Creating the Invisible Mannequin LookA step-by-step guide

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The invisible mannequin (or ghost mannequin as it’s sometimes referred to) is often regarded as a thing of mystery by those setting out in clothing photography. If you visit

photography discussion forums you might hear of people talking about Perspex manne-quins, or wire frame dummies. But it’s much less complicated than that. To achieve this look all you’ll need is this step-by-step guide, and the following:

• A copy of Adobe Photoshop.• A basic understanding of Adobe Photoshop and layers.• Common sense and a bit of logic.

Introduction

Follow the steps in this guide and you’ll be able to turn something like this: Into something like this:

Let’s get started...

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First of all, you need to make sure you’ve got everything you need for the job - that means a photo of the front of the garment, and a photo of the back of the garment turned inside out, on a mannequin (or a human guinea pig if you prefer). Ideally these need to be shot against a perfectly white background (if you’re a photography nerd, the background needs to be at least two stops brighter than the foreground to blow out the backdrop).

First of all, open up the image with the front of the garment in Photoshop. It should look something like this:

You’ll notice that the background isn’t perfectly white - this is because we only had two lights and not enough space to light everything properly. So we’ll begin to deal with that in step 2.

Step 1

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Before we start making any adjustments to our image, let’s make a copy of the original in a new layer. That way if anything goes wrong we can always fall back on our original. To create a copy of our background layer, go to your layers palette, and drag and drop the background layer onto the new layer icon (arrow A). Then turn off the background layer by clicking on the eye symbol (arrow B). Now we’re ready to start making adjustments.

Firstly, let’s adjust our levels to maximise the white background. To do this, on the top menu go to: Image > Adjustments > Levels.

Nudge the slider on the right towards the left just a little, but don’t overdo it otherwise it’ll affect the quality of the foreground.

Step 2

A

B

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The info palette (Window > Info) will help you decide whether something is perfectly white or not. Wherever the cursor goes, it gives you the colour value underneath. If all R, G and B values are 255, then you know it’s purest white!

Top tip:

You should be left with something that looks like the image below. Looks the same as before doesn’t it? Still plenty of areas that aren’t perfectly white aren’t there? Well don’t worry, as we’re going to start trimming all of that stuff away in step 3.

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We’re about to start cutting away any areas that we don’t want on the final image. That means we’re removing parts of the background that aren’t white, and also the neck and arms of the mannequin. In this guide we’re going to be using the Polygonal Lasso Tool, but if you’re more comfortable using the Pen Tool, go ahead and do that.

So now it’s time to start trimming. Zoom in as close as you dare to the image, and let’s trace the neck area of the mannequin. When you’ve selected the area you want to remove hit delete. And then hit delete again for good measure.

Step 3

You’ll also want to soften the edges, so select put 1px into the Feather box

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You should now be left with something that looks like the image below:

Now we’re going to repeat that process for the rest of the image, trimming away anything that isn’t either perfect white background or garment. Eventually, we’ll be left with something that looks like this:

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This is a very short step. We’re going to drop in a new white background. To do this, go to your layers palette and create a new layer by clicking the New Layer icon (the red arrow). Next select your paint bucket tool and, making sure that your foreground colour is white, click on your image. Don’t worry if everything has gone white - just go back to your layers palette and drag your new layer below your garment layer.

You should now be left with something that looks like this:

Step 4

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The next step is to create the interior of the garment - in this case that’s the neck area. So you’ll need to open up the image of the back of the garment, which you’ve photographed inside out.

Step 5

In the layers palette, double click the background layer to unlock it, and then select the Rectangular Marquee tool from the tools palette.

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With the Rectangular Marquee Tool, select an area of the neck of the garment, ensuring that it’s large enough to fill the neck hole on your main image. The right click, select inverse, and hit delete.

Next you want to remove any traces of the mannequin. Do this in the same way that you trimmed your main image, using the Polygonal Lasso Tool. That should leave you with something that looks like this:

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Now you’ll want to copy the inside neck area and paste it into your main image. It should appear as a new layer, and you want to make sure that this layer sits below the layer with the front of the garment, but above the white background layer. At this point it might also be worth naming your layers so you can keep track of what’s what.

At this point you want to make your inside neck area fits the hole that you cut out earlier. Use the free transform tool (Edit > Free Transform) to move, rotate and resize the neck until it fits the gap comfortably (Top tip: Hold down shift while you do this to maintain the aspect ratio). Then trim away any excess unseen areas from that layer with the Polygonal Lasso.

Step 6

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By now you should have something that looks a bit like the picture below.

We’re almost at the end now, but we just need to add a bit of shadow inside the dress to give it some realism. To do this, start by creating a new layer below the main image of the front of the garment, but above the one you were just working on. Name this layer “shadow”.

Step 7

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Select the brush tool from the Tools Palette, and make sure your foreground colour is black.

Then adjust your brush so it’s relatively large, and nice and soft.

Now you can paint in a bit of shadow on the new layer you just created, in between the front and back of your garment. Remember, don’t overdo it. Less is always more. When you’re finished it should look like...

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... this:

Now to tidy it up. This will only take a second. Turn off the top layer by clicking the eye icon, then select the layer with the inside of the garment on it (the one underneath your new shadow layer), and the choose the Magic Wand tool from the Tools Palette.

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Now just click anywhere on the white background, and it will select everything but the inside neck area of the garment. If there are any areas of white that haven’t been selected, hold down shift and click them to add them to the selection. That will leave you with this:

In your layers palette, select the shadow layer, and hit delete. That will give you this.

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And you’re finished!!! All you need to do now is click the eye symbol on your top layer in the Layers Palette to unhide your top layer, then flatten your image (Layer > Flatten Image) and save it to your preferred format.

You can adapt this technique for any items of clothing – jackets, trousers, T-shirts – and change it to suit your needs. Good luck, and have fun!!!

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© Chris Brock Photography 2010

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