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I think my most common comment nowadays is "make the stock interact with the lighting/bg," so I figure that a tutorial is called for. xD
Anyhoo, I've deliberately chosen an anime-style stock that really doesn't have strong lighting or contrast to show that it can still be made to work with a strongly lit background. Here's the stock if you want to give it a shot as well:
http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h187/chocowilliam/rmustang.png
And, onto the tutorial!
1) Put your stock in and cut it out... Sharpen/clean it up a little... I slapped a Levels adjustment layer on this as well and mucked around a little with the contrast and increased the green/blue sliders to bring out some turqoise-y color.
2) Eyedrop a light and dark color and put a radial gradient down on a new layer underneath the stock (this step getting familiar to you folks? xD). The center of the gradient should be where the light source is.
3) Now, take a look at your lighting... the parts where it's directly behind the stock, you'll get a washed out effect that sort of obscures the edges. So, create a new layer on top of everything and grab a soft-edged circular brush at 100% opacity and a large-ish size (~70-150px), set your color to white... Then brush a little over the edges of the stock's side that is closest to the lighting. Take a smaller (~30-75px) soft-edged circular brush set to erase and at a lower opacity, like ~60%, and shape the white brushing so that it's concentrated right along the stock's edge.
4) The side that's away from the lighting will get a "silhouette" effect. So, create a layer underneath the stock and brush some lighting spilling out from behind it. Use the same soft-brushing method in step 3 to put down the white.
Next, to really bring out that "silhouette" effect, CTRL-click your stock so that you create a selection from it. Make a new layer and hit the Layer Mask button to create a mask from that selection. On this new layer, brush some black over the side of the stock that's away from the light. Set its blending mode to Soft Light. If you don't think the shadow's intense enough though, just duplicate that layer of black and you can accentuate it.
5) And now to enhance the overall lighting... last but not least, time for the trusty gradients set to Soft Light (tm). xD Duplicate that first gradient layer from the bottom with CTRL+J and move it on top of everything else. Then set it to Soft Light.
6) Now, you've basically set up the strongest lighting affecting the stock, but don't forget that any more shiney effects or elements will have light reflecting off of the stock (and the background...) as well. As I add some renders to give the BG some texture, notice that I let some of it overlap the stock in places where light would logically fall.
Also, if you place something so that it doesn't overlap and impose its color on the stock but gets very close to it, feel free to throw in another brushing layer to add in that light manually. Eyedrop the new element's brightest, most saturated color, create a new layer, and use the soft brush / eraser method from steps 3/4 to apply the color. Set the blending mode to Soft Light or Hard Light (or Vivid Light or Overlay... experiment with those blending modes!), depending on how strong you want the coloring to be.
7) Now, I throw down a bit of smudging that is the same color as the sparkly render elements along the edges because it resembles light being reflected off of the BG, see?
8) Add some typo, put in one last Levels adjusment layer... and voila.
There you go. Just remember these 3 guidelines when you're setting up your stock/lighting --
1) Light can bleed over the edges / overlap stocks
2) Strong light creates a "silhouette" effect along the edges of an object that fall into shadows
3) Any elements that you put in, especially if they have bright, shiney surfaces, will reflect light onto the stock in some way.
Anyhoo, I've deliberately chosen an anime-style stock that really doesn't have strong lighting or contrast to show that it can still be made to work with a strongly lit background. Here's the stock if you want to give it a shot as well:
http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h187/chocowilliam/rmustang.png
And, onto the tutorial!
1) Put your stock in and cut it out... Sharpen/clean it up a little... I slapped a Levels adjustment layer on this as well and mucked around a little with the contrast and increased the green/blue sliders to bring out some turqoise-y color.
2) Eyedrop a light and dark color and put a radial gradient down on a new layer underneath the stock (this step getting familiar to you folks? xD). The center of the gradient should be where the light source is.
3) Now, take a look at your lighting... the parts where it's directly behind the stock, you'll get a washed out effect that sort of obscures the edges. So, create a new layer on top of everything and grab a soft-edged circular brush at 100% opacity and a large-ish size (~70-150px), set your color to white... Then brush a little over the edges of the stock's side that is closest to the lighting. Take a smaller (~30-75px) soft-edged circular brush set to erase and at a lower opacity, like ~60%, and shape the white brushing so that it's concentrated right along the stock's edge.
4) The side that's away from the lighting will get a "silhouette" effect. So, create a layer underneath the stock and brush some lighting spilling out from behind it. Use the same soft-brushing method in step 3 to put down the white.
Next, to really bring out that "silhouette" effect, CTRL-click your stock so that you create a selection from it. Make a new layer and hit the Layer Mask button to create a mask from that selection. On this new layer, brush some black over the side of the stock that's away from the light. Set its blending mode to Soft Light. If you don't think the shadow's intense enough though, just duplicate that layer of black and you can accentuate it.
5) And now to enhance the overall lighting... last but not least, time for the trusty gradients set to Soft Light (tm). xD Duplicate that first gradient layer from the bottom with CTRL+J and move it on top of everything else. Then set it to Soft Light.
6) Now, you've basically set up the strongest lighting affecting the stock, but don't forget that any more shiney effects or elements will have light reflecting off of the stock (and the background...) as well. As I add some renders to give the BG some texture, notice that I let some of it overlap the stock in places where light would logically fall.
Also, if you place something so that it doesn't overlap and impose its color on the stock but gets very close to it, feel free to throw in another brushing layer to add in that light manually. Eyedrop the new element's brightest, most saturated color, create a new layer, and use the soft brush / eraser method from steps 3/4 to apply the color. Set the blending mode to Soft Light or Hard Light (or Vivid Light or Overlay... experiment with those blending modes!), depending on how strong you want the coloring to be.
7) Now, I throw down a bit of smudging that is the same color as the sparkly render elements along the edges because it resembles light being reflected off of the BG, see?
8) Add some typo, put in one last Levels adjusment layer... and voila.
There you go. Just remember these 3 guidelines when you're setting up your stock/lighting --
1) Light can bleed over the edges / overlap stocks
2) Strong light creates a "silhouette" effect along the edges of an object that fall into shadows
3) Any elements that you put in, especially if they have bright, shiney surfaces, will reflect light onto the stock in some way.
unwariwalangalam:
magagamit ko din 'to... 
