Virtual Portraits

Many of my clients are now requesting that we create Virtual Portraits for them. Defined, we shoot the subject either on location or in the studio against a blank or white background. Using sophisticated software, we separate the subject from the blank background and place them into a setting that relates to their work or activity. This technique saves time and ultimately money.

The following example was shot at a client's downtown Minneapolis office. Scheduling a busy conference room with wall-to-wall windows was avoided. Instead, we created a studio in an inside meeting room. This is what the set-up looked like.




From a series of images shot, the client chose this pose to be used in the virtual portrait.




The client wanted a background to consist of the view normally seen out the windows of their downtown Minneapolis offices. We shot views out of several offices to create a library of backgrounds. This enables us to use a variety of backgrounds so that different staff members don't look like they've been shot against a static background.




Once the image has been outlined (step 1), the subject and the background are combined onto the same canvas (step 2). As you can see the background looks somewhat crooked and out-of-scale to the subject. The background is reduced and transformed or rotated to make it look more realistic (step 3). But the background size now leaves some blank canvas so the entire image is cropped to an 8x10 aspect ratio so that everything fits (step 4).




And...here's the final result!



For more information,

www.stevesilvermanimaging.com

4445 W. 77th St. #130
Edina, MN 55435
952-844-0119 c952-905-1197
steve@stevesilvermanimaging.com