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I blended several images to create the illusion of dancers performing in an old ruin, with no ceiling and open to the sky, which I composited. Because I used so many images, each with a different color cast and light direction, I had trouble getting something I liked using tone and color adjustments.
I started with this photo from Pixabay, a source of copyright-free images. I like the intruiguing open space, like a stage waiting for players.
I also used this photo from Pixabay, which has the players!
Using Effect/Blend, I blended the dancers onto the ruins. I tried several blending modes and used the gray slider under Set.
To get more depth and clarity, I used Adjust/Tonelab preset 4, Adjust/Levels, and Effect/Sharpen, each at low to medium opacity. And I cropped the extra area from the top of the image.
I altered the color in Tone/Enhance and Channels, at low to medium opacity. I cropped once more, because I felt that ceiling wasn't adding much.
I applied Style/ET-Flow with these settings, which added smoothness.
I used Effect/Sharpen preset 3 at very low opacity.
I wanted to create an open roof, so I blended in a sky from a Rijksmuseum image.
This is the Rijksmuseum painting I used. Their website provides high-resolution images free to use and modify for any purpose, in their Rijksstudio.
Here I used Tone/Duotone in Multiply mode at low opacity, to give more depth to the shadows.
I felt there were too many colors in the image competing with each other. So I used Tone/Sepia to tone them down. I added a texture with Texture/Grunge 33, to try to use it to pull the various image textures together.
Still unhappy with the color, I used Tone/Tint preset 1 in overlay mode at low opacity.
Here I used Style/Coherence and Effect/Glow preset 1, both at low opacity, to add smoothness to the image. I had a tug of war going between getting rid of rough texture in the image but retaining detail in the dancers and architectural features.
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