Tutorial

OK, before we begin, I have to avow something:

I've got the idea for this tutorial from the Icelandish photographer Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir, who has made quite a few series of photos of herself, in which she appears more than once, or 'double'.

I wondered how this is made, till one day, I decided to fire up Fireworks, and try it for myself. Actually, it's very easy to do - you need just two basic steps.

This is the final result:

Figure 1: Completed Tutorial

What will you need to complete this tutorial?

• A digital camera,
• A tripod (if you don't own a tripod, don't worry - any firm surface, on which you can place the camera, will do),
• A copy of Fireworks.

Ready to go with me? Great, let's begin!

1. Make some photos

Place you digital camera on the tripod and set it to self-shutter mode. Go in front of it and take a few shots of yourself. The important part is not to move the camera between the shots. This will allow you to have a perfect static scene, in which you will appear in different places.

Done with the shooting? Let's continue!

Note: These are the three photos I am using for the purpose of this tutorial: 1, 2, 3. You are free to use your own, of course, and just follow the steps described here.

2. The Magic behind

Select you best shots and open them in Fireworks.

Note: If you intend to use your 'doubles' for screen purposes only, not for print (for example, to publish them in your blog, or send them to fiends), better resize the photos at this point to something like 800 - 1000 pixels maximum. This will make them easier to work with. If, on the other hand, you would like to print your work later as well, then better use the originals.

In this tutorial, we will use already resized to 900x675 px versions of the original photos (use the menu Modify → Canvas → Image Size, when you need to resize your photos).

Select one of the photos as your main canvas - you'll copy on it later your other 'doubles' (I will use as my main canvas photo_01.jpg).

Next, select the Polygon Lasso tool from the Tools panel , and set its edge in the Properties panel to Feather, 2 [?]. Using this tool, carefully outline on one of the other photos your figure. You should see something like this, after making a full selection:



Figure 2: Lasso Outline

Right-click the selection, and make new bitmap via copy [?]; now select the new bitmap you just created and copy it to the clipboard - use ctrl+C/cmd+C or the right-click menu and Edit > Copy, then switch back to photo_01.jpg, which is your main canvas, and paste it there - ctrl+V/cmd+V or the right-click menu again [?]. And here are the (expected) results:



Now you are 'double' - if you have more good photos, you can repeat the last steps, and make yourself 'triple', or even 'quadruple' - there are almost no limits to the 'cloning' of yourself (or cloning your friends)!

That's all - I wish you happy cloning with Fireworks! :-)