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Showtime

2/24/2012

It is Friday, and I am in an exceptional good mood, so instead of doing any actual work, I made this instead, just for fun.

Photoshop: Wrapping a texture around an object with Displace

2/23/2012

In this tutorial I will show how to wrap a texture around an object using the displace filter in Photoshop. This is a really cool technique I just recently learned and used in my picture �Rage�.

I start out with my studio shot of the hand. Since I am going to use another background I remove the studio background using the pen-tool and the lasso-tool (with some feather).

After doing the cut-out I save a copy of the document, calling it �map� because I am going to use it as a map for the displace filter. In this new document I convert the picture to black and white by choosing Adjustments->Desaturate from the Image-menu. After this I select the levels option, Adjustments>Levels, from the same menu. I use levels to make the image really contrasty by dragging the left and right sliders inwards.

In the next step I add a slight blur by using the Gaussian blur filter. This is something you can experiment with, but a value of somewhere around 10 should do the trick. After this I make sure that my �map� document only have one layer and then close it.

Now back to my main image and the magic part! I proceed by placing the texture in a new layer over the hand. From the filter menu I choose Distort>Displace. There are two values in the dialog, one for Horizontal scale and one for Vertical scale. The higher the number the greater the distortion, this is also something you can experiment with to get it just right. In this case I used 25 for both values. When I click ok Photoshop asks for a displacement map, and I chose the �map� document I made earlier.

After displacing my texture I select the hand layer, then making a selection of the empty space around the hand by using the Magic Wand Tool. I then select the texture layer and press backspace. This erases the texture from everywhere but over the hand.

Now for some final touching up. You can see that the edges are kind of rought. I fix this by once again selecting the empty space around the texture and add a slight feather of around 2-4 pixels. I then delete the selection by pressing backspace. This makes the texture fade a bit around the edges, giving it a more natural look. Since my final image will be in black and white I also desaturate the image. Finally I tweak the levels for a bit more contrast.

I hope this was helpful to you. I have found that some textures and objects are more suited for this technique and that it takes a whole lot of experimenting to get right.

Happy Photoshopping!

New Picture - Defiance

2/22/2012

This is the latest picture in my �Stranger� series. I call it �Defiance�. Hope you like it!

New Picture - Leap

2/21/2012

This is a new picture I have been working on during last week. It is the (rather whimsical) result of me thinking a lot about choices and the concepts of free will vs. fate/destiny and determinism. I hope you like it, and would love to hear if you have any thoughts about the picture and how you interpret it.

Photoshop Quick-tip: Use Feather for Better Montages

2/21/2012

One of the most important aspects of making a convincing photo-montage is to get natural looking edges when placing a cut-out object over a background. In this short tutorial I write about how I use feather in Photoshop to achieve this.

The Studio Work

I have previously written about what to think about when shooting source files for photo-montages. As I discussed in that blog post, I find it important to have source files without blurry edges and light-bleeding that are shot against a background that matches the background I am are going to use in the montage. If I have done my work in the studio the right way there is really not much work I need to do in Photoshop to get natural looking edges, except doing the actual cut-outs and adding some feathering.

The Photoshop Work

There are tons of different techniques for isolating or cutting out an object in Photoshop, I usually use the pen- or the lasso-tool. Common to all the different techniques is that you usually end up with a selection (those moving lines) around your object. This is where feather comes in, it can be used with all types of selections. Feathering blurs the edges of a selection by creating a transition effect between the selection and its surrounding pixels, making the edges "softer".

You can set feather from the options bar just below the menu bar in the top of the Photoshop main window. Depending on file-size I usually work with a feather of one or two pixels, just enough to get rid of any harsh "pixely" lines.

In this example you can clearly see the difference between a non-feathered cut-out and one with feather. The feathered edges looks much more realistic.

I hope this was helpful. Happy photoshopping!

New Picture - Stone Part 4

2/14/2012

Happy Valentine�s Day! No balloon hearts today, I was a bit early with that one. However here is a brand new picture with my favorite stones, hope you like it!

Photoshop: Depth and Perspective

2/8/2012

I find getting the perspective and depth in a montage quite hard, especially if there are floating, flying or hovering objects involved. It is also one of the key aspects of making a convincing montage. This is something I have been working a lot with and today I thought I would share some insights.

