I wanted to create this picture for a while, to use as a Facebook profile picture. The idea was to insert a picture of me next to “Buddy Christ” from the movie Dogma. Unfortunately, although predictably, the only source image I could get for Buddy Christ was very low resolution and had a complicated background. The background wasn’t so much of an issue for what I ended up doing, though.
To insert myself, I set my camera on a timer to take a picture of me posing. I needed a solid colored background, because I would have to remove it in Photoshop. The wall above my bed was the best I could get. So, with the camera perched on the dresser, set on a timer, I proceeded to strike the pose. Repeatedly. You’d be surprised how hard that ‘pointing and thumbs up’ is to replicate accurately. When I finally got one that was right, I imported it into Photoshop, removed the background, and inserted myself. I had to shrink myself to what seemed like a proportional size, and then adjust the color levels to try to match the lighting better. It’s certainly not perfect, but being that it was such low resolution, I found it to be acceptable.
Sources:
?2007 Tony Magri except where noted
