15 Aug transparent {227/365}

I was browsing around the web today and came across this coolness.

And you know darn well I had to try that stuff out :)

Plus, the Mortal Muses prompt this week is ‘around the house’ and although my vice(s) qualifies as around the house, I don’t think that coffee and smokes are particularly muse worthy.

*ahem*

So anyway, this was my first attempt …

I took two shots of my desk – one with the monitor there, and one without.  Use a tripod, and manual focus to make sure you get the same shot for both.  Open both images in photoshop and use the shot with no monitor as your top layer.  From there on, it got messy when I veered from the tutorial (link below).  In this case, I cut out the screen area from the top layer (the background shot), put it on it’s own layer at the bottom, slapped a glass filter on it and messed around a bit.  It took a bit of manipulating but I think the end result is pretty cool.  The only thing I’d change is to darken the desktop icons to maybe give it more of a transparent feel.

This one is my second attempt, this time following the tutorial that you can find here …

Not too bad!   But I should’ve messed around with the desktop shot a bit more – it’s a little dark on the mac and slightly distorted (or in hindsight, maybe changed my monitor settings? I dunno), and maybe moved the laptop ahead a bit more (I made the mistake of moving it when I was messing around – big no-no, apparently, and a little difficult to line back up again for the final shot) but overall, it’s pretty cool!

As they are, the top one is my pick.  It just looks more realistic, no?

Totally fun but I have to admit, a bit confusing in the execution.  It’s not as easy as it looks.  I saw some shots where there were three or four laptops lined up in a row and omg I have no idea how they went about it.  I think I’d be lost.

You can find a flickr group here (of course you can – isn’t there a flickr group for pretty much everything?!) that’s full of all sorts of ideas and fun shots.

I’m pretty sure I’ll revisit this idea some time soon.

And how about you?  Are you going to give it a go?  If you do, leave a link in the comments.  I’d love to see what you come up with!

Have fun!

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Taken for the women of Mortal Muses.
You can find my 365 project on flickr or check out the flickr group for Shutter Sisters and Designer Digitals.
For all daily photos posted here – Click project365 in the Category list in the right sidebar.