Admiring the 4GB Exhibition

I took my wife and a couple of photo-appreciating friends to the 4GB gallery today.

I've been picturing this photo in my mind for a few months, but never got round to doing it. I was a little rushed this morning (not sure whether we were allowed to take photos in the gallery, so we did it quickly in case we got busted). I'm reasonably pleased with the results, but there is definite room for improvement. Let me know what you think!

-- BenStephenson - 01 Feb 2009

Updated:

Here's a "final" version. Cropped a little closer and some more transparency effects. I've tried to get her becoming more solid as she moves towards the camera.

Another thought I've just had is trying to add some subtle motion blur between the characters to imply the movement from one to the next. Not sure how well that would work with the overlap though.

01 Feb 2009 20:38:21 AndrewFindlay:

Good work. Both images tell a story, but in subtly different ways. The one with the ghostly images is perhaps the best rendition: it manages to show time in a still image!

It might be interesting to make the figure gradually more solid as she approaches the camera so that only the closest image of her is 'real'.

Andrew

01 Feb 2009 21:01:50 BenStephenson:

Hi Andrew

My image i had in my head that i was aiming for is as you said - starting off almost transparent and getting more solid as she moves forward. I did these on my laptop without my mouse or tablet, and was quite chuffed with the result after a short amount of time and effort so uploaded them. I was planning on fine tuning over the coming week or so.

Will post the results as and when!

04 Feb 2009 22:25:41 JackRuss:

Hi Ben, can you explain how the picture was taken settings etc and what you did post production please thankyou.

06 Feb 2009 21:03:45 BenStephenson:

Jack/George,

The pictures were taken on a tripod, using a remote. This ensured the "static" bits (walls, frames) remained absolutely in the same place.

The ones "in a line" were 1/45s at F3.5, ISO200 (Auto) with lens set to 18mm (full wide angle on the kit lens). No flash. The camera was on complete auto mode (P). Annoyingly I forgot to turn off image stabilisation, which might explain the slight lack of sharpness.

The "coming towards the camera" were 1/45s at F4.0, ISO400 (Auto) with lens set to 21mm. No flash. Again the camera was on full auto (P) mode.

I converted the RAW to JPG in Photoshop using the "as taken" settings, so that the colours all matched as closely as possible.

I then opened all four images, and copy/paste as new layer each of them over a plain white base.

For each image add a Layer Mask with Reveal All (or possibly Hide All, I can never remember which way round to try each one, and undo and try again if I get it wrong). This adds a pure black (fully transparent) Layer Mask over each picture, which allows only the bottom image (Layer 1) to be seen.

I then painted in over Gemma in white, at varying levels of transparency on each Layer Mask, which reveals each character in turn. For each layer there is a bit of fiddling, and some of the masks are doubled up to change the transparency.

At this point it's a bit hit and miss / trial and error.

Here's a screengrab of the layers window so you can see what I mean. The white bits in the layer masks (the right hand side black and white rectangles) are "seen", the black bits are transparent which means you can see the layers below.

If you're interested I can send you the PSD files so you can have a play yourself (the PSDs are about 80Mb each, I'll bring a CD next Tues if you want).

07 Feb 2009 20:39:40 RodBird:

Very good.

07 Feb 2009 20:45:06 RodBird:

You can do the same thing in PS Elements, but there you don't have ability to create masks on picture layers. You have to use an adjustment layer (which can have a mask) and link it to a picture layer immediately above it by alt-clicking on the boundary between the two layers, to create what's known as a "clipping group".

It's not as tricky as it sounds, but feel free to ask me if you want help with it.

08 Feb 2009 10:29:19 AndrewFindlay:

It may be easier to paint the layer masks in full white and then use the opacity parameter on the layer itself to get the effect you want.

08 Feb 2009 13:11:31 JackRuss:

Thank you Ben for your posting of how you did it smile

I was thinking about how to do it and then I think I came up with the same way as Andrew has, I will have to give it a try, when I have the time that is!

08 Feb 2009 22:10:00 BenStephenson:

Yes, good point. Should have thought of that. That would have been much easier.

Topic revision: r10 - 08 Feb 2009 - 22:10:00 - BenStephenson

Parent page:
- CritiquePage