Creative Photography

I started taking pictures when I was in my mid teens. But I had never given any thought to using the camera as a means of creative expression beyond composition, framing and exposure. I recently found a gentleman who, as of this writing, is probably around 21 years old and already is running a business with his Nikon and Photoshop. His website is http://www.photoextremist.com. 


I was/am very impressed with his creativity to the point that I wanted to try one of his ideas, but with a twist of my own. Although I do not believe in ghosts, I wanted to see if I could use his idea to create a ghost-like image of myself. It really wasn't all that hard to do. I used Paint Shop Pro version X2.

Here is the process for creating it:

Took two pics of my bedroom, one with me, one without me.

Layer Stack:

Me in pic

Me not in pic

Process:

With the pic of me in it, cut out me.

Deleted layer with me in it

Duplicated cutout of me.

Layer Stack:

Me-CutOut

Me-Blurred

Me not in pic

Process on the Blur Layer:

Blur pic with outward explosion

Duplicated above explosion and rotated 45-degrees right

Flattened two blur layers

Applied “Chrome” effect

Changed blend mode to Screen, opacity to 59%

Completion Process

Select Me-CutOut and change opacity to 36%, “normal” blend mode

Took eraser set to 50% hardness and step 10 and went around edge of blur.

Final product:

Top Layer: Me CutOut

Middle Layer: Blur

Bottom Layer: Me not there