Star Wars Portrait

Chroma Key Technology

Objective

Today you are creating your own Green Screen portrait. You will go

through the process of selecting your star wars background, taking photos

in front of green screen, importing photo into Adobe Photoshop Elements

9, editing with Quick Selection tool and /or Lasso tool, dragging it to the

star wars background, tweaking and saving as a jpeg.

Note: Students are not to wear green when using green screen technology.

Steps

1. You have to choose your star wars background photo from the

Internet. Make sure you choose a picture big in size to prevent

pixilation. Save to you Photography folder.

2. Please look closely at the background picture and notice what type

of pose you need.

3. Next go to green screen area and make sure your lighting system is

adjusted properly to minimize shadows on the subject and try not to

be too close to the green screen, stay at least a foot away. Playing

with this will help eliminate shadows.

4. You will need help adjusting your lighting to minimize shadows on the

subject (that's you)

5. Start taking photos. Take at least 3-4 photos using different poses.

Export photos to your Photographer folder.

6. Next you have to decide which photo looks best with your

background.

7. Finally, start editing using Adobe Photoshop Elements 9.

� Open Adobe Photoshop Elements 9

� First open your green screen photo. Go to file open>browse for

picture.

� Next, use the Quick Selection tool to remove the green

screen. To do so, click and drag on the green screen, you will

notice that most of your selection will be the green screen. If

you notice that part of the subject has been selected, go to

the quick selection tool icon and click subtract from selection

icon . Move your mouse carefully over the

selected area until all of the area has been deselected. Once

your selection has been complete, click the Magic Erase tool

and click on the green part of photo. All of the green screen

should disappear. If for some reason some of the green

remains on the photo you can erase the green using the eraser

tool or you can select the area with the Lasso tool then click

the delete key.

8. Save your picture as PSD format just encase you have to modify

later and then save as a TIFF format.

9. Background Photo

� When choosing the background it has to be big in size. Choose

a picture with high resolution and save to your photography

folder.

� Open background in Photoshop>Go to File>click open (you have

to browse for you picture)double click your star wars

background picture and notice that it has loaded into the

Photoshop project bin. To the right of your screen, right click

the Background layer and create a duplicate. You should have

two layers.

� Next open up the picture of you with background removed and

you will notice to your right that another layer has been added.

Totaling three.

� Click the duplicate layer in this case “Background copy” to open

it on your screen. Make sure your background is on the screen,

and then drag the picture of you (the subject) from the

project bin to the background copy picture. If you notice that

nothing happens, you picture is probably much bigger than the

background picture and is off the screen down to the bottom

right corner.

� Use the move tool to grab the corner image by the corner

handle and drag to the bottom right corner. Then holding the

left mouse click, drag the photo to bring the subject to the

screen. If the subject still doesn’t become visible, repeat the

process until your subject is visible.

� Next position your subject on the background where you want

it to be.

Grab image by corner handle

Grab image by corner handle

� You may notice that you have made your subject too small, so

you have to resize it. Again, grab the corner handle and drag to the

size that suits your background. Don’t grab the side handles!!

� Place your subject in the position where you want it to be.

10. Draw light Saber

� As you will notice you have two layers open on your screen. To

the right of your screen click on the subject layer TIFF to

activate it and now it’s time to add the light saber.

� First, you want to set the colour for your light saber. To do so,

click

the blue square in the toolbar and a colour picker dialogue box opens.

Pick a colour you would like for your light saber. In this case, I

picked fluorescent green because I wanted something bright that

would stand out. You might want to pick a colour that matches the

light saber on your background image. Entirely up to you. Click OK

� Next you have to select the brush tool to make a spot on the

end of the flashlight. You may have to play with the brush tool

sizes before you get the correct size you want. Make sure you

click the layer you want to work with and in this case, it is the

layer with the subject (you), with the background removed and

then click the brush tool.

� Choose a size that works well for you.

� Next move your mouse to the end of the flashlight and click,

you’ll notice a green dot will appear. You may have to adjust the

size of the dot because it should fit the end of the flashlight and

be in proportion with your light saber. Make sure that your light

saber is similar in size to the one in the star wars background

picture.

� Next we want to draw the light saber.

To do so, right click the custom shape tool

on the toolbar to the left of your screen.

The following options open up, please click

the Rounded Rectangle Tool.

Next click and drag the cross hairs until you have a light saber

that is the size you want. Click the select tool to select the

light saber and it will allow you to shorten or lengthen it and turn

it on an angle. Once you are satisfied with your light saber, click

the green checkmark to accept current operation.

First click this layer

Next click the brush tool.

First click this layer

� Next you want to give your light saber a

glowing effect. To do so> select the light saber>go

to Filter on menu>click Blur>click Gaussion Blur. You’ll

be prompted to simplify the shape. Click OK.

� A Gaussian Blur dialogue box opens, here you’ll use the slider

to set the radius of the light saber to 9 or close to it. As you move

the slider, you will notice that your light saber will glow. You may

have to adjust to suit your picture.

11. Blending the subject with the background image

� Please note that when you look at the

subject and your background, the subject stands out.

You may want tone down the photo. To do so>go to

enhance on menu>click adjust colour>click

Hue/Saturation, a dialogue box opens. Play with the

sliders until your image looks like it is starting to blend with the

background.

� Next you want to tone down the edges of the subject, and to

do this we will need to add some shadows. First click the eyedropper

tool , then click on the image to get a similar colour from the

background. This will allow you have the same colour that is in the

background for that given area. Next click the brush tool , click

the brush presets and choose a soft round brush. Finally,

you’ll adjust the size of your brush tool depending on

what part of the image you are trying to manipulate. Repeat this

process until your image looks like it blends in with the background.

� Now you are ready to save. Please save as a PSD file and then

as a jpeg to your photography portfolio folder.

Good Luck and have fun!!