Looking for something new to add to your website image portfolio (and to share on social media)? Why not try adding levitation photography?
Levitation photography basically means an image who’s subject appears to defy gravity. If you’ve looked at enough wedding photography, eventually you’ll see the most basic kind: the mid-air jump. Clients seem to like these, so if you shoot weddings, it might be worth having one of these in your portfolio.
However, if you shoot seniors, sports, products or still-life, levitation photography is best done using masks in Photoshop. This seems to be much easier and more realistic than green-screen or cutting out objects and placing them. Here are some great examples that show how these shots are taken. Imagine a baseball player in mid-air sliding into home plate!
How easy is levitation photography using masks? I did a bit of searching and found this page with more examples, including some video tutorials on how to use layers and masks to create the effect using Photoshop.
I wanted to give it a try. Here’s the tutorial I followed to create the example on the right of a ceramic frog jumping across my living room. It took me about half an hour. While I was experimenting, I learned some important lessons:
1. Put your camera on a tripod. You want both images to match exactly to make it easier in editing.
2. Set your camera to all manual controls so that there is no difference between the shots – especially the lighting. To make the levitation effect look right, you’re not only going to keep the subject, but the shadows too.
3. The advantage of using a layer mask over the eraser tool is that the mask is non-destructive. If you make a mistake, you can go back later and “fix” it by changing the mask color from black to white.
Honestly, of the half-hour I spent creating the shot, most of it was spent working on the shadow. If I had it to do over again, I’d have found a smaller stand for the frog. Once I got good at it, I’d add more layers with different “levitating” objects.
If you haven’t experimented with levitation photography, why not give it a try?