow to around 20%, and paint further variability over the fish so they don’t look too uniformly in focus or colored.

Adding Subtle Ripple Highlights

A small amount of hand-painted white and black, blended with Soft Light and blurred, suggests the fish disturbing the water around them.

17. Paint White and Black Ripples

    Create a new layer and paint alternating strokes of white and black near the fish to suggest ripple highlights and shadows.

18. Set the Layer to Soft Light

    Change the layer’s blend mode to Soft Light.

19. Blur the Ripples

    Apply Gaussian Blur, increasing the radius until the ripples fade from an obvious brush stroke into something more natural.

Cloning and Coloring Bubbles With Screen and Levels

Cloning real bubbles from the water itself, set to Screen and adjusted with Levels, adds authentic water detail directly over the fish.

20. Create a Bubbles Group

    Create a new group named Bubbles.

21. Clone a Bubble From the Water

    Use the Clone Stamp tool to sample and paint an existing bubble from elsewhere in the photo onto a new layer.

22. Set the Layer to Screen

    Change the layer’s blend mode to Screen so only the lighter parts of the bubble show up.

23. Adjust With Levels and Desaturate

    Use a Levels adjustment to bring back detail in the bubble and reduce saturation with Hue/Saturation if the color looks too intense.

Why Screen Instead of Multiply for Bubble Highlights

Multiply, used earlier to remove the fish’s white background, hides light areas and keeps dark ones, which is the opposite of what a bubble highlight needs. Screen instead keeps only the lighter parts of a cloned bubble visible, which is exactly the kind of subtle highlight detail that helps sell the illusion of the fish sitting underneath real water texture.

Duplicating Bubbles Over Every Fish

Grouping and duplicating the finished bubble layers, then transforming each copy slightly, spreads realistic water detail over every fish without cloning fresh bubbles each time.

24. Group the Bubble Layers

    Select all the bubble layers and group them together.

25. Duplicate the Group Over Each Fish

    Duplicate the bubble group and reposition, resize, or rotate each copy over a different fish so the bubbles don’t look identical.

26. Mask Groups as Needed

    Add a layer mask to any bubble group that needs to be hidden in certain areas.

Finishing With a Vignette

A final darkened Curves layer clipped to the fish group adds a subtle vignette that helps the fish recede convincingly into deeper water.

27. Add a Clipped Curves Layer

    Add a Curves adjustment layer, clip it to the fish group, and darken the overall brightness.

28. Paint the Vignette Into the Edges

    Invert the layer mask and paint white around the edges of the fish to bring in a subtle vignette.

More Free Photoshop Tutorials

To build on the compositing and blending techniques used here, check out these free tutorials:

• A Beginner’s Guide to Compositing in Photoshop
• How to Select Subjects and Refine Edges in Photoshop
• Three Ways to Use Blend If in Photoshop

Why This Approach Works

Varying the size, flip, and warp of duplicated fish, along with letting one extend past the frame, is what keeps a composite of identical source images from looking obviously repeated. Field Blur’s ability to vary blur across a single object is what gives each fish a sense of real depth, rather than looking like a flat cutout pasted at one uniform distance. Cloning actual bubbles from the water and layering them over the fish with Screen is what finally sells the illusion, since that detail is genuine water texture rather than anything invented from scratch.

Final Thoughts

None of the individual techniques here are unique to fish or water, the same combination of variation, depth-aware blur, color matching, and detail layered on top works for compositing almost anything into an existing scene. For a broader foundation in how compositing works before tackling something this specific, the Beginners Guide to Compositing covers the fundamentals this tutorial builds on.

Related Tutorials

• Compositing Highlights and Shadows: 4 Easy Steps
• Graphics in Midjourney: 5 Easy Steps into Photoshop
• Rotate Object in Photoshop: 3 Easy Steps to Real Composites