StretchLearn Course
The Photoshop compositing workflow real retouchers use — from clean cut-outs to convincing surreal scenes.
Course Overview
This beginner course teaches the full compositing workflow in Adobe Photoshop (2024 and later), from non-destructive layer setup to final color grading. You extract subjects with refined masks, replace skies, blend foregrounds and backgrounds, and construct surreal concept imagery. Every technique is taught with the specific tools, panels, and settings used by working retouchers and matte artists.
Learning Outcomes
Build a non-destructive layered composite using layer masks, groups, and Smart Objects
Extract subjects with hair using Select Subject, Select and Mask, and channel-based masking
Replace skies and match horizon, color temperature, and atmospheric haze
Unify separate plates with color grading, lighting, and shadow reconstruction
Diagnose and fix the four tells that expose a fake composite
Design and execute an original surreal concept image from a shot list to final export
Curriculum Preview
Preview the course structure, see how the modules build on one another, and understand the path this program is designed to take you through.
Before any pixels move, you build a layered document you can revise forever. This module sets up the workflow, the panels, and the way professionals think about combining images.
The craft of extraction. You move from one-click selections to channel-based hair masking and learn to refine edges so nothing looks cut with scissors.
Drop a subject into a new world. You replace skies convincingly, blend foreground and background plates, and reconstruct the haze and light wrap that sell distance.
Unify every layer into one photograph, then put it all together on an original surreal concept from shot list to export.
Built for Application
This program is designed around progression: focused lessons, structured modules, applied resources, assessments, and a course rhythm that turns information into usable capability.