I'm really terrible at these openings I
got to tell you as some of you may or
may not know my day job is as a visual
effects supervisor right now I am doing
the show time list for NBC by the way it
just aired last Sunday if you tuned in
that's kind of how you support this
channel because that's what pays me so
tune in to timeless at 10:00 p.m. 9:00
central only on NBC dundun tune anyway I
think that's the NBC jingle anyway I've
gotten more and more excited about this
concept of the Instagram story really
telling stories and really making
provocative high bar content through
this new medium so without further ado
on to today's topic how to do a really
cool parallax effect with a still photo
for your Instagram story it's kind of a
mouthful but that's what it is here we
go I was trying to put that on the lens
to do this but it didn't work
just roll the intro
[Music]
let's just okay so I use my iPhone x2
take this photo this was a extra on the
Showtime list I don't know who this
gentleman is if you happen to see this
video or anybody happens to know who he
is reach out to me and I use the focus
app which I talked a lot about in my
other videos and the focus app will spit
out two photos it'll spit out the
original photo and it'll spit out one
where it does its thing and it blurs the
background and look at that doesn't that
look amazing I mean it really draws your
focus to him I did a little bit of color
work on it already I kind of lifted the
green scrunched it a little bit again
taken with the iPhone and nothing more
let's just open it in Photoshop and
there it is in Photoshop let's take a
look at some of the new features in
Photoshop and how they're going to help
me do this a whole lot faster
conceptually what I need to do is I need
to slice this into like two or three
images stacked on top of each other I
need to cut this guy out and I really
don't want to spend a lot of time doing
it I was playing around and the new
version of Photoshop has this thing
where you go select subject and watch
this takes a little bit of thinking but
look at that so it did a okay job of
selecting my subject it didn't do the
greatest job I've seen it do better but
it got a lot of it so now I'm just gonna
go and I'm gonna grab a quick selection
tool and just start - thing and plussing
selections I can zoom in a little bit to
sit ctrl + to zoom in a little bit I
want to stress that because it's it's
kind of a blurry background and we're
gonna be doing some clever tricks to it
this doesn't need to actually be too
good okay so here we go so I did I would
say an adequate job of cutting him off I
hit the Q key I can get a mask example
and see where I can refine things just a
little bit better now I'm gonna go to
select and I'm gonna go select and mask
this gives me the ability to just refine
the edge a little bit I'm just gonna
soften the edge a little bit in edge
detection I'm smart radius like never
works for me so I'm just gonna go radius
three pixels and a little bit of
smoothing and a little bit of feathering
and you can see that it's just softening
is that just that's too much just a
little bit it's gonna go a long way and
I'm gonna hit okay and I am now going to
hit ctrl J to make a new layer so ctrl J
or I think command J on the Macintosh
makes a new layer from selection I've
created this layer I am gonna blow this
up just a little bit bigger so I'm going
to hit
Elte on my new lair in order to select
it and I'm gonna use I think shift shift
alt in in grab a corner and that's gonna
allow me to blow it up from the center I
want it to be slightly bigger than it
originally was and I'm gonna use the
arrow keys and the move tool to move it
down in place and just try and cover up
your Ridge '''l as much as possible and
ice now I've got this slightly larger
version of himself
I'm gonna take my background I'm gonna
duplicate it mainly for safety's sake in
case I mess something up so now in this
background what I want to do is I kind
of want to paint in and make a clean
plate background you can see how you can
see the gun here in his backpack and the
gun here I need to hide things like that
what I found is the quickest and easiest
sort of cheat to do this is to ctrl
click on my blown-up layer so I've
selected it and I'm gonna go select
modify expand
I'm expanded by about 20 pixels that's
sort of my default I have my background
selected though so I've got this layer
the background selected I'm gonna hit Q
but I can see what my selection is and
I'm actually gonna blur the selections
when you hit Q you can actually work on
this mask so if I go filter blur
Gaussian blur I'm actually blurring the
mask so I just want to soften that up
just a little bit and I'm gonna hit Q
again and now I have more of a soft
selection now here's the cool part I'm
just gonna hit shift f5 the same as
going to edit fill right here edit fill
shift f5 I'm gonna make sure it's
selected on content-aware with color
adaptation checked I'm gonna make sure
my background copy layer is selected and
I'm gonna make sure my selection is live
and I'm gonna hit OK and it's probably
gonna make some like really weird funky
pattern for us let's see yeah look at
that super weird but if I turn this
layer back on it looks pretty good right
and that's all that matters there might
be areas where you just want to take
maybe the the J tool the Spot Healing
Brush tool and just if you see like a
little piece of hair here you can just
rub over it and blur it out a little bit
just to be safe there we go so that
looks pretty darn good
I am going to name this layer mg this is
my mid-ground and I'm gonna name this
layer BG this is my background in my
original idea for this tutorial I was
going to stop right here but I was
thinking it'd be cool to take this even
a step further I'm looking for areas
where I
have more parallax more layers and you
know what really pops out to me is his
