pretty pictures (as usual!)

thanks for the humongous effort :)

:) thanx dear, no worries *heh* i had a blast..

hey grace, care to elaborate on how to create such an effect on pictures with photoshop or pixia?? i'm in my school's editorial board and i'm interested. are there any sites i can visit? all the best in Aus. =)

-li leng

nipgad: thanks :)

li leng: Hi there, I'm not familair with pixia so i'll elaborate on the photoshop bit. There are several ways you can do it:

One way is if you have a camera that can take burst shots (many shots in a row one after the other), you can get really bright lights (borrow table lamps or do it in bright sunlight) and just get your friend to move and shoot many many shots in a row to get a smooth movement. Then in photoshop, use the magnetic lasso tool at feather 2 px (you can use feather 1-3px depending on the size of your picture. Smaller picture use 1px, bigger use 3px) to select your model and copy the model out onto a seperate layer (Ctrl+J). Do this for all the shots and then drag and drop the layers all into one new page. you can then adjust the positioning and opacity of the layers to get the effect you want. You can put a black background or a white background to make it easier to blend the model into the background.

Another way is to put the camera on a tripod and shoot the photos one by one while getting you friend to move very little in each picture. Next, you may use the 'extract' tool (it's under 'filter' in the pull down menu bar at the top - but this depends on which version of photoshop you use, mine is CS2). You can also use a layer mask to "cut" out the model from the background but i just use the magnetic lasso cos it's easier la.

One tip though, get your models to pose in front of the same coloured background as the one you plan to use in photoshop. This will make it easier to blend difficult areas like the hair or other details (i shot my models in front of a black curtain and added the black background in photoshop).

Hope this helps! Sorry i can't point you to any proper tutorials cos i made up this method on my own.

Instead of using photoshop, you could just get a strobe light and set your camera's shutter speed very low (maybe 3 seconds?) and set the aperture as high as you can go (so you don't get washed out white pics). In a dark dark room, the strobe light will do the magic for you.. no layering needed in photoshop. less control over the end results though.

Keep me posted on how it goes if you try this technique out for your project *cheers*

P/s: What school are you from? :D

Oh wow, hi again grace! I'm the Li Leng from above.. *points* Can't believe i stumbled into this again, lol. Ahhh, i actually forgot to check again for your reply.. but i'm here again, the same shots i admired from eons ago.

I'm from Catholic by the way.. Thanks SO MUCH for all the assistance. Some graphics people managed to figure it out :)

Gosh, this blog is pimped with amazing shots! :D What gear do you use? Variety of lenses/flashes .. or a lot of editing? The shadows and the sun you capture is amazing. :) Sorry if i'm asking too much, heh.. very interested in your shots. Well, lets just say the photographers in my school have up to a Canon 40D.. but results are nowhere near yours. *ponders* Advice?

cheers!

hiya! me again. if you do see this, could you contact me at purplesmigs@gmail.com (if you have the time to reply). quite a hassle to leave comments at your site :p

li leng