The Story Behind the Photo

June 2023: Member’s Choice

David Hutchinson

This is my 9 year old granddaughter.  She made this picture frame in Cub Scouts.  We decided to take some fun pictures with it to put in the frame and to let her edit the photos.

To make this photo I put camera on a tripod and took a picture of the background. Without moving the camera I took another picture with my granddaughter in it holding the frame.

I imported both images into Photoshop as layers and made the background image the bottom layer. Next, I selected both layers and Edit/Auto-Align Layers to make sure everything lined up.

There are a couple ways to proceed:

With the top layer selected use either the Lasso Tool or the Marquee Tool to select the part of the image you want to make transparent then push the Delete button.  This deletes the selected area to expose the bottom layer.

The other way is to add a Layer Mask to the top layer and paint what you want to make transparent in black.

Quick and easy edits even for a 9 year old.

Nikon D750 w/ 24-120mm lens and a tripod.

Natural light, 1/250sec @ f5.0, ISO 200, 86mm