By Vurdlak on March 22, 2006, with 165 Comments
You just take a shot of what’s behind your screen and make it your desktop background. And yes, I’ve tried it, and yes, it’s more difficult than it looks to get it just right, especially if you don’t have a laptop. It’s all about the fold-down screen. Post your own pictures under comments and I’ll include them… More pictures Inside!
For even More pictures check the source website!
(78 votes)
Really nice !
some seem very really
nice blog btw ;)
greets
i don’t understand how the guy who holds the calculator did it.
i thought for a while and i could be a digital trick. not an illusion
the shadow of his hand is clearly part of the picture, and not a real shadow. this means that the entire hand is in the picture. he probably just put his sleeve (with no hand sticking out), up to the screen.
Ooh… really interesting! I want to try this.
The calculator was just lanched in front of the background image of his hand. This was a very clever illusion indeed.
But his sleeve goes off the bottom of the screen and covers up the border…it’s strange but so coool!
there cool but they boggle me
cool!, now I will do it!
they are awesome. but how do you do THAT?
how do you do that i tried and i couldn’t do it
rofl… thats the way
As jordan said: the hand is part of the wallpaper, but the sleeve isn’t.
All of these are cool, but the calculator one is definetly the trickiest!
They are all awesome but just as jordan siad i believe the guy just put a sleeve up to the screen. I believe ill try this now
neat
It’s not a calculator – it’s an iPod. Surely that was obvious from all the Apple equipment on display.
Andre I think you are looking at the wrong picture.
That man with a calculator trick is simple. He took a shot of his hand reaching out without the screen there – cropped and done whatever one does to place it on their desktop and moved the REAL calculator app onto the screen and took his photo.
Hope this helped!!
For the calculator…
How about, take background pic and set as wallpaper.
Take pic of monitor with new wallpaper and hand reaching out. Set as new wallpaper.
Start calc app and then take pic of just the screen area!!!!
THATS FREAKIN GENUIS!!!
this was a quicky: http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/6158/transparentdesktop3pe.jpg
shades are diff in the screen, but wut the hey
I think the calc pic is made by takeing a pic of his hand reaching out. Putting it on as your desktop and starting up the calc placed over the hand on the desktop. Then positioning your hand so that your fingers are bent backwards on the screen surface. Adjusting your palm untill the fingers on the desktop line up with your palm. So i think the only real parts of him on the pic are the palm, thumb and arm.
i should try this
That’s neat! I’ll have to try it.
The photo of the older iMac is the trickiest one, the stem is completely visible (as it should be I guess, for the whole transparency thing to fly) How’s that one done? Can anybody clarify?
Is it like, 3-4 separate photos layered, cause the spiny plant would have to be imposed on top of the original photo (with the iMac screen) and then another for the stem….uh oh, I’m getting dizzy…..
…wow. The lava lamp one is especially cool, as is the one with the iMac and the empty base.
Mason: He took a picture of the iMac from behind (or the side, or whatever,) to get the neck. He also took a picture with the iMac completely not there. He then Photoshopped them together so he had what was visible behind the Mac with just the neck.
I did something like this once, but not the same way this person did it. I took a keyboard from a computer, got a big picture frame, took the back out so it was only glass and put on stickers of things that would be on your desk top. It didn’t look nearly as realistic though.
SWEET!!!!!…..i think they took the picture..put it on the computer…then…made it there back grownd….after that they lined it up just right….corse im just 14 and i go a simple way…not the very confusing way….=^.^=
amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow!
Wow that is sooooo cool ^__^
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SOOOOOOO NEAT! I’m not gonna try though
wow thats well good you see i cant do that sort of thing because i do not have a laptop and anyway i have no space between the wall and my computer
from a 10 year old with atttitude
It’s not that hard to do this… not easy either thou…
You just need a one colored background. Then you take two matching pictures, one with and one without computer and the rest is photoshopping… set the backgroundcolor of your computer on the computer picture as transparent, put the other picture behind it and there it is! ;-)
That also explains the holding calculator trick.
The calculator is a lot simpler than everyone is making it. It is clearly photoshopped. What you do is take a snapshot of the calculator app, then just take a picture of your hand reaching out to the screen, then paste the picture of the calculator app overlapping the hand. If you imagine it without the calculator, you can see plain as day that it is his real hand.
If anyone disagrees with me, please feel free to explain your theory.
This illusion is one of my faourites. I especially like the one with the calculator. It got me thinking.
WOW that is amazing!
i heart my imac
its way better than microsoft computers
it even looks cooler
not to mention that its got way cooler stuff
and easier programs
its always dependable
and in the year that i have had it its never frozen
not even once
i heart you imac
but technically your name is anna hahaha i gotta change that
one sec
Me–
how to achieve without photoshop:
print a screen shot with a calculator on it
cut that out and hold to take a picture to do the transparent screen thing
then to get the final, simply put your arm out there with the sleeve pulled past your hand
then it is an illusion within an illusion.
that’s my guess
—
thought this was the best illusion I’ve seen on this sight. first time something has inspired me to try it.
nice submission
I hate it when I lose my screen…
wiiikkkkkkkiiiiiiiiiiiddddddd
nice!!! i wonder how they did it…
kl.
i would try this but my computer is infront of a window with all seagulls flying past constantly. that would look weird. heck maybe i will after all. hehe.
