STE P BY STE P

Shoot a hole in one

Here’s how to shoot and edit magical mirror portraits

01 Steady does it

Your tripod is your best friend here, providing a sure way to keep all your images aligned and giving you time to think about your composition. With a fixed camera you can take a minute to decide what you’d like to include or cut out. You’ll need two images, one with the model, and one without.

03 Be consistent

Keep the exposure consistent so that everything fits together later. Use manual mode and work out an exposure. Here we used a shutter speed of 1/160 at f/4 and ISO640. With the exposure sorted, you’re ready to shoot. Try a variety of poses to give you more options later.

05 Mask the mirror

Grab the Quick Selection Brush from the toolbar and paint over the mirror’s surface to select it. Zoom in to check the edges; hold Alt and paint to make corrections if needed. Go to Select>Refine Edge, and set Radius to 2px, Smooth to 20, Feather to 1px. Select Layer>Layer Mask>Hide Selection.

02 Get set up

With a semi-clothed model you need to get everything set up prior to shooting. Keep your model clothed until your settings are finalised. Models don’t enjoy standing around half-naked waiting for you to tweak settings, especially on a cold day in early spring like the one we were shooting on!

04 Copy and paste

Back in the digital darkroom, open up your two images in Photoshop (or use our shots). Take the shot of the model, go to Select>All, and press Cmd/Ctrl+C to copy it. Then go to your image without the model and press Cmd/Ctrl+V to paste the model shot onto it, as a separate layer.

06 Soften the edges

To give the mirror a hazy quality, Cmd/Ctrl+click the mask thumbnail, then go to Select>Inverse. Create a new layer and paint with a white brush around the mirror’s edges. Finally, create another layer, grab the Spot Healing Brush, set Sample All Layers, and paint over any distractions.