In this first image I have a sky and some ground. I have not done anything else than smacked the two images together, and as you can see, the result is not very convincing.

In this second image I have introduced two key techniques to create a more convincing feel of depth. The first one is making the horizon less sharp. This is done with feather in Photoshop, which I will address in a later blog post. The second one is the �fog� I added by painting with a soft white brush at a low opacity. If you look at a �real� photo you can see that objects in the far background tend to have less contrast and less sharpness. This is what I am trying to recreate here. The drop-off in contrast helps convey a sense of depth.

In this picture I have added a road and some mountains to help further the sense of depth. As you can see, the mountains are barely visible behind the fog. The road is a really �strong� way of creating depth in a scene and almost voids the need to work with other techniques.

Ok, Now to the tricky part. Here I have two stones casually floating in the air. Since they are of different sizes the brain actually tries to place them in different depths (at least to me it kind of looks like the small one are further away), but they could just as well be side to side.

If I remove the road, you can see that it becomes harder to tell how far away the stones actually are.

Here I have placed a shadow under the bigger stone, helping the eye see where the stone is relative to the road. Working with shadows is a key aspect when doing this kind of montage. If you try this yourself you can experiment by moving the shadow around, seeing how it affects the image.

In this last picture I have moved the floating stones vertically to align with the red lines (and also added a third stone). The lines are where the edges of the road would be if I flipped it vertically. Aligning the stones with the road like this helps me place them just right perspective-vise. As you can see I also gave the two stones further away less contrast.

To sum up:

Objects further away from the viewer tend to have less contrast
Objects further away from the viewer tend to have less sharpness
Lines leading into the picture, like a road, helps convey a sense of depth
Shadows helps the eye understand where a flying object is relative to the ground
Visualizing the perspective by drawing lines and then aligning objects with those lines helps sell the illusion even more.

I hope this was helpful, happy Photoshoping!

New Picture - Lift

2/7/2012

This weekend I have been shooting some new source files. This picture is a result of that, and also something more light-hearted than usual (punch drum roll)

New Picture - Standoff

2/1/2012

I have been away to Norway over the weekend, and managed to contract a cold (as usual when going to Norway, must be something with the air), so I have not had much time to be creative, but I have managed to finish this one.

Photoshop Cheat: The darken blend mode

1/27/2012

This is a quick cheat I use sometimes in my images, most recently in �For You�.

In this picture I wanted to place the tree over another background, but as you can see, the tree would be really complicated to isolate from the sky. It would take ages to do a clean cut out.

This is where blending modes comes in handy, in this case �Darken�. When you apply the Darken blend mode to a layer Photoshop any pixels in the base layer that are lighter than the ones in the blend layer are replaced, and pixels that are darker are left unchanged. Since the tree is darker than the underlying sky, and the sky in the tree picture is mostly brighter than the underlying sky, I can simply apply the blend mode to the tree to cleanly isolate it.

To apply the blend mode I select the layer with the tree and choose �darken� from the dropdown menu in the layer palette.

This is how it looks after I apply the blending mode. As you can see, I still got a sharp edge in the top of the tree layer. I correct this by using a layer mask and a soft brush to fade the edge, but it could also be done with the eraser tool. Since the final image will be in black and white, I ignore the differences in color.

And this is how it looks after I faded the edge and removed the colors. This technique is also very effective and fast when mocking up a montage, where you just want to get an idea of how the final picture will look, without actually doing all the cut-outs first.

New Picture - Drones

1/25/2012

I have another new picture to share this week. This one is a continuation of my picture �Get in Line�. I have been working really hard lately and am beginning to feel tired, but this Friday I will go visiting relatives in Norway over the weekend and will be back next week well rested and with lots of new inspiration and pictures.

New Picture - Dusk

1/24/2012

January in Sweden is miserable. It is dark and cold outside and I find myself daydreaming of more exciting places.

I really enjoy doing these kinds of images, they always gets my imagination going. I only wish I could step inside the picture and walk around in my fantasy city, maybe do some street photography =)

Mini-review: Camera+

1/23/2012

A couple of weeks ago I downloaded Camera+ for my iPhone, an app designed to be used instead of the built-in camera app. Camera+ has some cool image editing options and filters, but I already have instagram, Lo-mob and Luminance installed, and I feel I do not need more filters.

