Add Sci-Fi Special Effects

Use an image editor to create Star Trek-like effects--phasers and all.

Dave Johnson

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Feature: Add Sci-Fi Special Effects

When I was in college, I took my geeky love of Star Trek, added a dose of photography, and came up with a hobby that could pretty much only be done around 3:00 a.m. Although it didn't help my grades, it was a lot of fun to create special-effect photos of my roommates shooting and disintegrating each other with phasers. Back then, I did all of those cool effects "in the lens," using flashlights, very long exposures, and a healthy dose of luck.

As you might expect, the results were more amateurish than what we can achieve today. Check out this vintage 1985 photo, for instance, featuring two of my college roommates. These days, we can get similar--but far better--effects in an image editor. Follow along, and I'll show you how you can make kids or coworkers the stars of a sci-fi special effects shot.

Disintegrate Your Subject

You'll need to start with a photo that poses two people in a scene like the image above. You can coax two of your coworkers into helping you, or download and load this photo into your favorite image editor (I'm using Corel's Paint Shop Pro 9). Once the photo's in your image editor, immediately copy it to the clipboard by choosing Edit, Copy from the menu. We'll leave it there for the rest of the procedure.

Note: To keep the photo in memory, you must not copy anything else until you are ready to use the stored image. If you are worried that you might use the clipboard and lose the copied image, then you can save it with a different file name. Later, when I ask you to paste the image back into the project, load that version and copy it to the clipboard then.

Our next order of business is to make our unfortunate target disintegrate. As a first step toward making him glow with phaser energy, carefully create a selection region. Start by clicking the Freehand Selection tool, which lives in the fifth cubby from the top of the toolbar. If the Tool Options palette isn't visible at the top of the screen, toggle it on by choosing View, Palettes, Tool Options. In the Tool Options palette, set the Selection type to Edge Seeker and set Feather to zero. Now zoom in far enough that the subject fills the screen (you can roll your mouse wheel to zoom in and out) and click your way around him in short, careful sections, outlining as you go. When you work your way back to your starting point, double-click to close the selection.

Next, we need to make the selection bigger than the subject's body. To do that, choose Selections, Modify, Expand, and set it to about 8 pixels. The bigger your picture, the more pixels you'll need to create a proportionate halo effect. You can click the Auto Proof button in the Expand Selection dialog box to see the effect of the number of pixels in the original image. (Auto Proof is the icon that looks like an eye with small padlock.) When you're happy with the result, click OK.

Next, feather the selection in the same way--choose Selections, Modify, Feather and set the feathering to about 10 pixels.

Now for the moment you've been waiting for: It's time to add some glow. Choose Adjust, Brightness and Contrast, Brightness/Contrast and jack the brightness all the way up to maximum. Click OK, and you should see a pure white region where the subject used to be.

Next, add the copy we saved earlier as a new layer into your image. (Or load the saved image and choose Edit, Copy.) Choose Edit, Paste As New Layer. The glow should disappear because the copy of the original, unretouched image is now on top.

Double-click on the top layer to open the Layers Properties dialog box; if you don't see the Layers palette on the right side of the screen, toggle it on by choosing View, Palettes, Layers. Then change the layer's opacity until you get the effect you like--it'll probably be in the neighborhood of 20 to 40 percent.

Add a Phaser Blast

We've now made a pretty convincing disintegration scene, but what about the phaser beam? This is a lot easier to create on the PC than it was to mock up back in 1985, since most paint programs let you draw a perfectly straight line by holding down the Shift key.

In Paint Shop Pro, start by removing the selection: Choose Selections, Select None and then click on the bottom or background layer in the Layers palette. Next, click on the Paint Brush icon in the tool palette's seventh cubby from the top. Check the brush size in the Tool Options palette; I used a size of 20. Position the paint brush where you want the beam to start, then click and release.

If your beam color is not white, select Edit, Undo Paint Brush, then select Swatches (under the Materials heading in the Layers palette) and click on the white swatch. Redo the initial paint brush step and continue.

Hold down Shift and click on the end point. The program draws a perfectly straight line between the two points. Here's my final version of the photo.

Dave's Favorites: Share Your Photos With OurPictures

The problem with 8-megapixel photos is that it's generally not possible to e-mail them to friends and family--not without resizing them, at any rate. OurPictures solves that problem by letting you easily share all your images as easily as sending them via e-mail, without the size limitation that imposes.

OurPictures includes a photo organizer that displays all of your images in a thumbnail view, not unlike Adobe Album or Picasa. You can add keywords to your pictures and search for photos by file name or keyword. There's a lightweight image editor (think brightness, contrast, and rotate) built-in as well.

If that's not enough to whet your appetite, consider this: OurPictures can make prints by sending your photos to a local photo printer. Just click to order your prints and then drive across town to pick up your order an hour later.

But the program's real appeal is how you can "e-mail" any number of pictures to one or more recipients. If they have OurPictures, the images simply appear in their collection, in a separate, tabbed section. If the recipient doesn't use OurPictures, they get an e-mail pointing them to a Web page where they can view and download the images. Since OurPictures doesn't use traditional e-mail, but instead uses a special peer-to-peer technology, there are no resolution or file-size limitations on the images you send to friends, coworkers, and family.

The basic version of OurPictures is free, and the deluxe edition costs $30 per year. OurPictures Deluxe adds PictureSafe, which automatically backs up your photo collection to an online server. For more info or to download a version, visit the OnePictures site.

Q&A: How Long Do Photo Prints Last?

Someone recently told me that photos printed on an inkjet printer do not last very long, and would soon fade. One salesperson at a local office supply store told me the average life of an inkjet photo is only about 6 years. Is that true?

--Jerry Dillon, Austin, Texas

This question seems to flummox a lot of people, Jerry.

In the old days, when inkjet printer technology was young, pictures tended to fade fast--after just a few years. But the technology has improved dramatically since the mid-1990s, and these days many printer inks and papers are designed specifically with longevity in mind. All of the top printer companies (Canon, Epson, and Hewlett-Packard, for instance) offer ink-and-paper combinations that they claim will last 25 years or more. To get that kind of performance, use the ink sold by the printer manufacturer in conjunction with the company's premium paper.

Printers that use pigment-based ink (as opposed to the somewhat more common dye-based ink in most inexpensive printers) go one better. They offer "archival quality" prints that are projected not to fade for a century or more. And if those numbers don't seem very high to you, remember that good old-fashioned prints from film cameras can fade in as little as 25 to 50 years. So digital prints may already be able to last as long, and you can always make a new print from the original file when the photo's colors start to fade.

For help selecting the right paper for long-lasting prints, review last week's column, "Pick the Perfect Photo Paper."

Hot Pics

Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.

Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.

This Week's Hot Pic: "Yard Grabber," by William Baskwill, Columbus, Ohio

William says that he took this picture while walking through a park, looking for flowers to photograph with his Sony M1 digital camera. He explains: "I picked the dandelion and held it in close for a close-up shot. I then edited it in Picasa 2 by increasing the shadows to make the background darker."

Hot Pic of the Month: Each month we choose one of our weekly winners to be the Hot Pic of the Month. For June, we chose "Roasting Marshmallows," an experiment in infrared photography by Hans Samios from Madison, Alabama.

Congratulations to Hans and to everyone else who won a Hot Pic of the Week last month. Keep those entries coming!