Global Creators: Dennis Elliott

Photographer Dennis Elliott draws inspiration from his home city of Chicago, Illinois. He places well-dressed characters in dark settings and adds color and shapes of light that dance with the subject in a style he calls Editorial Cinema. See how Dennis uses a strobe light on location then uses Adobe Photoshop to mask multiple photos together into a vivid composite image.

Get to know Dennis.

Tour Dennis’ loft.

Layer multiple photos.

Dennis uses a tripod to capture five shots of a scene illuminated by different colored lights. He brings the images into Photoshop, each on their own layer. Then Dennis uses layer masks to combine the photos so that each area of the scene lit with a different color is visible.

Add some color and grit.

Dennis refines the intensity and tone of the lighting conditions in the scene with several Adjustment layers.

Finally, he adds a finishing touch to the composition with a gritty texture layer.

“The cartoons, the comic books, the anime, the movies that I watched growing up, had a huge impact on my visual work.”

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