Storyboard photography: multiplying a biker by five

A sports photo with a storyboard effect, when several phases of the athlete’s movement are seen in the frame, helps to show the dynamics of the event and reveals the process of the trick’s development. In the end, such photos look spectacular and are a great addition to the gallery of pictures from any sporting event. So let’s figure out how to perform this effect in your photos.

AF-S NIKKOR 14-24 mm f/2.8G ED f/6.3, 1/8000, ISO 1250

A series of 12 shots only six of them are used for the final stitching, and not every second shot, but in an irregular order. All the frames are shot with the same settings to make stitching easier.

It’s a good idea to be prepared first. Pick a good spot, and frame the shot to include the whole trajectory of the performer’s movement from the start of the stunt to the end. If you are able to agree with the performer, discuss with him the point of the beginning and the end of the stunt and ask him to stick to this plan.

When choosing the angle for a storyboard photo, don’t forget that it’s just a technical trick. It makes your pictures look good, but it won’t make them great if you don’t think about the composition of your pictures. So take care of your composition beforehand. In my example I filled the upper part of the frame with textured clouds which added to the dynamics of the upper part of the frame.

Get your camera ready to shoot. I should mention that you can achieve the same effect with the built-in multiple exposure function, but I prefer to shoot the pictures manually in order to have more control over the process. Set the burst mode to high speed – you get many more photos than you need, the different movement phases will overlap, but you can choose the most interesting phases and combine them into one photo. Focus and lock the focus beforehand by putting the camera and lens in manual focus mode. It’s especially important to measure the exposure and turn off the automatic exposure metering before you take your photos, so that all photos are the same brightness. Set the aperture, shutter speed and aperture ratio so as to get a sharp picture without motion blur – this time we will use other means to express the motion. That’s it, you’re ready to shoot.

Start shooting a little bit before the athlete starts his stunt. In the case of the bike, I started shooting even before the first wheel of the bike came off the ground. It’s important to capture the very moment when the trick begins and ends. Do not lead your character when shooting, keep the direction you have chosen from the beginning.

Great, you got your series! Now let’s figure out what to do with them. To process my photos I use a combination of Adobe Bridge + Adobe Camera RAW ACR + Photoshop. We choose our series in the Bridge, select all files of the series and send for processing to ACR right click on the selected files, choose the Open in Camera RAW option . All the files should be processed together so that they are exactly the same in color, contrast and brightness. Just select all the selected files in the left column and start processing. At this stage it is better to refrain from correcting geometric distortions and perspective, especially in automatic mode, as ACR can correct each file in its own way. Save all your changes by clicking Done and return to Adobe Bridge.

Initial photo selection and processing in ACR

Already at this stage it is better to determine which phases you will need for the work, choose those in which the positions of the athlete do not overlap. The selected files can be selected and loaded into Photoshop as layers of the same file in Adobe Bridge menu Tools – Photoshop – Load files as Photoshop Layers . Once all the layers are loaded, you can start processing.

Upload as layers of a single file

To start, select all the layers, go to Edit – Auto-Align Layers and select auto-align mode. If you and your camera moved only slightly during the shooting, the program will not make major changes to the photos. If you did “trick” your hero while shooting, then be prepared for an unexpected result – the program can significantly distort the layers.

Automatic alignment of all layers

As a starting point, we choose the uppermost layer with the photo of the beginning of the movement. From the next layer, we only need to take the motorcyclist. Lift the layer with the next movement phase over the first one and add a black mask to it. All the content of the layer will be hidden. Next, with a soft white brush with Opacity 100, drag the mask where the motorcyclist should be. If you captured the exposure metering during the photo, and you made the same changes in all the files during processing, your motorcyclist will fit perfectly in the overall photo. If you had slight variations in brightness, it is better to correct an individual photo with curves at the stage of gluing or in ACR to get rid of light or dark halo around the sportsman.

Creating a layer mask for the first motorcyclist and an example of what happens if you use too many frames

We now have two motorcyclists instead of just one. By successively lifting up each successive layer and manifesting on it with a mask of only the motorcyclist, we get the very chain of motion, the storyboard effect. All that remains is to crop the final image to get rid of unwanted margins at the edges of the frame. The picture is ready!

Layer sandwich, crop and finish color correction