Wow.....I did it. Those of you who read the discussions might have seen a post I put up a few weeks ago asking about how a picture like this was created. After studying the 2 pictures I was talking about
http://www.flickr.com/photos/deskounlmtd/3695922896/in/faves-jkbraun/page11/ and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/irashid007/4944160377/in/faves-jkbraun/
I decided to give it a try. Let me reiterate, this was not my original idea. The 2 gentleman above tried it first, I just borrowed their idea and tried to figure out how to do it. Don't be fooled though.... this was still my hardest picture yet and it took me the better part Saturday to complete. However, the result was well worth it and my wife already wants to get it printed and framed.
To get this: You need lots of time if you are weak in Photoshop (as I am). This was actually a composite of 3 pictures merged in photoshop. I had a black background up, my sliding glass doors to the right side of our faces and an off camera flash positioned above/ behind the subjects. I also had a black piece of paper on the side of the flash so it didn't spill onto the background. That was it. I used my trusty 35mm 1.8 and NikonD5000 (if you click the picture, you can see the EXIF info on the side). The pictures were the easy part, the rest was tough.
Most of the time I spent was trying to figure out how to do it in PS. I found a few good tutorials on photo merging and 'played around'. Here is one of them http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-photoshop-cs4/getting-started-05-working-with-layers/ the other was on Youtube but I closed the link (do a search, you'll find tons of examples). If you give it a try, good luck!! The black and white version is on flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jkbraun/5480255732/)....let me know which you like better.
P.S. I intentionally made the baby brighter. I just liked how it drew the eye more to him first. Not a perfect picture, but decent for a first time try. I think I may go back and darken him a bit because on second look today it looks a little too bright. Anyway, good luck or CHEERS as many of the Aussie's and European's always say to me!!
Having seen the first conversation, you did an excellent job at achieving the look you were going for. I do like how you thought the photo was the easiest part, because that is the part that looked so challenging in the first discussion.
This looks really cool. I wanna try it right away... Well 8 pm is probably not the best time to do it, better wait for some nice natural light. Thanks for the "how to".
Gorgeous photo! Very well executed for a PS novice. Adobe has some wonderful tutorials on using refine mask to get difficult hair selections and make them look natural Check out their help menu tutorials.
Write a Reply
Sign up for a free account or Sign in to post a comment.
Tweets ahoy!
Join the Group
Pin With Me
Cheers! (I'm an Aussie too)
I have just forwarded this post to a friend who has a 6 month old boy, hope he decides to try and copy it.