August 19, 2012 - Magical Umbrella
 

http://cellar.org/2012/magic umbrella.jpg

Image by Rachel Hulin

Hulin, who is a professional photographer, poses Henry in settings that make it look like he is flying. While Hulin doesn’t want to give away the technique she uses to achieve the effect, she promises that no babies were harmed during the photo sessions. (from thefw.com)

Her first book featuring The Flying Series called Flying Henry— A children’s photography book about a flying baby — will be published by powerHouse in April 2013.

The technique called P h o t o s h o p...

Double Complete Rainbows! Right Across The Sky!

It's not so hard. Of course, if you take the time to match the costume to the umbrella, and take the picture in a pretty environment instead of next to the neighbor's driveway, the results are prettier. But then it doesn't look like a spontaneous snapshot.

Attention all nay-sayers: this image is obviously manipulated and was never meant to be passed on as a one-shot.

It is still a cute image and fun to look at!

So what's the trick, glatt?

You put the camera on a tripod. You put the camera on manual exposure mode so the exposure stays the same from one picture to the next. You take a picture of the background. Then you send the kids in with a step ladder and take a picture of them doing some pose on a step ladder, making sure none of their body is behind the ladder. Then you open the background image in GIMP, and create a new layer and paste the image of the kids into that new layer. And you get out the eraser tool and erase the ladder. The background image will show through where the ladder was. Just make sure that when you create the new layer, you do it as a transparent layer.

It's easier than typing this post. The hard part is carrying the tripod and ladder outside, and then putting them away again.

That is the truth.

Most of the ads you see today are done that way. It's a very popular technique.

Here's another one I did. This one, I had to paint my son's shirt back in right at his gut because he was lying on the top of the ladder too far over, and when I erased the ladder, I erased a huge chunk of his gut. So if you look closely, you can see his gut looks a little weird. But I really like the way the rest of the image looks. They posed well for this one. He was really precarious up there, so his acting is only partial acting.

The camera was on our front porch, and you can see the geraniums in the foreground on the porch railing.
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Oh okay, it's still a Photoshop GIMP editing thing. I thought maybe there was some special analog film technique and/or kid bouncing in the air thing that you were doing.

That would be an awesome spouse prank for when one parent is off on a trip solo and the other parent is emailing photos of "what we've been up to."

Massive potential, Glatt.

Yeah! I could get out the extension ladder and make it look like the kids were jumping out the second floor window with sheets for parachutes. Or helium balloons.

I like the way your mind works

pffft.

too much work if you ask me!

Who needs a ladder for this shot anyhow?

yeah, what's with this "look like" business, ya softy. :D