Layer Masks
How to Shoot a No-Hands Selfie Through Photoshop Trickery
With any luck the "selfie" trend will have burned out by the time you read this. But that's no reason not to have a little fun with Photoshop to overcome the limitation – and defining characteristic – of the phone-camera self-portrait: The extended arm holding the camera.
What we're going to do is take two hand-held self-portraits and use Photoshop to merge them and get rid of the tell-tale arm that's holding the camera/phone. You can use any kind of camera for this exercise. My instinct is to go with the best camera you can find that's still light enough to hold out at arm's length but you can use a phone cam if you want to get the full "selfie" experience.
Part 1 — Shooting the Photos
Choosing a location for your selfie shoot:
The best spot will be a place where there's a relatively uncluttered
background, preferably with a good amount of distance between the subject (you) and the background. This means that
inside a bathroom — an inxplicably popular site for selfies, it seems — is a bad spot. A large room
with the rear wall far behind you works much better because it makes objects in the background much easier
for Photoshop to merge. Outdoors works, too.
Camera settings:
If you're using a high quality camera that lets you choose the lens aperture, shoot wide open to minimize
depth of field (this will put the background more out of focus).
Taking the photos:
You'll need to take two photos, one with the camera held in your right hand and one with the camera held
in your left hand. Try to keep your pose as close to identical as you can for the two shots; when you take the
second shot you ought to look toward where the camera was in the first shot. I recommend you take
several pairs of photos so you'll have options should your first pair not align well enough.
Part 2 — Bringing the Photos into Photoshop
Copy the image files onto your computer and in Photoshop, go the the main menu and choose File > Automate > Photomerge...
Choose the "Auto" layout and make sure the "Blend Images Together" box in the lower part of the dialog is not checked.
Click on the "Browse" button and load the two images you want to use.
Click OK and the layered, aligned image will open — it may take a few moments if the images are large and/or Photoshop has difficulty aligning them. If all has gone well Photoshop will have aligned, transformed and distorted Layers to make the two Layers match very closely (except for the different arm holding the camera in each one, of course!)
Part 3 — Layer Masks and Arm Amputation(!)
Now all you need to do is remove the tell-take arm in the top layer. (If this doesn't work well with the image as opened in Photoshop, try switching the Layer stacking order in the Layers Panel so you can attempt hiding the other arm.)
In the Layers Panel, target the top Layer and click the Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Panel to add a Mask to that Layer.
Choose the Paint Brush Tool and set your foreground color to black. Use a large (about the width of your arm in the photo)
soft-edged (around 40–60% hardness) brush and paint in a Mask over your extended arm to reveal the Layer beneath.
Change the paint (foreground) color to white if you expose too much and need to cover it up somewhat. If you've got
everything right you should be able to get a Selfie with neither arm holding the camera without too much difficulty.
If you just can't get a convincing result, try switching the stacking order of the two Layers, add a Layer mask to the new upper Layer and try again. If this still doesn't work you may have to try another pair of photos.
Once you get the technique down you'll find it easy to apply for other purposes: Take a photo of someone standing on a box, then shoot the same scene without the person or box and you'll be able to blend the two images in Photoshop, mask out the box and have someone floating in mid-air. Use your imagination and come up with your own tricks.