Headstand Media

Back in the late 1980’s, most photos were still taken on film, then scanned and turned into 4 separations of film for offset printing using CMYK inks. If a number of photos needed to be combined into one single image, this process was called photo-compositing. There were very high-end, expensive systems that enabled skilled and trained technicians to combine these images into one.

With the advent of the desktop computer, Mac’s and PC’s, and software like Adobe Photoshop, it became more possible to do this high-end work on a relatively low-end machine.

This image was photo-composited by Randal Birkey on a Macintosh for a McDonald’s restaurant display transparency. He combined a high resolution photo scan of the Boston Celtics Larry Bird against a background, with a close up high-res glamor shot of a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder, and a smaller shot of some McD fries and a Coke using Adobe Photoshop. The resulting file was used to create the 4-color separations needed to print this image on large transparency film used in backlit restaurant displays.

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