DEFYING GRAVITY IN PHOTOSHOP

Gabrielle MorganDigital Photography Pd 4

Tumblr Photos of Defying Gravity

Is levitation photography real? No, of course not, but you’ve probably wondered how some photographers manage to capture levitation photos of their subjects hovering in the air? Yes there are some clever Photoshop effects involved in levitation photography, but there are also some key camera skills necessary to

produce a suitable start image.

At the end of this lesson

your photo will be like

this.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED:1) Tripod2) Camera3) Photoshop CS4/GIM4) Something to stand or

lay on (preferably stool)

Camera SettingStart with the tripod. Frame your scene and get your exposure set. I suggest shooting on your camera’s manual (M) setting so that you’re exposure settings don’t shift from one pic to the next. Also, establish focus for where you will be and disable your auto focus (otherwise you run the risk of the area in focus being different between the two, or more images you may want to take).

Now that you have your exposure set and your camera on the tripod, you want to take a picture of the scene without you or your prop in it. This will be your background image. When you get it composed to where you like it, take the picture. Don’t touch the camera other than to set the self timer if you do not have it set up to be remotely triggered.

The Background Image after taking the shot

Taking the “Person of Interest”

Next, use an object (preferably a stool) stable enough to hold your weight and set it up in the scene making sure you leave enough room between you and the surface you will be floating above in the image to give the illusion that the person is levitating.

The Secret Behind Levitating…

3 EASY STEPS IN PHOTOSHOP• Open both images in Photoshop and with both images open

on the desktop, drag the picture with you in it using the move (V) tool on top of the background image while holding SHIFT which will automatically align the images.

• Set the opacity of the picture with you in it - layer to about 50% to check that you are lined up. If it is a little off, use the move (V) tool to manually align the two layers as closely as you can.

• On the your photo layer, add a layer mask (the hole in a square at the bottom of the layers palate) and using a black brush (B) paint out your prop. Paint everything but you. You are essentially just painting around yourself which will effectively eliminate any evidence that you’re not just really good at holding a gravity defying pose.

YOUR DONE.