In Photoshop, crop out the exact space needed, reduce the saturation and increase the brightness of the background buildings to create a sense of space and contrast the landscape elements that will be placed in the foreground.

To render the boardwalk by hand use a background photo and draft an outline of the boardwalk at the appropriate angle. Use color pencils to vividly render the wood of the boardwalk. Choose markers or color pencils to render the secondary landscape elements, e.g., sculptures and lawn. Finally, scan the image as a PDF to merge with the photo.

Hand graphics and digital rendering techniques are two kinds of representation methods for design communication in landscape architecture. Each of these rendering techniques has unique features.

Hand graphics represent a graphic signature of a landscape architect's style, and also enhance vivid textures for different construction materials like wood, stone and glass.

The two biggest advantages of digital renderings are professionalism and convenience. Currently, digital rendering techniques are of great importance for landscape architecture firms to convey the design ideas to clients. Thanks to the reality of computer imagery techniques, the clients without design backgrounds can have a direct-view of the ideas represented by designers.

How to combine these two design communication methods and develop a personal style in design representation is valuable for landscape architects to explore. As a landscape architecture student, I am interested in taking advantage of these two representation methods and synthesizing their features to explore creative visual effects for idea expression and exploration. This article walks through the steps of combining hand graphics and digital rendering techniques to create a perspective view of my waterfront space design to give clients an overview of the project after construction. Here are the steps I took to generate a composite analog/digital graphic, using hand graphics, Photoshop and photo realistic images from Real World Imagery.

Take a photo of the space as the appropriate background for the perspective..

Image preparation
1. Take a photo of the space (Fig. 1) as the appropriate background for the perspective.

 
2. In Photoshop, crop out the exact space needed, reduce the saturation and increase the brightness of the background buildings in order to create a sense of space as well as to contrast with the landscape elements that will be placed in the foreground (Fig. 2).

Preparing Hand Graphics
The next step is preparing the design with markers and color pencils. The design incorporates a wooden boardwalk along the channel bank. This is an opportunity to represent the boardwalk by hand, as a color pencil is a creative tool for representing the texture of wood. Another reason of using hand rendering for the major designed landscape elements is visual effects. Appropriate quick hand sketching and rendering within the digital rendering perspective can provide a sense of design for the highlighted part of the project. Usually, for the design concept expression phase, interesting hand renderings in the perspective view are efficient in making perspective views vibrant in a short time.

There are several simple ways of rendering the boardwalk by hand (Fig. 3):
1. Use a background photo to draft an outline of the boardwalk at the appropriate angle.
2. Use color pencils to vividly render the wood of the boardwalk.
3. Choose markers or color pencils for rendering secondary landscape elements, like the sculptures and lawn.
4. Scan in the image as a PDF to merge with the photo.

The hand graphic has been scanned as a PDF, selected out and moved to the photo

Photoshop Synthesis
Now it's time to synthesize the hand rendering and the real photo in Photoshop. Here, the preliminary sense of space of the design has been conveyed by the synthetic perspective (Fig. 4). The hand graphic was scanned in as a PDF, selected out and moved to the photo.

The major phase of photo synthesis is complete, but now it's important to add plants for vibrancy, and human figures to convey the size of the space. Photoshop is an excellent tool for plant image editing, especially for capturing site-specific plant materials. There are several steps to achieve that:

1. Choose appropriate plant images for editing. It is easy to find great plant images on line for free or for purchase. For easy access to precut, clean, high-resolution symbols, check out www.realworldimagery.com. Once downloaded, cut out and saved, photorealistic plant symbols become an excellent resource tool for landscape architects.
2. Get rid of the background of the plant image in Photoshop, then move the plants into the perspective by clicking and dragging it onto the working photo. Change the scale of plants using transform (control+T) to display the distance between plants in the foreground and background.
3. Use the "Image and Adjustments' function to modify the transparency, saturation and hues. The adjustments enrich the look of the plants and avoid making all the plants look the same.
4. Add shadows to the plants and boardwalk for greater realism. (Fig. 5) Make sure the shadows are transparent instead of just black blocks. This is easily achieved by adding drop shadows found under "Layer Style'. For more intricate shadows, duplicate the layer, and under "Adjustments and Brightness and Contrast' (check to use legacy), adjust the sliders to the left to get a black silhouette of the tree. Use transform (control +T) and "Skew' or "Distort' to pinch and drag the shadow to the ground. Change the layer opacity to lighten the shadow.

Add human figures to give clients a visual sense of scale of the space. Choose figures with different gestures. In Photoshop, use the "Brightness and Contrast' parameters to get rid of the color in the human images, keeping the silhouette simple. Put different figures in different positions of the perspective. Make sure the figures interact with the design and each other. To complete this perspective view, details such as birds enrich the visual effects and the reality of the perspective.

The last step is adding human figures to give clients a visual sense of scale of the space. There are four steps to add human figure to the perspective:
1. Choose figures with different gestures. In Photoshop, use the "Brightness and Contrast' parameters to get rid of the color in the human images, keeping the silhouette simple. (Fig. 6)
2. Change the opacity of the figure to make it grey.
3. Put different figures in different positions of the perspective. Make sure the figures interact with the design and each other well.