Okay, so you have a really cool Doctor Who costume. Maybe you had your grandma knit you a twelve foot long scarf, maybe you have a v-neck sweater and old leather coat, maybe you actually have a Tennant Suit from Magnoli Clothiers. You’re gonna want a really cool picture to show off the costume in various Doctor Who forums and such, right? I mean let’s face it, a picture of yourself as the Doctor standing in your living room is not very exciting. But with today’s computer power you can turn that ordinary blah photo into something resembling a still from an actual episode. This will be a long post so follow the jump to learn more!

Okay first off let me say that none of what I write here is concrete. This is just what worked for me, so I thought I’d share what I’ve learned. To make life easier for you as you do this you are going to want to use a digital camera, a tripod, and a friend. Most likely you are going to want a picture of yourself with the TARDIS. First off you’ll need a TARDIS though it doesn’t matter if you have a full size TARDIS or not. We’ll take care of that part later. If you have a detailed toy or model, cool. If not you can make your own . This is the route I chose. You’ll also want to take your picture somewhere with an interesting background like a gravel quarry (sorry, couldn’t resist…). A picture of yourself with the TARDIS in your front yard still looks kinda lame. Believe me, I am speaking from experience.

Now the first part is easy. Stand your camera on a tripod and take a picture of the background. This will be your blank plate. I happened to have found an alley that I liked, so I chose that.

Next up is taking a picture of the TARDIS. So make sure you bring your model with you. I like this method becuase it will ensure that the lighting and everything matches perfectly. Now I don’t do this the scientific way or the way Industrial Light and Magic would do this by measuring all the angles and such. I take an educated guess and I hold the model in the picture (being careful not to get my fingers in the way…). Also as I am using my paper model with it’s own shadows and highlights printed on the paper, I make sure that my light source (in this case the sun) matches. You don’t want to try and fix that in photoshop.

Alrighty then, the last step is of course to have you in the picture. If you have some friends to help you, great. If not, just use the self timer on your digital camera. Pose however you like and you are done. Because I knew I was going to be posing while standing in the TARDIS with the door opened, I leaned against the wall in the recessed doorway.

Now, just download your photos onto your computer and we can begin to combine them! Now I use Adobe Photoshop CS on a Macintosh G4 Cube (an ancient computer, yes, but it gets the job done!). However, these techniques will work just as well on a PC. Okay, first open your background image. This will be the main image. Next open the picture with the TARDIS. Using the “Polygonal Lasso Tool” you will want to go around and crop out the TARDIS. Once you’ve finished copy then paste the TARDIS on the background picture. it should look something like this:

Notice I already have the door cut out. This is because I put a picture of the console room in the background. I just did a google Image Search to find a decent enough picture of the console room to use. I copied it and pasted it on a layer behind the TARDIS layer. You can always move your layers up and down on the Layers Window (in the end you should have four layers…) Next up open the picture of yourself and again using the Polygonal Lasso Tool, copy and paste yourself where you want to be. That’s pretty much the basics. It will probably still look flat and fake, but that’s where the filters come in!

Now, because the TARDIS console is technically further away in the background, you’ll want to blur it up a bit. I select that console room layer, then select “Filters” from the menu bar at the top. Then I highlight “Blur” which gives me different blurring options. I went with “Gaussian Blur” at about a two pixel spread. This gives the illusion that the console is actually farther away. Then I select the layer with myself and using the brush tool I create some shadows. Right below the menu bar there should be an option bar for the brush tool. I choose 80% Opacity and 50% Flow. I select a dark gray for the color and a small size for the brush. I then go under my feet and around my shoulder a bit to give the illusion that I am casting a shadow on the model. Then I go to the model’s layer and do the same, though on a slightly larger brush size. I ahde on the right side by the wall and on the ground to make it seem like it’s actually there. When all is said and done I save the image as a .PSD file. And you pretty much have a finished picture.

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