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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pretzel" data-source="post: 332818" data-attributes="member: 12257">It's really quite easy.  TEDIOUS, but easy.  It's a two shot photo from a tripod.  1 with just the scene, one with my son sitting on the couch and a towel over his head/shoulder.  Sent both to PS, layered the pic of my son on top of the one without and carefully erased the boy, along with all other incidental evidence.  There's no auto-mask in PS, so I attacked it in numerous small section, using a feathered adjustment brush, then made sure to catch everything else as well, like the squished pillow that he was sitting on, his reflection in the water bottle, etc.  Then I sent it over to Perfect Effects 8, where I can add effects by way of layers there as well, and did some small things.  The original blended pic, after erasing my son, was kind of flat...  First, I applied a very minimal blur to the whole pic, then used the adjustment brush to remove the effect from just the towel (adding a bit more DOF feel).  Then in another layer, I went over just the towel with the "detail" brush to make it stand out even further.  For the original blurred pic, I added in another adjustment brush with a stronger blur, trying to add to the feel that there was actually someone unseen there.  Again, no auto-masks in those tools, so just a tiny bit at a time so mistake corrections didn't mess up ALL the work.edit: HINDSIGHT - could have blurred the original "scene" pic a bit before putting the "towel" pic on the top, and saved a lot of time creating the extra DOF feel mentioned above.  SEE, I'm still learning!By then, as you can see from the time stamp on my posts, it was after midnight, and I was spent.Thanks, Jake, for the kind words and the edit.  That was much closer to what I was hoping for, but the burn tool and I just don't get along.  I used the spot adjustment brush in LR, trying to just lower the exposure in certain areas under the towel (to get that same shadowy feel), but my eyes were so tired by then, I was just adding to the frustration.  Hindsight shows that my initial blur was a bit strong, and I could have corrected that in PE8 by just lowering the effect a bit, but like the thought of being able to save, layer, and fix that way too.  NICE EDIT!And yes, freehand adjustments around that towel... DEFINITE PITA!I want to mess with this idea a little more, maybe with a thinner sheet, or a damp something or other, that will allow me to show a little bit more of the facial features.  I think it would be cool to get the feel of a brow line and nose, maybe an open "screaming" mouth under the fabric, but ya never know where to go until you take that first step!  It was fun AND educational, and I'll be back on it soon!!edit:  Brain's working now...  it would also be cool to try a 3 shot mix, perhaps.  1 with the scene, 1 with the stationary person and the towel/blanket, 1 long exposure with the person standing there rocking back and forth a bit to get that motion blur/almost invisible feel and layer it in so there's a stronger "ghostly presence" under the towel?  So many things to think about!</blockquote>

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