Learn to Photoshop
How it was done

• The original photograph was of the runner bursting through the tape, taken in a studio.

• The figure and the tape needed to be treated separately.

• The image with the best body position had the tape too high. Parts of the tape looked all right; some of it didn't.




• The runner was cut out from the background with the Pen tool.

• The selection was transferred to Quick Mask Mode and was fine tuned with slightly soft brushes.

• As I was not using this tape, it was covered up with patch repairs over the chest and arm.

• The selected runner was put on a separate layer, which was then copied twice.



• The two copy layers were given different amounts of horizontal Motion Blur to create movement.

• The sharp copy of the runner was placed on top and set at partial opacity.

• The blurred layers were positioned so that most of the blur was at the runner's rear.

• By using several layers here, one can play around with different amounts of blur and different levels of opacity on each layer to get the best effect.



• Two pieces of tape with better curves and shapes were cut out of other images from the same session and put on to separate layers.

• The tape was also given a little Motion Blur to increase the sense of movement throughout.



• The background was made as a separate image, larger in size than the runner image. It was filled with a medium blue. Brush strokes in two shades of blue were put on to separate layers. After flattening, it was given Motion Blur at a high setting.

• The background was positioned behind the runner.

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