Up In Smoke

My first attempt at editing a couple of smoke shots together, using layers and basic Photoshop Elements tools like dodge, burn, eraser.

To get this result I shot incense smoke from about 3 feet away. I used an external flash mounted on my camera (head rotated to mainly bounced off a wall to the side), manually set f/8 and 1/200 sec. (ISO 100), and had a dark background (black $2 disposable table cloth from a party store) a few feet behind.

I then edited a couple of shots together, using layers and basic Photoshop Elements tools like dodge, burn, eraser. The blue was in the smoke but I saturated it.

For more examples and technique ideas such as false coloring and mirroring, see: www.flickr.com/groups/artsmoke/