You Can Run But You Can't Hide

Take II. Here's Take I

My contribution to the technique challenge for silhouette and for DDWs alphabet challenge, E is for no escape. I did one version with the words 'Technique Challenge' written on the ball, but that would suggest its a burden. It's absolutely not, but it does tend to preoccupy your thoughts and your spare time :-)

Not enough time to do water drops, no nude model for low key (may have to strip off myself :-)) and no sun to do silhouette, so I had to get creative in Photoshop.

Straightforward shot of a passing jogger. Added a gradient overlay to darken it but not completely; I wanted some detail to peek through. Added an inner glow to create highlights on his right hand side, where the light is supposedly falling. Close up of my trusty ball and chain (this is the 4th picture with it), and a bit of creative drawing in white on a black background to create the doorway and light beam and voila. Not what I had in mind at all for this topic, but needs must etc. etc.

In other news, the cloakroom floor is tiled and its boy's night tonight. Felicity's Chinese buffet. Looking forward to it.

Technical Notes (for anyone interested)

These are the layers that make up this image, from top to bottom:

12- Duplicate Runner - As layer below but without inner glow applied. Right hand side erased with a soft brush so that the glow of the layer beneath shows on the right side only
11 - Runner - Gradient overlay applied to turn it into a silhouette and an inner glow applied to lighten the edges. Only wanted this on the right hand side, so used the layer above to mask this layer
10 - Runners Shadow (flipped vertically, black colour overlay applied, stretched and blurred and faded out using a mask and gradient fill
9 - Chain - Stretched to extend from the ball to the runner and distorted get the perspective right (narrows from ball to runner)
8- Chains Shadow - A duplicate of the chain with a colour overlay applied, opacity reduced and moved into the right position. Warped to curve more than the original chain.
7 - Highlight Just a soft white blob at low opacity to put a highlight on the ball (top right) to match the direction of the light from the open door
6 - Ball - No trickery on this one. SOOC
5 Ball Shadow 1 - Duplicate of the ball, black overlay and squished into an oval and placed beneath the ball. Opacity set to 90% and 5% Gaussian blur added
4 Ball Shadow 2 Duplicate of the ball, black overlay and elongated into a distorted oval and placed beneath the ball. Opacity set to 30% and 2% Gaussian blur added
3 - Door - A rectangle filled with white
2 - Light Beam a polygon with feathered edges (15 pixels) filled with white
1 - Background a blank canvas filled with black

Trust me, nowhere near as complicated as it may sound. Just lots of little components that make up the whole.