Tutorial: Blending your images together for a fun self portrait!

So, when I posted the photo below... I had MANY people asking how it was done, and if I could share my secret. Well, yes. Yes I can!

{The Paper Mama}

It's really a simple technique. I use Photoshop CS3. I'm not sure what other editing programs will work to create this... but, if you can do layers... then you can probably do this!

1) Set up your camera. Set up your camera in a spot where it wont be moved or nudged. You really want it to stay in one spot. You can see in the photo above (on the right side, by my feet) that at one point I had nudged the camera just a tiny bit... this caused the images not to match up completely. The table leg looks a little wonky. But, I'm not too bothered by it. :D

Don't forget to think of the lighting as well. You want a location that the light will stay consistent. This is pretty hard to do here in the North West where we have rain one minute and sunshine the next.

Set the camera to auto focus.

2) Take your photos. I set my camera to take 8 photos with the timer for each position. I wanted to make sure I got at least one photo that I'd like (you know... to avoid those double chins!).  Move to different locations. Make silly faces. Maybe set it up to have your positions interact with each other. See the photo below, one of his personalities has hit the other personality.

{via}

Be careful not to move anything (except you and any props).

3) Upload those photos to your photo editing program. After you take all your photos, you can now blend them together (I would do this after editing any contrast or other basic edit needs your photos may need).

Open all the photos you'd like to use. Drag and drop the photos so they are all layered over each other.

Grab your eraser tool (opacity set to 100%) and erase bits and pieces of each photo so the parts you want to show through, show.

There was one instance where my wine glass was going to be positioned over Ruari's skirt. It would look like she had a giant hole in her skirt if I just erased the whole thing, so I adjusted the eraser opacity to 31% to erase the see through area.

So, HOPEFULLY... You will end with something that looks like this:

{The Paper Mama}

Or one of these:

{via}

{via}

I hope this helps! If you use this tutorial to create something, please share! We'd love to see it in our Flickr group. Thanks!

Lovely people that have tried out this tutorial:
- Mumsyhood
- Un Monde Magique
- Missy Cakes Place