Ever wanted to take a step back from a fabulous day and freeze it in motion? I have on several occasions, so I figured why not? Why not take an image and FREEZE it!?! Sounds crazy right, maybe a little hard to do, but with Photoshop its simple! I give you a step by step break down of how I froze my subject in time.
The Base Image
To start off my project I need to have a image that looked as if it could be stopped in time. The movement needed to be captured, yet I still
wanted it to look graceful when I froze. (No hair in odd places!) I also didn't want the image to be too perfect as well. When I looked at ice, I noticed all the imperfections in it. I wanted to try to recreate that imperfect look.
Wind BLAST!
After getting my basic image set to what I wanted, I used the wind filter to create almost an odd melting effect. Before you use this filter, rotate your image sideways so your marks will face up and down (just like ice) and not side to side. After you rotated your image, go to Filter, Stylize, Wind and select Blast. Play around with the settings until you get a look that you love! Once you have the effect you like, make sure you rotate your image back to its original state.
Plastic Wrap...?
After the wind has blown away your subject, we need to make it a little be more icey. For this we are gonna wrap them in plastic! Or a nice photoshop filter. I made a copy of my wind blast layer, but you can also use a smart filter as well.
On your new layer, go to Filter, Artistic, Plastic Wrap. Try different settings until you get an effect that you like for your image. Each image is unique so different setting is almost always a must.
Time for Shift Change...Color Shift that is!
Once you have your cool ice look, you may want to change the color to something a little cooler. I started by adding a New Levels Adjustment Layer (Settings: 15, 0.70, 236). Next, I proceeded to add a New Hue/ Saturation Adjustment Layer (Settings: 215, 38, 0). These layers created the nice blue in the image, but remember each one is different, so play around until you get something that works for you.
Were almost there, the home stretch is in the clearing!
Now that we have fully frozen the subject, you may want to ad a little bit of frost to the ice cover. I achieved this frost effect by used using a nice soft brush in white and painted onto a new layer. I also brought down the layers opacity to about 50% and changed the blend mode to a nice soft light.
Well there you have it. How to Freeze a moment in time, well with a photograph and Photoshop anyways. I hope you got some great ideas and create frozen fun!
