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How to Silhouette a Photo

While advanced photo editing programs enable photographers to significantly change the appearance of digital pictures, it is still best to achieve the desired result in camera when the picture is taken. When photographing a silhouette you can reduce the amount of time spent in post production if you take the time to correctly expose the scene to create the silhouette at the time of capture. When done correctly you will have an image in camera that requires only a small amount of post-production work.

Instructions

- 1
  View the scene through the camera's viewfinder or screen and compose the picture to your liking. Change your shooting position or adjust the focal length of the lens until the scene appears as you wish the photo's composition to look.
- 2
  Meter on the bright background. Creating a silhouette requires the bright background to be correctly exposed, thus rendering people or objects in front to appear as black or dark shapes in the picture. After you have composed your picture, move the camera so the background fills the viewfinder. Press and hold the shutter release half way down, this will lock in the exposure of the background on most cameras. If your camera has a spot-meter button, often represented by the "*" icon, use it to obtain the exposure.
- 3
  Move your camera back to the original position so the image is again composed as desired. Press the shutter release all the way down to take the picture. Press the review button on the back of your camera to see the picture.

Photography