How to Render onto a Photo Background

Presentation is one of the most overlooked aspects of art, and yet it adds so much to the final composition. In this quick tutorial, you'll discover how you can seamlessly blend your renders onto a photo, making it much more impressive.

[mrfeathers]

Dude please do a tutorial on this for blender 2.8

[DarkarDengeno]

I had no idea Object IDs were even a thing, much less that they could be used to isolate items in the compositor! This is why Blender Guru videos are, in my opinion, the best Blender tutorials out there: I always learn at least one new trick which invariably saves me hours of work or provides completely new options. Very helpful!

[Penguincop]

Blender 2.8+ has a Shadow Catcher. It works like this: Have an object on a plane. Enable Shadow Catcher for the plane...and you're done. Shadow catcher makes everything on the object (in this case: the ground) transparent except for the shadows.

That said, I did still use this method on Blender 2.9 to capture the reflection on a plane. The Shadow Catcher only catches a shadow, which is great, unless what your object sits on is glossy. If that's the case, then this method still holds up.
Layers have been replaced with Collections, but there are still many ways that you can set it up in blender 2.8+ to work.

[PowerSports]

Love the tutorial. Been waiting forever, haha. ^_^ Don't be afraid to make some more 1-hour tutorials! I've found you are one of the best Blender instructors around!

[HammersmashedTaco]

YOU ARE MY HERO! I was stuck for an hour trying to figure out the node/s required to get a background image to work as an alpha and this video saved me. I had a multiply node as opposed to a mix node.

[blenderdrenders]

OMG! I was going to put this question on blend swap on how to do shadow and distance in cycles and this is it, gratitude works fine for me, looking forward to your next tutorial Mr Price.

[NickPangburn]

I like how he says this is the easy way to do it, when no one understands half of what he just said!

[NourArt]

For anyone asking it's easier in 2.8/2.9
1. Select the plane
2. Open Object Properties tab
3. Under "Visibility" tick the box saying "Shadow Catcher"
Aaaand you're done

[PandanD]

havent used blender in years, but stumbled upon this tutorial.
Really straight and to the point tutorial, i love it.

[AhmedHamadto]

Three years now, and still helpful
Thanks

[SevrinK]

Thanks again Andrew. Another brilliant tutorial.
I've watch 3 other tutorials on this same subject yet yours was the only one to actually make any sense.

Cheers!

[beyondtheuniverse]

I like detailed short videos like this than boring loooong videos :)

[kagley]

I like this new format. It's user friendly and perfect for quick tips.

[krazylevin]

I've followed many of your vids and have been going well so far, but with this one I must admit, I'm lost. Gonna go through it again and hit that pause button a lot more this round.

[PostColorGear]

I love Blender, and I am pretty well versed in it, but tuts like this always remind me that there are times where I will say to myself "I would have NEVER thought of that" lol I followed along, and it made sense for the most part. But plugging each node into the next, especially the last mix node....yeah, I would have struggled to think of a way to combine everything.

[Spamkromite]

Not sure but, I usually get my shadow only render layers by just disabling ray-visibility of the plane towards the camera and playing with the glossy and diffuse which are the ones that catch reflection and shadow. Thanks for sharing your methods Andrew. You are a cool person.

[LaneCarter]

Really glad you covered this shadows thing. I've spent so many hours trying to figure it out, and it seems way too complicated anyway, but at least I'll be able to refer to this now.

[GfuseDigital]

I've messed with this in the past. But never found such a great way to do it. Thanks.

[allaydesign]

This was like rocket science!! It all flew over my head

[Nasrirgb]

I love guru how he renders blender tutorials keep going thanks I'm new to blender is it very handy becuase you make it
very easy waiting