Instead the features that I really find useful is the ability to lock white balance and to set the focus and exposure points independently. These are two very useful features that adds a lot of flexibility when doing some creative shooting (like the picture of Mr. Wader below, a tricky light situation where it was great to be able to tweak the exposure).

There are also an option that adds a 3x3 grid to help you compose your shot, an option that lets you shoot in continuous bursts and an option that lets you use the built-in flash as a continuous fill light.

After using Camera+ for a couple of days I have to say it is a real improvement over the built-in camera app and well worth the 99cents it costs to download. However, I would really like the option to set white balance and exposure manually, or at least lock the exposure.

New Picture - For You

1/18/2012

This is a remake of an older picture that I was not completely happy with. I call it "For You"

New Picture - Fire

1/16/2012

Another new picture. Hope you like it!

Practical Photoshop Magazine February issue

1/13/2012

Do not miss the Practical Photoshop Magazine February issue where I write about how to make stuff "Hover" (in Photoshop, not in real life, sorry). I am also featured in the Portfolio section.

Photoshop: Create sunbeams

1/12/2012

This is a simple trick for adding sunbeams to a picture in photoshop. I used it recently in my image �Touch�. It is a bit �hit-and-miss� and takes some experimenting with to get a good result.

The first thing I do is merge all my layers into one and then copy that new layer into a new document (don�t forget to undo the merge in the original document).

For a color image, the first step would be to convert the new image to grayscale, but since I work with black and white images I can skip this step. Next I want to make the dark areas darker. I do this by adding a levels adjustment layer. I adjust the darkness by dragging the black slider towards the right until all the dark areas in the image are solid black.

I proceed by merging the adjustment layer with the main layer. The next step is to select the dark areas with the magic wand tool. I then invert the selection and delete the now selected areas by pressing the back-space button.

I now have an image with only dark areas, and the rest transparent. Since sunbeams are bright, I need to make the non-transparent areas white, instead of black. I do this by using fill from the edit menu, selecting white as the fill-color and checking the box for �preserve transparency�

Next I apply a radial blur from the layers-menu. I set blur method to Zoom and bump up the Amount to a high number like 80. I also adjust the blur center so that the beams come from where the sun is on my sky.

Tadaa! Now we have some awesome sumbeams. I proceed by copying this layer into the original document. With the eraser tool (or with layer masks) I erase parts of the layer until it looks good. I also adjust the opacity of the layer to make the beams blend in.

New Picture - Touch

1/11/2012

This is the last new picture this week. Tomorrow I will write a short blog post on how I did the sunbeams.

New Picture - Gone

1/10/2012

As I mentioned earlier, I am really productive right now. Here is another one of my recent picture. This one is from the "Stranger" series, and I call it "Gone"

New Picture - Control

1/9/2012

Hi guys!

Another new picture. I call it Control. Hope you like it!

Experiments in color

1/9/2012

These are two pictures I finished this weekend. I often try to experiment with expressions somewhat different from what I usually do. Even though the results may not be great, for me, getting out of my comfort zone is crucial to continue developing and moving forward.

New Picture - Rage

1/5/2012

This is my latest picture in the "Reality Rearranged" series. I call it Rage. Hope you like it!

Photoshop: Create reflections in water

1/4/2012

Today I would like to share a quick and simple Photoshop technique to create reflections in water I used when creating my picture �New Dawn�.

I start with two layers; the water and the sky. The water layer is on top of the sky-one.

I then duplicate the sky layer by right clicking on it selecting �duplicate layer� and move the new layer on top of the water layer. The next step is to flip it by selecting edit-transform-flip vertical. Then I move the flipped sky so that it is edge to edge with the original sky.

Now it looks like this; Not very convincing yet.

The next step is to add a layer mask to the flipped sky. I do this by selecting the layer and clicking on the layer mask icon at the bottom of the layer palette. A layer mask lets you remove and add parts of a layer by painting with different shades of gray in the mask. Areas that are completely black in the mask will be hidden, and areas that are white will show.

With the layer mask selected I choose the gradient tool and set it to go from white to black. I then apply the gradient tool to the layer mask by holding down the shift key and then click and drag the gradient path over the image to fill the layer mask with a gradient. Finally I adjust the opacity of the reflection layer until it looks good.

I find it quite hard to make convincing montages with water, but experimenting with this technique is a great way to learn. This technique is also great for creating reflections under for example text or icons.

