6 Make your own sci-fi movie still

Get the Ridley Scott look with a stylised alien hand!

If you’re a lover of Ridley Scott movies like Blade Runner, Alien and Prometheus, you’ll already know the ‘noir’ look, and the blue colour palette used to create a sense of intrigue. Well, we’re going to do it using a clear shower screen and Photoshop!

Run the shower to get water dripping down the glass screen, then get your model to place their hand with the fingertips lightly pressed on the glass. Backlight the hand and water droplets with an LED light, and focus on the fingertips.

Select as wide an aperture as your lens allows – f/2.8 is perfect – to diffuse the background. Don’t worry about the camera’s White Balance setting, as we’re going to create the important muted blue hues during the next stage.

Add a bit of moody blues

Having processed your raw file as you want in Lightroom or Camera Raw, open it in Photoshop. In the Layers Panel, select Hue/Saturation from the Adjustment Layer options. Tick the Colorize box, then move the Hue slider to the right to get the level of blue toning you want for that cool, sci‑fi feel.