With the spread of relatively inexpensive graphics systems and software, digital images can be combined with straight photography for special effects. With the shading tools available from most software packages, quite realistic objects and backgrounds can be created, and these can be combined with other photographic images using the techniques outlined earlier – projection, multiple exposure or photo-composition. The most common graphics software packages are either bit-imaged or object-oriented. Bit-image software manipulates pixels – paint box programs are this type. Object-oriented software creates objects such as spheres and boxes which can then be shaded, rotated and otherwise manipulated. Each has particular advantages. The best way of creating photographs from these is to copy the results onto a floppy disk and give this to a film bureau which will record the image onto transparency film.

Alternatively, you can photography the screen directly. This is quicker, but will record the screen lines. If you choose to do this, you will probably need to use a 30 Red filter, or similar, to correct the color balance from most monitors. Test this first. Avoid reflections from the surface of the screen by darkening the room, or by draping black cloth around the screen and camera, and by masking bright parts of the camera and tripod that might cause reflections.

Lasers

The color of laser beams depends on the type, red helium-neon (He-Ne) being the most common and inexpensive. As the color is due to the extremely narrow wavelength, any form of filtration is pointless. In order to show the beam in a photograph, it must pass through some medium containing particles that will reflect it, and probably the most direct method of doing this is to provide a smoky atmosphere. On a small set, cigarette smoke is one of the easiest to manage, with a time exposure and several puffs of smoke to ensure an even coverage of the beam. In a laboratory shot of a laser at work, if the equipment must also be lit separately, make two exposures on the same frame of film: one for the setting, with appropriate lighting but without smoke, and one with the smoke lit by the laser alone.

Refraction and reflection from different surfaces, such as crystals, prisms, mirrors and liquids, can produce patterns and star shaped highlights, but can be as dangerous to the eyes as looking directly into the beam. Use protective goggles and take great care when moving the laser beam. A speckled pattern is characteristic of many surfaces illuminated by a laser beam. If the laser is moved during the exposure, the effect on the image will be that of a number of lines – a form of streak photography. When a beam is passed through mirrors or prisms that are oscillated rapidly, the projected mirrors or prisms can be complex.

Exposures depends on the wavelength and power, but a standard laboratory shot showing the beam of a 1 milliwatt He-Ne laser would be an exposure in the region of 1-2 minutes at f/5.6 on ISO 100.

Stress Polarization

Certain transparent substances, notably plastics, contain complex stress patterns created during their manufacture. Through transmitted polarized light these can produce a vivid spectrum of colors. Place small subjects on a sheet of polarizing filter over the lens. Rotating the filter or moving the object will change the play of colors, while the color of the background can be altered drastically by rotating just the filter. The background can be made to appear any tone from white to deep violet-blue.

Sources:

http://photocritic.org/cross-polarization-polarizers/

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