Many new photographers wonder how to replicate the common image of a wedding band sitting between the pages of a Bible that is casting a shadow shaped like a heart. An example of this is below.
Doing this is quite simple actually and can be done with one light source. The light source should be placed behind the top part of the Bible. This will cause the ring to cast a shadow on the pages of the Bible that is shaped like a heart.
If you are making this image with a wedding ring, consider opening the Bible to a page that is significant for the couple.
There are many different ways to go about whitening teeth in Adobe Photoshop. Below is the way that I use because it’s really simple and quick.
- Select the teeth with whichever tool is easiest for you. I use the Polygonal Lasso Tool.
- Reduce the saturation of the selection to tone down color stains on the teeth. I don’t desaturate completely because it tends to look less natural that way.
- Create a new curves adjustment layer for the selection and move the center point on the diagonal line toward the top-left corner just a little bit.
- To that same adjustment layer, use the Gaussian Blur filter just enough to smooth out any “rough” edges around the teeth (seen below) that the brightening caused.
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What is a silhouette?
A silhouette is created when a subject in a photograph is lit from behind and not from the front, which shadows the subject in the front. Although any light source can be used, the most common source of light that photographers use for lighting from the back is the sun.
How to create a silhouette:
- Make sure the background is lighter than the foreground. Exposing for the background, if it’s lighter, will cause the foreground to be shadowed.
- Do not point the lens directly at the sun. Something you might want to try is positioning yourself or your subject so that the light source is right behind them. This will create a glow all around the edges of the subject.
- Use a high f-stop (narrow aperture) so that both the background and the foreground elements are in focus.
The red-eye effect is what happens when a flash that is very close to the camera causes the subjects’ pupils to appear bright red in a photograph. This happens in low-light situations because the pupils are wider open and the flash reflects off the retina on the inside of the eye.
How to avoid red-eye:
- Don’t use direct flash. Bounce the flash off a smooth, light surface so that the light is coming from another direction.
- Don’t use flash at all. Use other artificial lighting or ambient light. Having a wider aperture is good when using ambient light because it will allow more light into the lens.
- Have the subject look somewhere other than directly at the camera. If you still want it to appear as if the subject is looking at the camera, having them look at your shoulder will do the trick.
- Utilize the red-eye reducer that many cameras have built-in. What this feature does is fire one or more short blasts of light to reduce the size of the subjects’ pupils right before taking the photo.
- Use photo-editing software to remove the red-eye. I don’t suggest this, but it’s an option. What happens is the red glow is replaced with black. This tool is not perfect, so it could end up creating a huge black spot where the eye is supposed to be.
The Orton Effect is a post-processing technique that was first used by and named after Michael Orton.
Here is how to create the Orton Effect with Adobe Photoshop:
- Open your photo in Adobe Photoshop and do any other editing that you would like done before you continue with this tutorial.
- Right-click on the background layer and choose “Layer From Background”. Rename this layer and name it “Screen”. (Note: Do not change the blending mode of this layer until you have duplicated it in the step below.)
- Duplicate that layer and call this layer “Blur”.
- Change the blending mode of the “Screen” layer to “Screen”.
- Select the ”Blur” layer and in the menu, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Blur the layer enough so that you can make out the shapes, but not the detail.
- Change the blending mode of the blurred layer to “Multiply”.
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