Mower Blade

Soon it will be time to cut the lawn with my new lawn mower so I thought the old "cut paper" test on the blade was in order...

Good day before Good Friday everyone.

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Caution Tech Stuff:

First I started in the garage shooting the mower. I took 5 shots from a tripod with different focus points. Then I shot myself on the ladder in the garage but found my upper body too dark. I moved outside for more uniform lighting and shot myself with a timer while standing on the ladder.

On the computer I blended the 5 shots into a single focus composite image. Using the magnetic lasso tool I trace around myself and the ladder. This is much harder to do with normal background clutter. Not only do I have to knock out from the background myself but all the little cross bars of the ladder. This took about 10 minutes to get it right.

Next I resized and positioned myself over the blade. I added an extra mask so I could remove (paint) part of my left arm out. After all it's on the other side of the blade. Final touches were adding a fresh layer between the background image and myself. Using a soft edge brush I added some drop shadows. A crop and a touch of sharpness to the background and it's done.

Enjoy...

BTW: I love the shot from last year. Click the box and enlarge. One of my faves...