hand and his hat I'm just gonna use my
friend the tried and true pen tool to
cut out his arm in his hat there's a lot
of tutorials out there on the pen tool
if you're gonna get serious about
Photoshop at all you just kind of got to
learn it it is the best method by far to
cut things out there's all these auto
tools but in the end this is the way
we've been doing it for years all right
that is probably good enough let's see
ctrl-click cue that looks pretty good
it's a little harsh though again in the
edges so I'm just gonna use that same
select select the mask make a smart
radius of 3 you can see what's going on
I'm actually gonna shift the edge in a
little bit maybe let's see just a tad
bit and feather it just the slightest
bit and smooth it out just the slightest
bit that looks pretty good and having my
mg layer selected I am now going to hit
ctrl J to create a new layer just of the
arm and the Hat I'm gonna call this F G
for foreground and I'm gonna do the same
thing where I hit ctrl T and I do shift
alt and grab a corner and I blow it up
just ever so slightly so that it is
bigger than it should be but no one's
ever really gonna notice that when I
have to do that same technique again
where I am going through one more time
control click on the F G to make that my
selection and because I'm super paranoid
I am gonna duplicate my mg I'm going to
modify expand I'm gonna do about like 10
pixels this time and I'm just gonna see
what I get if I hit shift f5
content-aware fill that looks pretty
good let's see what it looks like with
this on it so that's it so I've got my
FG my mg and my BG it's background layer
I can actually toss now cuz I'm feeling
pretty confident in what I have here I'm
gonna save of course I'm gonna do one
more thing just to celebrate the
premiere of my show this could be any
text that you want but I'm just gonna
say like hashtag timeless and I did it
underneath so let me just put it right
here I'm gonna lower it just a little
bit so it's under the hand I think that
adds some depth to it let's get outta
Photoshop and go into Adobe Premiere
where I have already set up a basic
project
go file import and it's this one it's
timeless ww1 IG parallax PSD now when it
imports it's very important that you
select individual layers not merge all
layers so select individual layers and
hit OK and what you're gonna get is a
folder with your four layers alright
guys so now that we've imported our
Photoshop file into premiere we have to
build our timeline so I'm gonna take our
BG layer and just drop it down onto the
empty timeline area that's the easiest
way to make a timeline mine defaults to
24 P it could be 30 doesn't really
matter now I'm gonna just stack
everything the way it was stacked in
Photoshop so our next layer is the mg
next layer is the texts our next layer
is FG so this is the same exact thing
that we had in Photoshop now in Premiere
I want to go to 15 seconds and I'm just
gonna hit Yi select the the edge and hit
e on each one of these layers that
draaga drags it out so that I have a 15
second timeline we also need to take
this sequence that we created and change
the size of it I am going to go into it
in sequence settings for Instagram it is
1080 by 1920 this is the actual size
that we're working with obviously our
image is way too big what I want to do
is I want to shrink it down layer by
layer at the very start say 70% for
every single layer so I'm just gonna
select every layer go to scale and make
it all 70% let's see what it looks like
70 70 70 the text is kind of a different
story it's too big from the get-go so
let's just drop that down to 60% maybe
even 50% and we can reposition it the
nice thing is you have a little bit more
flexibility with text than you do with
the image we are going to cheat parallax
by zooming in at different speeds on the
images let's start with the background
we're gonna do a keyframe at the
beginning of scale at 70% and we're
gonna go to the last frame I'm going to
change it to 75% now we are going to go
to the mg now here's the thing if I do
it at the same speed as the BG which is
75% if i zoom in to 75% at the end of
this you are going to see no cool effect
whatsoever it's just going to look like
a slow and steady
in which is in fact what it is so what
we're doing is we're cheating instead of
doing a zoom we want to do a camera push
zoom is when a lens changes focal
lengths and you zoom in on something but
the background and the foreground all
all blow up at the same time a push in
is when the camera actually moves
forward you're actually tracking the
camera forward at an object and what
you'll notice is that the background and
the foreground in the mid-ground
all change sizes and positions at
different speeds everything further away
it looks like it's moving slower than
everything close up so with that being
said what we want to do is we want to
make the zoom up a little bit faster on
every single layer that gets closer to
camera so for the MG we're gonna start
at the same 70 but instead of being at
75 by the end
let's try being at like 78 you can see
now that if I screw up through this it
looks like our guy is closer than the
background I'm gonna boost this up just
a little bit let's say 80 and I think
that's gonna give us our nice slow and
steady push in on our gentleman here
let's skip over the text for right now
and focus on the arm so I'm gonna select
the arm layer on the first frame I'm
also going to turn on my little
stopwatch to put a keyframe I'm gonna go
to my last frame and I'm gonna try 85
maybe and now let's drop in our text
let's just turn on our text layer which
is obviously not zooming yet so that
looks weird and again we will click on
the text layer so we're just gonna kind
of wing it since we had to shrink the
text a little bit more let's just say
the text goes from 50 to 55 that's okay
