P#27: A Fun Photograph of Leaves Changing Colors

A Fun Special Effect

Brenda Tharp: The last one is a really fun special effect and you can do it whether you're using film or digital. What it really is is two pictures. This maple tree is just outside my front door. In a good year, the colors on this tree are absolutely delicious -- everything you can see from here, from green to yellow, to peach to pink, and almost a fuchsia pink.

I'm hoping this year it's going to be the same, but we haven't started to change yet. The first picture I made on the tripod was totally in focus -- as in focus as I could get everything and at f16. The second picture that I made was out of focus and shot widest aperture on the lens. (click the image for a larger version)

Out of focus is the key here because when you throw something out of focus, if you defocus closer to the camera, the subject will get larger and it creates a halo effect if you put those two pictures together.

When working with slide film, you always had to expose both of slides overexposed so that they were both lighter than they should be, but when you sandwiched the two slides together, one in focus and one out, you ended up with a picture that was a proper density. It was typically two stops over exposed for the in focus picture, and one stop over exposed for the out of focus.

Digitally, you don't have to do the overexposure because you can make adjustments in the computer. You could just expose them normally and then layer the two pictures together. You have to play with opacity. This isn't a class on Photoshop or an interview on Photoshop so you'll need some skills and you'll need to learn how to do some of that.

Now, because I am digital, I'm making the two pictures, one in focus, one out of focus, and then I will lighten them up in the computer and layer them together. I will use my paintbrush and blend with the opacity. I will reduce the opacity or blend certain areas a little bit more from one versus the other to create a very impressionistic, dreamy effect.

Audri Lanford: You do this in Photoshop. You don't do the combining in camera?

Brenda Tharp: I do it in Photoshop because I can't create a multiple exposures in one file on the Canon cameras. In order to have one shot in focus and one shot out of focus, I have to make two frames. Then I have to bring those into the computer.

Basically what it comes down to is copying one of those pictures and dropping it over the other one, and creating a new layer. The file you're going to work on will have both. One layer will be the sharp image and one layer will be the out of focus image. Then you have to use your opacity on whichever one's on top.

I typically put the out of focus picture on top so it's my top layer. Then I use my opacity slider and bring it down to where I can start to see a sharp image coming up from underneath and I play around with it on anywhere from about 50-70% opacity to where I get a look that I like.

Then I can take it a step further and I could selectively bring up certain things if I wanted to by getting more in depth of creating a mask and using a paintbrush to bring out certain areas, more or less.

That makes it a little different than if you just use the technique of layering the two and sliding the opacity down so that you start to see the two blending together because after awhile, those all look somewhat the same. I'm always trying to make each of my pictures be just a little more unique using a technique that a lot of people are using these days.

In Closing

This picture of fall leaves has quite a dream-like effect. Did it happen instantly? No, Brenda had to take two separate shots and then edit them in Photoshop to create the surreal special effect, but it definitely makes for an amazing image of leaves changing colors.