Photography

Light Source Cancellation

Bothered by the surrounding light? Wish it were in the middle of the night? Kill all light except your own light source(s) using this simple trick. Be aware that this requires a very stable tripod and a non-moving target. Mount the camera on the tripod and make sure it doesn't move at all. Now take the first picture of the motive.

original

Next step is to add a light source. Pretend it's the only light source there is. This is not an easy thing to do, but with some imagination you might get lucky.

lamp on

Now you're ready to go home to your image manipulation software and do the following: Place the two images on top of each other. Make sure they're perfectly aligned. It doesn't take much wind or shaking to move the images just a pixel or two in some direction. Subtract one image from the other. This might be achieved by setting the blending mode of the top layer to "difference" or such. The result should be something like this:

Website by Joachim Michaelis