Step by step create a light show
Dazzling effects and great images are but a few steps away...
01 GET INTO POSITION
The first thing we did was set up our tripod, mounting our Canon on the top. It was important to set it at the same height as the laptop screen. We then screwed the polarizing filter onto the front of the lens.
02 ADD your ORNAMENT
Next, we positioned our tacky plastic decoration in front of the monitor. You might find that a clamp is a useful tool for holding awkwardly shaped items in place. Try to position them in the centre of the screen.
03 GET IN CLOSE
We created a tight composition to minimize any light contamination. You want the grey image to totally fill the frame, so zoom in your lens or move the tripod closer to the subject if it doesn’t. Don’t fret about making the framing perfect – you can always crop it more precisely at the post-processing stage.
04 AVOID MOTION blur
Shooting inside in a darkened room gave us fairly lengthy exposures. Because of this, we used a Canon remote to fire the shutter, so we didn’t jog the camera and get motion blur when firing the shutter. Activate a 2-second self-timer shooting mode on your DSLR if you don’t have a remote control or cable release.
05 METERING TIPS
Manual exposure mode will give you more control over the final effect. Set an aperture of around f/11 and an ISO of 100, then find a shutter speed to suit. We were getting speeds of around 1-2 seconds in our shoot.
06 FOCUSING
It’s a good idea to switch to manual focus and focus on your plastic object precisely using Live View. We zoomed in on the screen, and rotated the focusing ring until our sparkly tree was as sharp as possible.
07 READY TO SHOOT
When everything is in place, turn on Live View and rotate the polarizing filter. The colours in the plastic should become stronger and the grey go darker as the polarizing effect takes place. When the monitor turns totally black before your eyes and the colours in the plastic become rainbow-like, crack on and fire the remote shutter!
08 BOOST THE COLOURS
Once you’ve captured your Raw images, it’s time to give them a quick boost in Camera Raw. We boosted the Vibrance and Clarity levels, but dragged the Blacks slider to the left so that the background became a more pure black. You might also need to crop or rotate the image slightly, so that the bottom of the ornament is perfectly horizontal.
09 REMOVE BLEMISHES
Next, open up the image in Photoshop and remove any dust spots from the lens and laptop screen. We used the Clone Stamp Tool to manually sample clear areas of the dark background, as we found the Spot Healing Brush tool was a bit hit and miss. We also removed the string from the top of the tree with the same approach.
10 REPEATING PATTERNS
Once you’ve finalised your decoration editing, why not create a repeating pattern in Photoshop and triple the light show? We used the Rectangular Marquee Tool to select our tree, copied and pasted it into two new layers, and then moved these into position on either side of the first tree. Go to Edit > Transform if you need to re-size, rotate or re-shape your layers to fit.