Credits:

Anna Aspnes

ArtPlay Palette Inflorescence http://www.oscraps.com/shop/product.php?productid=34177&cat=383&page=1

Process

I wanted to explore the idea of how much my youngest son has grown in this page so I used a blended photo of my son's feet which you see in the background and an extraction of a recent photo of him.

I used layers masks with both of my photos and a large soft brush for my blended photo and the magnetic lasso tool for selecting and a small brush set at a hardness of 50% for cleaning up the extraction.

I placed a heavy shadow behind my extraction to give it some depth and then used a gradient that moved from the foreground to transparent giving my blended photo the appearance of washing into background.