How do I add depth to human figures?

[BODA]

Hello, newbie here

 

I can't find in here anyone discussing how to make a human figure look like it has REAL depth.

 

If you have ever seen any of Ken Burns documentaries he uses a lot of pictures in his films from the past,

but some of the figures or people in these stills appear in depth in such a way that they do not look flat.

Instead when the camera pans the picture they appear to be almost three dimensional inside the still.

You can almost see in his stills there is a curvature to the outline of the figure.

Their heads and bodies look as if they are inserted into the picture.

I have the removal of the background in the image down well enough but I don't know how to make the

figure appear as if it is 3 dimensional in the new background.

I wish I had a link to add here of his work as an example. 

Hopefully someone knows how to do this as my video project in Sony Vegas is on hold until I can figure

this one out.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

BODA

Edited March 13, 2013 by BODA

[pyrochild]

You should post some examples

[pdnnoob]

I'm trying to picture what you are saying, but without an actual example, it's rather difficult.

I think the trick to this is not to make the person himself (for sake of grammatical simplicity, I'm going to talk about our theoretical person as a male, ok?) 3-dimensional, but to simply separate him from the image and let the viewer's brains complete the optical illusion. The image of the person is merely 2D, but if, as the camera pans, he moves to reveal the background behind him, our brains think, "Oh look! It's 3D!" and "almost see" the curvature in the image.

This is much easier said than done, however. First off, you need to take the person out of the background, but it sounds like you have that figured out. The second step is to recreate the background behind the person, or at least the part that will be revealed as the camera turns (for this, I recommend this tutorial)

If none of that was clear...I'm taking a nap. Maybe I'll come back and rewrite it so it's in English.

[barbieq25]

Take a look at this tute. You could glean a lot of know-how from this. Check out her gallery & she has some other great tutes too. The link are in her sig on the left & right of her sig. 

[yellowman]

I think Barbie is referring to this tutorial, I am also suggesting the same thing,

And this Aislin's Gallery, it is a good idea to visit her gallery as barbie said

[pdnnoob]

Take a closer look at the original question.

"...a lot of pictures in his films from the past..."

"I have the removal of the background in the image down well enough but I don't know how to make the figure appear as if it is 3 dimensional in the new background..."

"...video project in Sony Vegas is on hold until I can figure this one out."

This is not an attempt to draw realistically.

BODA is trying to make an old photograph appear 3-dimensional when the image is panned. In other words, he wants the image to have the appearance of a changing perspective.

This is a problem that must be solved from the video editor. First, get your two images separated--the person and the background. Then, pan the two at slightly different rates (image of the person must be panned more slowly).

Edited March 15, 2013 by pdnnoob

[Ego Eram Reputo]

There's a plugin that might help: Anaglyphs (Stereo Pictures)

[BODA]

I'm trying to picture what you are saying, but without an actual example, it's rather difficult.

I think the trick to this is not to make the person himself (for sake of grammatical simplicity, I'm going to talk about our theoretical person as a male, ok?) 3-dimensional, but to simply separate him from the image and let the viewer's brains complete the optical illusion. The image of the person is merely 2D, but if, as the camera pans, he moves to reveal the background behind him, our brains think, "Oh look! It's 3D!" and "almost see" the curvature in the image.

This is much easier said than done, however. First off, you need to take the person out of the background, but it sounds like you have that figured out. The second step is to recreate the background behind the person, or at least the part that will be revealed as the camera turns (for this, I recommend this tutorial)

If none of that was clear...I'm taking a nap. Maybe I'll come back and rewrite it so it's in English.

 

I will totally give this a try and Thank you for responding!

BODA

[BODA]

Take a closer look at the original question.This is not an attempt to draw realistically.

BODA is trying to make an old photograph appear 3-dimensional when the image is panned. In other words, he wants the image to have the appearance of a changing perspective.

This is a problem that must be solved from the video editor. First, get your two images separated--the person and the background. Then, pan the two at slightly different rates (image of the person must be panned more slowly).

 

 

Thank you!

Makes sense as this is what I was sort of fooling with before I asked the question.

I even tried it in a different program called Aurora 3D - that allows me to take the image or picture and turn it into a Node.

Unfortunately when inserting the image into Aurora 3D it limited the Node function not allowing me to bend the edges thus

making it appear more 3 Dimensional - Most likely as mentioned I am going to have to try the dual pan rate and experiment

with different image renders from Paint.net

I wish the one tool Paint.net had is a .dll for creating a Node out of any image, an extensive Node.

I am still working on getting an example to post here - the issue is Ken Burns films are not being shown free in full on PBS or

anywhere else for that matter.

Thanks again for everyone's reply's!

BODA