Falling, Flying or Floating

Falling, flying and floating is a great way to understand some Photoshop tools and consider how photographs need to be taken before you take them so that you can edit them for a specific purpose.

Seb, 2023

1. Choose a location. Place your table or stool and work out where you want your subject to be. Consider if there is anything you need to alter in the background.

2. Set up the camera on the tripod

3. Try a few positions for your subject (2-3). Once you have the one, remove the table or stool and the subject and take a photo of the background

4. Save all of the photos you have taken in a Media folder on your computer

5. Open Adobe Photoshop. CLick File / New / Print. Create an A4 document

6. Open your images by right clicking and selecting ‘open / open with / open with Photoshop’ or drag them in to the top bar on Photoshop

7. Use Ctrl (on PC) or Cmnd (on Mac) and then ‘A’ to select all of your background photo. Then Crtl/Cmnd C to copy and Ctrl/Cmnd V to paste on your A4 page.

8. Create a layer mask on your subject photo by clicking the layer mask icon in the bottom right corner of the screen.

9. Use the quick select tool to select your subject. Ctrl / Cmnd I will invert your selection and select everything other than your subject. 

10. lick on the white layer mask in the layers panel and colour the desk / stool or shadows you want to remove in black

11. Click back on the subject photo and use clone stamp tool to resolve any errors.

12. File / Save As / Photoshop Document - save in your folder.

13. File / Export As / JPEG - save in your folder and insert in to your online portfolio.

C level (ish)

• Create a page with the title 'Falling,' 'Flying,' or 'Floating' Photoshop.

• Include the final two images and your Photoshop image. Label them 'before' and 'after' or 'original photos' and 'final edit.'

• Your image should show that you were able to combine multiple images

• Accredited: Dot-point how you made the image

• Tertiary:  Describe the process that you used to construct your final image using annotations / sentences

B level (ish)

• Complete previous steps

• Make reference to specific Photoshop tools and explain how you used them to construct your image

• Your image should look realistic and show you have accounted for lighting, shadows and background

A level (ish)

• Complete previous steps

• Describe whether or not you beleive your image was successful. Explain steps you might change in your practical or editing process in the future

• Your image should look realistic and show you have accounted for lighting, shadows and background as well as showing a sense of style or meaning around your subject falling, flying or floating