Cut and Paste Glamour Photography

Today’s Post by Joe Farace

From time to time I’ve used part of two (or more) different images of the same model to create and all-new photo that’s different from either original—combining elements from two image files into a single photograph. Is this cheating? I don’t think so because the pieces and parts are from the same model made at the same session to create an image that you could have made during the session but for various reasons did not. The Mannequin fantasy image I’ve posted before notwithstanding, it is very different than placing one model’s face on another model’s body.

The technique is quite simple: You start with two or more image files that wer \e made at the same time of the same model under the same lighting conditions. If you are using a zoom lens, they also should be made at the same focal length to minimize problems making the different parts seamlessly merge together. You can do it if this is not the case but you’ll have to be more lucky than just good at using Photoshop.

Here’s a real world example and one I encounter from time to time where I liked the three-quarter length pose but there was a car failure (see above) that didn’t capture part of the portrait. (Lesson: don’t buy cheap memory cards.)

Using Photoshop (for the example shown I used CS4) to create the final image was just a matter of grabbing parts of different but similar images, in this case four different parts, cutting and pasting on layers, resizing and using a soft-edge eraser to blend then flatten until I produced the final result shown.