Space Composite

An astronaut adrift over Europe at night, built from four separate images.

Type: Photo composite
Context: Photography course project
Tools: Photoshop
Role: Concept, compositing, color

Final composite: an astronaut floating above Earth at night, with the sun and the space station — The final image. Click to view it full size.

The brief

Make one believable scene out of images that were never meant to fit together.

The assignment was a composition built from multiple images. I chose a scene where scale and light are hard to fake: a person in orbit, the night side of Earth, the station and the sun all in one frame.

The pieces

Every element came from a different source, each with its own lighting, color and resolution.

Source image: Earth at night from orbit — Earth at night: the base layer

Source image: the International Space Station — Space station cut-out

The process

Set the stage. Earth's night side as the base, with the horizon low so the astronaut has room above it.
Cut out and place. The astronaut, the station and the sun masked from their backgrounds and positioned so the eye travels from the helmet, down the curve of the Earth, to the station.
One color world. Every layer graded toward the same cool blue, with the sun kept as the one warm accent in the corner.
Tie it together. Earth and the station show in the helmet visor, which links the figure to the scene below.

Credits

Composited from stock photography and AI-generated elements, assembled and color-graded by me in Photoshop.