#double exposure tutorial

TUTORIAL | Double Exposures by Allie Wilson of Allie Wilson Photography

HEY, THERE CREATIVE PEOPLE!  

We’ve launched our IG TV channel! We’d love to have you check it out. The awesome Allie Wilson is sharing an awesome tutorial for you all to watch.

WHAT IS A DOUBLE EXPOSURE? AND WHY SHOULD I TRY IT? 

dou·ble ex·po·sure ˈdəbəl ikˈspōZHər,ekˈspōZHər/ noun

the repeated exposure of a photographic plate or film to light, often producing ghost images.

We…

Alright so before you even start you’ll want to find two photos which will go nicely together, for the sake of this tutorial I will be using these images: 

To begin, we need to cut out the subject from the portrate background, you can use the pen tool or the quick select tool to outline our model:

If you’ve used to pen tool, right click and select “make selection” and make sure the radius is 0.5 and click OK. Now we need to right click again and select “refine edge”

Enable smart radius and alter the radius until the selection is accurate around the hair etc, OK that once done.

Now we need to copy the selection onto a new layer (press CTRIL+J) and add a layer with a white fill below it to isolate the portrait like so:

Now we need to open the landscape image into the document:

Now we CTRL/CMD+click on the thumbnail cutout (”copy of katy”) to get that selection. Now we click onto the landscape layer and create a layer mask:

Then we need to unlink the image from its mask by clicking the chain icon between the thumbnails in the Layers panel. This will allow you to move and scale the image independently from its mask, so the mask will stay in place while you find the best composition.

Now duplicate the portrait cut out layer and drag it to the top of the stack. Open up the Levels adjustment (Image > Adjustments > Levels) and begin darkening the image.

Now we change the blending mode to “screen” (or “lighten”, whichever you prefer).

Now, we can add a layer mask to erase some areas to blend in more.  Painting black onto a layer mask will erase areas while painting white will bring them back etc so just mess around with that until you’re happy with the blending! I settled with my blending like so:

Now this step isn't always nessessary but I decided to do it anyway. You'll want to click back onto the landscape layer (make sure you're clicked on the landscape thumbnail not the layer mask) and sample the lightest colour to fill in the white background.

Again this step is just if you want to, some images will be done by now and just need cropping etc however we can now add a Black & White Adjustment Layer and turn the opacity down to around 35% to wash the colour out.  

Finally, you can choose to add a Gradient Map and mess around with the opacity or colours etc etc.

Now we have finished it’s up to you to mess around with any other alterations etc. I just cropped mine and this was the final outcome:

I have been loooving double exposures lately. I usually select one photo from each engagement session that I do to make a little extra fancy. I use Photoshop using 3 layered images:

Image of a person/people - I have found that silhouettes work well

A nature, flower, or tree picture

Texture overlay (can find free ones online or create your own by taking pictures of walls, furniture, concrete - anything that has interesting texture)

Hope this was informative and helpful to someone out there!

or how to make this:

(seriously the title is totally improvised no idea how to call it! i was just asked by a lovely someone to make a tutorial about it!)