How to Create Realistic Jedi Levitation Portraits

Photographer, weird lens expert, and friend of PetaPixel Mathieu Stern created this very simple and straightforward Photoshop tutorial for anybody out there who wishes they were a Jedi and wants to impress their friends.

At its core this is a basic levitation portrait tutorial, but the theme helps breathe new life into a somewhat stale idea. This isn’t just some pretty girl in a flowy dress reaching dreamily into the distance, this is a badass Jedi getting in touch with the force—much better.

The steps are as follows:

Step 1: Take three photos—one of your background without anything in it, one with your subject in frame sitting on a stool, and another with your subject and someone holding a prop in position.

Step 2: Import all three photos into Photoshop as layers.

Step 3: Use the empty background as your base plate, and mask in your subject (sans stool) from photo 2 and your prop (sans the person holding it) from photo 3.

Note: Make sure you pay special attention to the shadows, it’ll make your final photo look much more realistic if your Jedi has a shadow that isn’t sitting on the shadow of a stool.

That’s it! Using this very simple process, Stern created all the images below:

Check out the video up top to see how one of the photos above was created from start to finish in Photoshop. And if you like what you see, check out some of Mathieu’s other videos on his website or by subscribing to his channel on YouTube.

Image credits: All photos by Mathieu Stern and used with permission.