Creative project Levitation

Make friends or family appear lighter than air with simple shooting skills and Photoshop techniques

THIS is one of those photo tricks that makes viewers think, “How did they

do that?” The answer is surprisingly simple, and the real skill begins in-camera. To create a seemingly levitating figure, we capture two different but perfectly aligned versions of the scene – one with the person lying draped over a stable support and the other of just the empty scene.

So the camera technique is easy – we just use a tripod and take two shots. As well as a sturdy tripod, you’ll need backlighting; we used the car headlights and two flashguns – one behind and right, and one to the left. Then we piece the two images together in Photoshop, which is a relatively straightforward job.

The real skill lies in crafting atmosphere around the effect. That’s how we draw the viewer in. A visual trick is fun, but a story is even more appealing. There are lots of ways to do this, such as using atmospheric lighting, creative composition, props and purposeful posing. Here the car headlights help to place our model and add authenticity, as the flare wraps around him in a way that would be hard to fake. Even the weather can be useful for storytelling – heavy rainfall here created beautiful backlit raindrops and watery lens flare, which all add to the mood…

Step 1

Open the images of the model and the empty scene in Photoshop. In the empty image, go to the Layers panel (Window > Layers). Right-click the Background layer and choose Duplicate Layer. In the Destination Settings, choose the other image and click OK.

Step 2

Go to the other image. You’ll now have two layers showing in the Layers panel. With the upper layer highlighted, hold Alt and click the rectangular Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. This will add a full black layer mask that hides the layer.

Step 3

We can now paint with white to reveal the background, thereby hiding the bench. Grab the Brush tool from the Tools panel. (Press B.) Press D to set your colour to white. Right-click and decrease the brush hardness to 0, then paint over the bench to reveal parts of the empty scene.

Step 4

Zoom in close to continue perfecting your layer mask. If you accidentally reveal too much of the empty scene, simply press X to switch to a black brush and paint to hide it again. Use the ] and [ keys to resize your brush tip, and Shift-click between two points to paint a line between them.

Step 5

Click the New Layer icon in the Layers panel. Grab the Clone tool from the Tools panel and set it to Sample All Layers. Zoom in to where the clothes meet the bench. Alt-click to sample clothes and clone over messy areas, hiding the join and adding extra detail where necessary.

Step 6

Finally, make any tonal changes you think necessary for the mood of your image. We like to use the Camera Raw filter for this. Press Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E to merge a layer, then go to Filter > Camera Raw Filter. Use the Basic tonal controls to add Contrast, tweak the colours and boost Clarity. Click OK.