but maybe a little bit more than 55
maybe like 57 maybe even a little bit
more let's just go for 60 just kind of
kind of wing it at this point that looks
pretty cool by having that overlap of
the hand over the text timeless you're
never gonna think that it's in front of
the hand and that is pretty much it but
there's some more stuff now we're gonna
do a little bit of an intermediate
technique and you're pushing it on a
subject you're actually wracking focus
when I get really close the closer I am
to the camera the more the stuff in the
background gets blurry so
the closer our guy gets to the camera
the more we can blur the background and
the foreground because we're focusing on
him so I'm just gonna apply the simplest
Gaussian blur it's my favorite blur it's
it's quick it's fast it's real-time for
most computers I'm gonna apply it to our
BG I'm gonna check the box at the
beginning and keep it at zero but by the
end let's bring it up to like 20 maybe
even more like 40 and now let's see very
subtly and this is happening over 15
seconds our background is gonna get a
little bit more blurry as we're pushing
in on our guy all right let's do the
same thing with our FG with our hand
let's just in fact I'm just gonna
actually just copy the effect ctrl C on
the Gaussian blur here and I'm gonna go
to my first frame and just paste it on
my foreground hand and you can see it
gets really blurry there by the end I
think that's a little bit too blurry I'm
gonna go to my last keyframe on my hand
I'm gonna drop this down the light 10
maybe 15 it's very subtle but it's there
something that I think would really make
this awesome is a little bit of movement
in the environment so think about your
environment is it a cloudy day because
the clouds move is it raining could you
have rain to it there's lots of
different things you could do in this
case because this guy's obviously in
some kind of war-torn area I started
thinking what if I could put some embers
or some ash or something like that
floating through the area so all I'm
gonna do I'm gonna go to youtube and I'm
just gonna type burning ember stock
footage here we go embers and sparks
royalty free stock footage warm inators
free effects just download it with a
youtube downloader and keep the black
part out that to me sounds like you are
it's a Creative Commons Attribution
license which means I'm allowed to reuse
this which is great
terminators free effects is the YouTube
channel to go to for awesome effects
like this I am giving this guy full
credit for this burning ember thing
alright guys so I downloaded that piece
of stock footage and here it is in Adobe
Premiere I want this to be behind him so
I'm gonna grab these three layers here
I'm gonna drag them up hold down shift
so that I don't slip anything I'm just
going to drag my Ember
get rid of the audio trim it to the
length here so what I need to do now
that it's on black is go to my effects
controls go to my blend mode and change
this to screen I'm just gonna scale it
up a bunch it might be easier actually
to go back to normal and then scale it
just so you can see how big you need to
scale it and also I can raise my
position just a little bit all right now
let's turn back on screen and that's the
beginnings of something right there it
needs to zoom in too
I'm just gonna do the same zoom in
roughly as the background doesn't need
to be exact you just need a little
suggestion to scale and now it's too
InFocus my background is really out of
focus and this is to in focus so I'm
gonna grab this guy I'm gonna add that
same Gaussian blur to it and I'm just
gonna blur it let's try about 20 see
what that looks like now we've got
something pretty dynamic I think this is
cool but why stop here what I can go
even further let's stack some more of
this stuff
shall we now I've got it behind him what
if I put it in front of him in between
his arm I'm gonna take these two layers
and drag them up take my little embers
layer hold on alternate and duplicate it
up so now it's in front of him but we
need to change some properties here
first off now that it's in front of him
it would be more in focus right because
remember his face is what's in focus
let's make sure we select the right
layer and change the blurriness to five
I'll lower the opacity to like 50% I'm
gonna crunch the curve a little bit on
them see if I can get rid of some of
that glow and a little more contrast to
it that usually works so I just kind of
played around the opacity and stuff and
finally got it to kind of where I liked
it and I think this looks pretty cool
again you could dial this up as much or
as little as you want it to I think I'm
even gonna do one more thing which is
put a bunch of blurry ones in the
foreground and I'm just kind of showing
you guys like this is like the the rules
rolls-royce Nine's version so I'm gonna
put it in the foreground I'm gonna scale
it up a bunch so they're really big so
when these guys whip through you're
gonna see these big whips in the
foreground like that and I think that
looks really cool alright guys so that's
it that is how to do parallax with a
still image going from Photoshop into
premiere I know it looks like a lot of
steps and it is but if you love making
these Instagram stories it may very well
be worth it because you want to get
heads
I hope you've enjoyed this video this
has probably been one of my longer ones
but you know I'm really excited about
this Instagram story of stuff I've got a
lot more Instagram ideas if you like
this specific type of video the
Instagram video let me know in the
comments I'm really kind of fishing
right now for what kind of content you
guys want this channel is all about you
and teaching you guys and answering your
questions yeah so that's about it
alright guys I am gonna hang up my hat
and go to set I got an all-nighter
tonight so I will talk to you guys later
[Music]