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Jennifer (Drew's mother) wanted a Christmas photo of Drew on a German sled. Although he can sit just fine on the floor or ground, he teetered precariously when we
put him on the sled. In order to take the photo, Jen needed to support him. The plan was to digitally remove her hand and arm later. The original photo is above. When
I had taken several photos of Drew and had one I liked, I had Jennifer lift him off the sled and step back. It was important that the sled did not move. I then photographed the sled and background without Drew. I was
doing all of this hand held, so I did my best to keep the camera in the same place. |
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The "background" photo of the sled and bushes without Drew. |
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Back at home, I combined the images in Photoshop. I opened the sled image first. Since the photos were shot handheld, I increased the canvas size around the sled (
Image>Canvas Size) to allow room to drop in the other photograph. Then I opened the photo of Drew
and selected it (Select>All). Then I took the Move tool and dragged the "Drew" photo over the "background" photo. Now I have a two layer image with the Drew layer on top. I
changed the Opacity of the Drew layer so I could see the background layer. Then I used the
Move tool and keyboard arrows to align the two images. Due to the fact the two photos were handheld, the
edges of the aligned images did not line up. I cropped the image to trim the edges. |
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Now for the fun part. I took the Eraser
tool and erased Jen's arm and hand from the "Drew" layer, revealing the "background" layer underneath. SIMPLE! Certainly easier then using the clone tool to replace the vegetation if I didn't have a "background" photo to use. I used a large eraser except when I was close to Drew, then I used a smaller eraser for more precision.
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To the right is a portion of the image with Jen's hand erased and her arm partially erased, revealing the background. The background layer is darker
than the Drew layer. Once Jen was completely erased, Levels and Hue/Saturation were used to make both layers match. The image was then ready to print. |
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Alignment would have been easier if both photos had been taken from a tripod, but in this case I didn't want to use a tripod for the photo session.
The final image is to the left. |
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If you know in advance that you are going to digitally remove something or someone from a photo, try this technique. It will make your project easier. |
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December 25, 2003
Updated Jan 30, 2004 |
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