New Picture - Wings

1/4/2012

Hi guys!

This is my second picture of the year. I call it Wings. I have been really productive lately and will share lots of new work during the next couple of weeks. Stay Tuned!

New Picture - New Dawn

1/2/2012

Hi guys!

I survived the holidays, and am back in creative mode. This is my first picture of the year, and I call it New Dawn. Hope you like it!

Awesome app: Composite

12/28/2011

This weekend I downloaded a fantastic little app for the iPad2 called "Composite", and I have not been able to stop playing around with it for several days. The app uses the build in camera and lets you "paint" an image with your fingers. You point the camera towards your subject and start painting to reveal it, and since the camera is constantly updating you can achieve all kinds of creative effects with it.

The above picture of a Christmas tree I did by "painting" the tree from different angles and distances.

The app can be downloaded from the App Store for $1.99 , and I highly recommend you try it out.

Merry Christmas

12/23/2011

Time sure flies. another year is ending, and it is time for me to have a couple of days vacation, enjoying the holidays.

With this picture of Santa I wish you all a merry Christmas and a wonderful end to 2011!

New Picture - Shadow

12/19/2011

This is my latest creation. It is part of the Reality Rearranged series and I call it Shadow

How To: My Lighting setup for Montages

12/15/2011

When photographing source files for my montages in studio I often use a very basic lighting setup that I am going to discuss in detail here. This setup is what I default to when I don�t have a special lighting idea in mind. It is not meant to produce cool, special light. Instead it is focused on creating a generic, soft, nice looking light, making it ideal for source images that can be used in montages. I also want a light that to some extent mimics the outside light an overcast day, since my montages often are set outside with a cloudy sky.
Last bot not least, this setup is doable with very basic equipment.

Equipment

I use two flash units as light sources. Flash units are a bit more expensive than simpler continuous light, but I use them because of two main reasons:

They produce more power, making it possible to shoot at smaller apertures
They don�t produce as much heat, making it easier on my models, especially if working for a long time.

In my experience there is no need for expensive flash units if you are a beginner. �When I first started out with studio photography I had a couple of cheap no-brand flash units that I used to learn, and they worked fine for many years. Recently I upgraded to a better pair, because I needed the extra power and stability.

Setup

I use one of the flash units as a main light source placed on a stand a bit to the right of and a bit higher than the model. This unit is fitted with a big umbrella or soft box to diffuse the light. I have the unit a bit to the side of the model to create a more dynamic light, without spoiling the illusion of outside light. I usually have to move the light around a bit, taking test snaps, to find the ideal spot. At this time I also mark the floor with a piece of tape where I want the model to stand, otherwise he or her might wander off from the sweet spot during the shoot.
With only one light you can get some pretty harsh shadows, and also a bright and a dark side of the model. To balance this out a bit I use the other flash unit as a secondary light source. I put this right in front of the model and as low to the ground as I can. This unit is also fitted with an umbrella or softbox.
I often use a white backdrop with the model a couple of meters away from it. Without light on the backdrop this usually gives it a grayish tone in the pictures. I try to match the brightness of the backdrop to the brightness of the background I will use in the montage. This makes the cut-out easier and I don�t get any halos or shadows around the edges of the cut-out in Photoshop. This means that I sometimes have to put an extra light on the backdrop to make it brighter. When lighting the backdrop you have to be very careful to not get to much light bouncing back bleeding over the edges of the model since this will make the Photoshop work harder.

Settings

I set my camera to manual mode, selecting the highest shutter speed that it will sync with the flash units at. In my case this is 1/250s. The ISO is set to under 400 to prevent any noise; I want my source files as clean as possible. I set my main light to near the highest possible output and proceed to taking test snaps, adjusting the cameras aperture to get a good exposure. Basically I just test my way to a good setting. This is done rather quickly when you get the hang of it. The key here is to get an small enough aperture to get the whole subject in focus. You do not want blurry edges when doing the cut-out in Photoshop.
When I have an exposure I am happy with I turn on the second light source, my �fill light�. I start out with an output of about half of the main light and then take a few test snaps adjusting the output to where it looks good.

So there you have it; A very basic and quick setup that produces generic light perfect for montages.

New Picture: Steps

12/13/2011

This is another picture I finished this weekend. Hope you like it!