Anti
New Member
I was looking to make a quick and dirty avatar and stumbled upon on an easy way (with the magic of Photoshop) to "launch" a 1/72 scale model into the interstellar void.
Start with a good pic of a darned fine model (put together by a good friend of mine), like so
View attachment 41513
In order to get in this close and keep the whole thing in focus, I had to crank the aperture as small as it would get on the Canon Rebel (big F = big depth of field) and then crank the IOS as high as it would go to make up for the lack of light (otherwise the shutter speed would have been horribly slow, and I don't own a tripod). Anyway, after some test shots I realized I'd need more light, so I plunked the model under a desk lamp on the only clean spot on the desk, which happened to be the keyboard of an open laptop. It was when I dumped the pics into Photoshop that I noticed the completely unintentional but very cool star field/warm glow effect given by the dusty screen of the laptop!
So then I went back and took some shots of just the laptop screen, under the same lighting, ending up with this:
View attachment 41514
which I then tweeked by fiddling with the contrast and color balance to get this:
View attachment 41515
The next step was to use the magnetic lasso tool in Photoshop to isolate the Viper:
View attachment 41512
Admittedly this was a rush job so I didn't put much time or care into exactly tracing the Viper (the edges are rough).
And, finally, I superimposed the Viper layer over the background to get the final version:
View attachment 41516
Chief: Well, the reactor's still hot. So all we have to do is pull the rad buffers from the engine, refuel it, load the ordinance and you're ready to go. The biggest problem's gonna be getting them over to the port launch bay.
Starbuck: Why can't we use the starboard launch?
Chief: It's a gift shop now.
Starbuck: Frak me.
Start with a good pic of a darned fine model (put together by a good friend of mine), like so
View attachment 41513
In order to get in this close and keep the whole thing in focus, I had to crank the aperture as small as it would get on the Canon Rebel (big F = big depth of field) and then crank the IOS as high as it would go to make up for the lack of light (otherwise the shutter speed would have been horribly slow, and I don't own a tripod). Anyway, after some test shots I realized I'd need more light, so I plunked the model under a desk lamp on the only clean spot on the desk, which happened to be the keyboard of an open laptop. It was when I dumped the pics into Photoshop that I noticed the completely unintentional but very cool star field/warm glow effect given by the dusty screen of the laptop!
So then I went back and took some shots of just the laptop screen, under the same lighting, ending up with this:
View attachment 41514
which I then tweeked by fiddling with the contrast and color balance to get this:
View attachment 41515
The next step was to use the magnetic lasso tool in Photoshop to isolate the Viper:
View attachment 41512
Admittedly this was a rush job so I didn't put much time or care into exactly tracing the Viper (the edges are rough).
And, finally, I superimposed the Viper layer over the background to get the final version:
View attachment 41516
Chief: Well, the reactor's still hot. So all we have to do is pull the rad buffers from the engine, refuel it, load the ordinance and you're ready to go. The biggest problem's gonna be getting them over to the port launch bay.
Starbuck: Why can't we use the starboard launch?
Chief: It's a gift shop now.
Starbuck: Frak me.
