Editing myself multiple times into the same picture?

cvclover · Joined: 29 Sep 2006 Posts: 4

I want myself to appear more than once in the same picture so that it looks like I have a twin or more. How do I do this?

Medley

Set the camera on a tripod and set it on a "timer" setting. Take 2 (or whatever) pictures of yourself in different places within the scene. Make sure not to move the camera between pictures. Open the photos in Photoshop, and create one document with each photo on it's own layer. Then simply use a layer mask to reveal the 2nd pose of yourself. If you've done it right, the background is exactly the same on both (all of the) pictures, so merging them is easy.

-Medley.

cvclover · Joined: 29 Sep 2006 Posts: 4

Thanks for the info.

But what if I want myself standing in front of a mirror, with a different image of myself reflecting? That is more complex than a simple merging of 2 images correct?

Excruciating

You'd have to do some serious thinking of how to do this then.. First the problem is when you take the picture of the mirror, your own reflection is there.. You'd have to cut out yourself in photoshop and then add the new reflection of you, but it would take some time to make it perfectly fit the previous reflection of you in the mirror you've just cut out .. You could try taking a picture of the mirror and a picture of what is reflected by the mirror. Cut out your reflection in the mirror, and the background that mirror reflects and then just add the reflection you want shown of yourself in the mirror ..

Medley

True, but it can be done. Take the first photo of yourself standing in front of the mirror. Personally, I would download this photo and print it before taking the second photo.

Take a look at the background reflected in the mirror in the first shot. Set up the second shot with the camera positioned in front of the mirror, with the background as close as possible to the first shot. They don't have to be exact, you're just trying to maintain the same perspective. If you get it close, the illusion will be a decent one.

Once you have the second photo, you're going to paste it over the mirror's reflection in the first image. The easiest way to do this is to make a selection of the mirror's reflection in the first photo. Open the second photo, Select All, and choose Edit>Copy. Go back to the first photo (the selection should still be there) and choose Edit>Paste Into. It should paste the second photo inside the selection you've made of the mirror, but it won't look right. Now choose the Move tool (V) and check the "Show Transform Controls" box. Now you can not only move the second photo around inside the mirror, you can also size it to fit by shift-clicking the corners and dragging them in or out.

Then it's simply a matter of blending the second photo into the image to make it all look right.

Here's a tut I did awhile back with the same sort of effect. Notice that while the perspective looks right, there's no camera in the image.

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e313/zachtlr/Shave.jpg

-Medley.

cvclover · Joined: 29 Sep 2006 Posts: 4

Nice. Yeah thats a similar idea. I have an idea though, since it would be a third person view, what if i just cut everything off up until the mirror, and just overlapped the images?

How do you blend or overlap two images?

Medley

I'm sorry, but I'm not quite sure of the effect you're after here. Are you talking about blending two different backgrounds together, or just taking an object (such as a person) out of one picture and placing them on a different background?? The first would be complicated to make it look right, but the second is fairly easy.

-Medley.

cvclover · Joined: 29 Sep 2006 Posts: 4

Well it would be the same backround, because it would be the same room with the same person (me), just in different locations. Me looking in the mirror, with another image of myself projecting.