For many home-based fashion SMEs, mannequins are a must-have item for showing off the accurate form of your garments and accessories. However, letting your garments drape over a visible mannequin can sometimes distract potential buyers from appreciating the aesthetic of piece. Applying the use of a ghost mannequin is a great way to let your customers admire how your fashion pieces will look when worn, while removing any visible aspects of an actual mannequin. This creates a neat look for online catalogues when you sell your garments via your social media accounts or an online shop.
When editing ghost mannequins, the main goal of the process is to make the product look more presentable. This means reducing the appearance of creases, while making the clothes as symmetrical as possible for your buyer’s reference. In this guide, we detail the process of how the Paper Boat Creative team uses photo editing techniques for applying Ghost Mannequins in your catalog.
1. Create a Path
Any photo editing process starts with a complete path. In this case, we require a complete path to set the boundary for where your clothes will begin.
2. Separate the Textures
Separate the texture of the garment from itself by utilizing the Frequency Separation button on Delicious Retouch v4. This step allows the program to pick up the details of the image by creating a High Pass filter as a “High Frequency” layer. In addition, you also add a Gaussian blur filter as your “Low Frequency” layer. This process separates the textures of your image accordingly.
3. Iron Out the Creases
With your textures now isolated, we can create a layer between the two and begin brushing over the fabric creases we want to smooth out. Pick the right color for your garment by utilizing the color picker and use this shade to brush over the creases to reduce their appearance. Set your Flow brush setting to a low 10% and use a soft edge brush to get the job done. Refer to the image below for an idea of the outcome you want. Utilize the cutout tool to place the garment on a white background to make the job even easier.
Pro Tip: Go over the creases slowly and carefully for natural strokes.
4. Iron and Stamp
Fix weird gaps and crooked lines along the neck and hemline of your garment by using the Clone Stamp tool and the Warp filter. This minimizes the appearance of white spaces and crooked lines for the clothes you are featuring with the Ghost Mannequin. Feel free to layer images to give accurate depictions of the backside or inner side of the garment.
5. Polish to Finish
Finish off your Ghost Mannequin edit for maximum symmetry by choosing the best-looking side of the garment and flipping it. This creates a perfect mirror for that side that looks clean and symmetrical. Tweak the image to look more natural with some dodge and burn effects.
We hope that this quick guide to applying a Ghost Mannequin edit will help you with your online fashion business! Should you feel intimidated by the task, feel free to reach out to us over at Paper Boat Creative for a clean catalog that will have your customers hitting Add to Cart in no time!
