NPhoto

Heroic posing

James Paterson shows you how to add special effects to your portraits and master Photoshop blending skills

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Turn the kids into superheroe­s

Why not give the kids a superhero makeover? By utilizing the power of layer blend modes and a range of free images, it’s easier than it might look to create a shot that could pass for a movie poster.

The key skill here is in mastering layer blend modes. These let us combine our portrait with our set of other images. The most useful blend mode for this is Screen, which adds together the brighter parts from each image, cancelling out black areas. It means we can start with a black background then build up our layers on top of one another.

By using Screen we can blend images of fireworks, flames and stars to build up our special effect with ease. We downloaded our shots from www.pixabay.com – search for 2585843, 3860177, 5456206, 1285364 and 3129573.

We’ll also make use of the Select Subject command, which lets us cut out our subject. We’ve provided a portrait for you to practise with, but you can shoot your own. All you need to do is capture a person in a heroic pose; place them against a plain backdrop so they’re easier to cut out. You could even take it a step further by adding a title or other graphic elements to the scene.

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