Chances are high that you take loads of pictures of your kid. I know I do! Many are crap, some are good, but from time to time I manage to make a great picture and then I look at it over and over again.
Usually it is luck who decides whether my pictures are great or just ok. This time I took a bit of a different approach. I had an idea in mind, prepared the scene, did a 10-minute photoshoot and after some manipulations I ended up with this:
I called it Victoria’s magic 🙂
Just to set things straight, I am no professional photographer, neither a photoshop pro. Truth is, this is fairly easy to make. All you need is a digital reflex camera, a tripod, a computer and a dose of creativity.
Here is how you can do this for yourself:
Once you decided on the scene, install your tripod and take a couple of test pictures to see if you get it right. I suggest you shoot in manual mode so you take each of the different pictures with the exact same settings (if you’re a complete beginner like me, take your first shot in automatic and then copy the settings in manual mode). Then take several pictures with your kid in different positions, making sure they do not overlap and the rest of the scene stays untouched.
If you get it right, all you need to do afterwards is cut out the different areas of each picture and put them together. With my first attempt I had to cover up some lighting differences as I forgot to shoot in manual mode, but the second time, I literally did no more than adding cut-out zones of pictures on top of the original.
All in all, it took me about 20 minutes from setting up the tripod to having my boy’s love for trains depicted in a magic picture.
I bet the cut-and-paste work is a real piece of cake in Photoshop or Gimp if you know how to work with those programs. But for the rest of us who don’t, you can even do the pasting work in paint or powerpoint, which is what I did by the way, I bet you didn’t notice 🙂
This is how the pictures looked like at first:
So, are you ready to make your impressive pictures with your kids?