The calculator one is simpler than using photoshop… no editing is needed for the picture (other than maybe cutting the edges down to size/cropping)
Jordan got it…
Remove the screen, take a picture with your arm extended with an open hand like in the picture (and without any sleeve down).
Then put the picture on your desktop, put your hand inside your sleeve, position the end of your sleeve over the arm in the picture, open the calculator application on the mac, and position that over the picture of the hand… hey presto, you’ve got that picture.
the calculator one is so easy i did it my self one day when i was bored…
you take a picture of your hand and wrist reaching out then you import it and set it as your backround.
you open the calculator and move it into the palm of the picture of your hand.
finally you take a shirt or jacket and put your arm through one of the sleeves and being careful to not show your actual hand, take a picture.
its just that simple.
i don’t even have photoshopping software so there goes that theory :]
WOW (o o) (o o)
0 0 0 0
(o o) 0(x x)
0 0 0
some of them are funny, but i do not get how the man was “reaching through” the computer screen.
I would agree with “CoNoRrrrrr said…” and someone else who pretty much said the same thing. If you notice the area behind the sleeve of the sweater, it is swollen as if the fist is inside clenched up.
Now that I’ve figured out how to do it, I want to try it sometime. It looks so cool! It’d be a pain to get it aligned just right, though.
i think they just took pictures and put them as the desktop…. oh well. neat-o. :)
great idea! :D
http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/9256/img6699hk4.jpg
the one with the hand is hard to get right, but easy to set up. to see how to do it and where the hand stops and the picture starts, look at the very far right of the dudes hand. the shading is different when it comes to the desk. he took a pic of that part of his hand behind the desk, then set as background. the only real part of his hand is the thumb, palm and possibly one finger. i’m still not sure on that part. this is how it was done as far as i can see. its funny how the simmple explantations are the longest to read. sorry about that, but i hope this helped w/ the hand prob.
i bet they jus tuk a pic of the exact plce, then they put it as there desktop pic! example. tke the second “illusion” the wood on the computer is darker then the real life wood, also the lines of it arent level! trust me, its not a trick.
my ones..
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fedro/103777349/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fedro/103777310/
I love the one with the hand holding a calculator. It’s really cool!
WEIRD HOW DO THEY DO THIS
okay…., weird on so many levels
wow! amazing!
Thats so cool i wonder how they do that!!!! definetly #5!!!!
thanks a lot… :)))))
funny thing is, you think you know what’s behind the computers, but you don’t :)
“i bet they jus tuk a pic of the exact plce, then they put it as there desktop pic! example. tke the second “illusion” the wood on the computer is darker then the real life wood, also the lines of it arent level! trust me, its not a trick.”
Aren’t you just a goddamn genius.
I put some here, please include them!
http://www.majhost.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=204809
probaly a camra
Awesom tric done using photoshop
wow amazing ..:/)
It’s chroma key, you know the green screen technique used in movies and stuff, just set the desktop background in an specific color not present in the rest of the components of the scene and take the picture, 2 pics are needed one shooting the laptop screen with the blue, green, pink… desktop and the other shooting the background also both must be taken from exactly the same spot, angle, direction and with the same lighting, then during the edition just set the color you choose as transparent and put the other pic in the background layer.
Now quit talking about how tricky it is, it’s kid’s stuff.
It’s obviously NOT chroma key, you idiot! That would be cheating ! (in this context).
YOU HAVE TO SET THE PICTURE YOU TAKE (of the background) AS YOUR computer’s DESKTOP BACKGROUND, then take another photo of the whole thing (including the computer screen). THAT’s why the tint isn’t exactly the same on most of the screens vs the background AND you can also see small areas where the continuity doesn’t match up 100% . Idiot!
Having said that, all you other idiots gawking at these going “woooow, that’s soooo amazing” need to educate yourselves a bit more into what actually IS amazing. Sure, these are quite neat, and it takes a lot of tweaking to get perfect (unless you’re chroma key cheating) but they’re not THAT amazing.
HOWEVER, the REALLY cool thing to try is to do this to someone’s screen IN REAL LIFE, unbeknown to them, to watch them try to put their hand through their screen. Now THAT’S amazing ! (and there you HAVE to do the real thing, obviously greenscreen won’t do shit).
All the more difficult, since you have to control their angle of approach (unless their background is very plain.
what an idea!!! very unique!!!
Anyone notice that it’s all MAC people who did this? Just sayin’…
Cool.
Good but it is a trick
i get the hand one its easy… all he did was take a picture of his pointer finger, middle finger, ring finger, and his pinky. then he put his thumb on the computer while bending his other fingers down.. its very hard 2 explain
The hand one is simple. He just put his whole hand in the background, and only his sweater in the picture is real. Picture on screen starts at the end of his sweater. Duh.
that was totally amazing..
Why is there always one of these people in the bunch?
I can’t believe someone would really use the handle – F… You and then say we (all of us who are not educated in the field of illusion) are idiots.
That person (Male or Female) must really be a great person to associate with.
Maybe he/she is an illusion and I really didn’t read what he/she wrote because if I did there are names for him/her and I will not stoop that low.
Having said that this is a great site to check out your mind over matter abilities.
know its a trick but cant guess it
http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/9250/sany0831.jpg
nothing more than the sweater is live……the hand is an photographic image……..the sweater is added on after making the hand’s picture as the desktop background
http://upl.photosphere.nl/RIMG2223.JPG
My own, if you want to make it: google it. Easiest is with a laptop and a camera on a stand