MAY 2005 MA XIMUMPC 6
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Family Portrait
CREATE A UNIQUE
BY GEORGE CAIRNS
W
ant to create a composition for your kids and
family that they’ll cherish forever?
What child wouldn’t get a kick out of seeing
him- or herself shrunk down to size in a scene from a
favorite fantasy book?
The images you see here were shot in a studio,
but you can easily recreate them. You’ll get the best
possible results with a proper lighting setup, but
you can get reasonable results if you just shoot in a
well-lit room and use a reflector to ensure that the
children’s faces are evenly lit.Once you have your photos, you’ll use software
to miniaturize the kids, add magical translucent
wings to one, and finish things off with a sprinkling
of sparkling fairy dust. We used Adobe Photoshop
CS , but you can accomplish the same tricks using
Adobe Photoshop Elements or Paint Shop Pro. The
overall effect looks complex, but the techniques are
relatively straightforward.
The secret to this project lies in attention to detail:
applying the sparkles and shadows in the picture, and
matching the colors and lighting of all the elements.Mix photographic techniques
with software trickery to make
a magical childrens’ portrait
1
THE CHILDREN Shooting the kids
in a studio enabled us to use lighting
to enhance the image. Notice how the
blue-gelled light coming in from the right
contrasts with the warmer light on the
left. We took more than 100 digital shots
to get the exact pose we wanted.DO IT YOURSELF You don’t need to
use gels to get this same lighting effect:
add a cast in Photoshop by selecting and
changing the hue, instead.2
THE BOOK The blurry background
in the book shot was achieved
in-camera by combining low light with
a wide-open camera aperture. We also
matched the blue lighting effect from
the model shot to blend the two images
more convincingly.DO IT YOURSELF Choose your
children’s favorite fantasy book and
lay a satin ribbon down as a bookmark.
Photograph it using the technique
described above.3
THE WINGS These “fairy”
wings were created with
3D software. We imported them
into Photoshop and made them
transparent to give them a magical
quality. The sparkles were also
added in Photoshop.DO IT YOURSELF Photograph a
live butterfly. Import the image into
Photoshop and cut out the wings.
Make them more transparent, and
add the sparkles.SHOOTING THE SEPARATE ELEMENTS