My GPS Camera Phone

First, thank you to all of my visitors yesterday, especially those of you who commented. I’m enjoying posting an abstract image followed up by a how-to post, so if you want to be sure not to miss anything, please subscribe to my RSS feed (really, it only takes a second!).

There were some great guesses as to how I captured this photo, ranging from colored cellophane to on-board photo filters, but the magic was performed by Photoshop CS2 and a little extra something. I actually posted two photos yesterday. They just happened to be one on top of the other.

Some time ago, I posted an image using a similar technique but I used nearly identical source images. This time around, I used two completely different images – one of a cloudy sky and another close-in shot of a painting (taken by my daughter, hence the partial photo credit). Here’s how it works.

In Photoshop, open two photos and make them equal sizes. It works best to have more contrast between the photos, but I’m sure it will work with anything. Then drag one layer on to the other image. In this case, I dragged the clouds over to the painting image. This should create another layer in that image. Close the image that you just dragged from.

I left the bottom layer (the painting) set to 100% opacity and kept the blending mode at normal. (The layer blending mode selector can be found on the layers palette next to the opacity setting.) The top layer of clouds is obviously going to block out the bottom layer, so we need to make it more see-through. Here’s where I adjusted the opacity to 75% and then changed the layer blending mode to luminosity. And that’s it.

Try experimenting with blending modes and opacity percentages in general and you’ll see a lot of interesting things happen. Just remember that you probably won’t see anything exciting happen with a single layer. Add another image or text layer and then adjust the blending mode of the top layer. Some modes will lighten, some will darken and some will cause a ghosting effect. Any way you slice it, blending modes are worth a look and can amplify the effect of your images significantly.

You might also like:

• How to Combine Two Average Photos into One Spectacular Photo (9)
• Negative Week, Day 3: Blending Negative Images in Ten Easy Steps (3)
• Wordless Wednesday 26 (23)
• Wordless Wednesday 25: Revealed! (2)