- Slow Shutter/ Bulb mode photography
- Advanced editing techniques like Layering in Photoshop
- It can also be used for other creative conceptual compositions(Although haven't tried any yet)
For this post, i'll explain the technique using Adobe Lightroom and Photoshoot since that's what i use. This also assumes you're shooting RAW. You can use any tool that allows you to merge Images.
So let's get started.
The Prop :
- A book(magazine preferred ) with a few middle pages folded as shown in the photos below
- A Camera mounted on a Sturdy tripod
- As many colored lights as you can get. I used a yellow table lamp, blue LED flashlight, the flashlight had a red warning light behind it and a very thin green bowl covered over the blue LED for a green hue. You can also do it in Lightroom, i'll explain keep reading
- Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop( or any other Image processing software which allows you to merge images) for Post-Processing
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| The Setup |
The Concept :
The idea here is to take multiple shots of the pattern in different lights and merge them together in Post-Processing
Steps :
- Shooting:
- Background:
- Keep the book on a table or something stable
- The room has to be very dark. We don't want any ambient light to light up the background
- Camera :
- Put the camera in bulb mode( or about a 15s shutter will also work, but you may need to shoot a few times to get the proper exposure depending on your light)
- Set the Aperture to f/13(the sweet spot for most lenses will be between f/8.0 to f/13.0)
- Set the ISO to it's lowest possible value
- Set the camera on tripod such that the lense should be roughly at the same height of the book
- You can decide on framing, i have shown mine in the setup section above
- Set and lock your focus with the light on. The focus should be on the pattern. Then switch to manual focus and turn the lights off( the camera autofocus will try to focus otherwise and may not work properly with your lighting)
- Try to keep your light source(s) at an angle while taking the shots. I did some light painting(moved the light gently across the subject back and forth as if painting with a brush) for one or two of the sources since it was a little weak
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| Yellow - Created with LED Reading Lamp |
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| Green - Created by placing a thin plastic bowl over a blue LED flashlight |
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| Blue - LED Flashlight |
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| Red - Red alert light in the reverse of the flashlight |
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| A little brighter blue to be turned into Violet in PP |
- Post-Processing:
- Lightroom :
- Select all the shots and select "Auto-Sync"
- Crop all of them together so that they are in sync
- Do some basic edits to bring out the colors and enhance contrast. Make the background as black as possible
- Select all , then do "Edit in" --> "Open Layers in Photoshop"
- Photoshop :
- Open a black Layer Mask for each layer except one. This will hide all layers initially while keeping only one layer open as reference
- Now paint in the layer mask using a piantbrush with 100% Opacity and Flow according to how you want the look . This is the tricky part as this can easily make the Image look like painting. Experiment with it till you get the results you like
- Once done, flatten the image(Blending the layers might cause unwanted distractions)
- Export the final image. Done!
This was the original Article where i got the concept from :
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