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Faces | Self Portrait + Dog

Diptych, self-portrait with Devo.

This week marked the final deadline to submit images to PDN’s Faces. Above are the images I entered after finally getting around to building the master files from a series of self portraits I shot for my site last summer. They were submitted individually but seem to work well as a diptych. Recently I figured out a cool way to build custom diptychs in Adobe Lightroom. It is just a simple trick that involves creating a custom document size in LR’s Print module. This makes experimenting with image parings more intuitive, and eliminates the need to use PhotoShop for such a simple task. Should I demo this in a tutorial? Let me know and I’ll consider sharing the how-to in a future post.

Note: I made dozens of calls to lumber yards searching for a few sheets of wood paneling last summer. They just don’t supply this good stuff anymore. Eventually I scored at a salvage yard that resells material from tear downs and demolitions. Oh yeah, Devo likes carrots and bully sticks.

Update: Here is a link to the tutorial I created on how to create diptychs in Adobe Lightroom


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Jay Watson
San Francisco Bay Area based lifestyle and people photographer Jay Watson shoots editorial, apparel, automotive, corporate, and sports subjects for commercial clients. Published in over 70 magazines.

17 Responses to Faces | Self Portrait + Dog

  1. That is absolutely in the PDN style as far as I’ve seen for many of their contest winners, so you done good kid!

    Looks like the coffee may be a bit bitter eh?

  2. I’ve tried many times get some shots of Jessie but she just won’t have it. Great photos!

  3. here’s 1 vote for a LR demo.

    when i see your photo i think to myself…that mo-fo hasn’t aged a bit since high school. either that…or the paneling has a ‘fountain of youth’ effect.

    rock on jw!

  4. Thanks for the comments everyone. Always appreciated. The contests are a reason to get work out of the computer and sometimes a source of motivation to share.

    John/Joe – Glad to hear you are interested in the Lightroom diptych demo. Makes it super easy for book and web layouts. I received one other email about this so I guess that means it is a go, but I don’t think I’ll be able to demo any fountain of youth tricks.

    Larry – Lightroom is this thing that is supposed to make organizing your work much easier. The only problem is that it runs on these things people used to call computers. I call them “time-sucking-boxes.”

    Eddie Money – Always great to hear from one of the world’s coolest bloggers. “Take Me Home Tonight.”

    Lloyd – Take Me To Antarctica! Seriously I had no idea. Awesome work!

    Nancy – For anyone checking these comments, Nancy and I went to high school together and she was in my very first photography class. Thanks for the visit. Roots!

  5. Jay –

    I was searching for a way to create a diptych in LR 2 and came across your site. I’ll dig into your tip on creating a custom template in the print module. I actually want to create the diptych for display on a website so I’m guessing that a print template will translate into the web module, or that I can create a custom web template. I’m pretty savvy with LR so I don’t mind tinkering, but if you have the time to shoot me a brief email describing your process, that would be great!

    Nice work.

  6. Saw the link to the tutorial from Chase Jarvis, great tutorial and glad you created it and Chase shared it!
    I will definitely be using this in my workflow. When I use this technic and post some images to my blog, I will definitely put a link back to your tutorial.
    Thanks,
    Jonathon

  7. Thank you for saving me so much time making dyptichs – this tutorial is super. Thank you.

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