The number one thing that has helped my photo analysis skills is the fact that I know how to create manipulated images with paranormal subjects. I will say, quickly, that if I ever photoshop paranormal subjects into a photograph, it is for promotional reasons or for visual storytelling purposes. I always make sure to note when a photograph has been manipulated.

In the spirit of this spooky month where we are focusing our attention to ghosts, I will teach you one quick way to photoshop a ghost into a scene. We are proud to partner with Madison Ghost Walks for this installment of Fortean Photography, and I will be editing this image in Adobe Photoshop CC.

Madison Ghost Walks recently launched their Ghost Tours at UW Madison. One stop on their tour is North Hall. This building rests near the top of Bascom Hill on the right side of the Abraham Lincoln statue if you're walking up facing him. North Hall was opened as the first building on the UW campus in September 1851 as the North Dormitory. It was declared a National Historical Landmark in 1965.

In the 1880’s, students reported seeing a ghost “skipping through the halls and vanishing.” Actually, it was a student named Samuel Whitney Trousdale from the class of 1882 playing a prank. Since this ghost story was a hoax, and since it's part of a tutorial, we felt this image to be an ethical photo manipulation.

To begin, I edited my photo of a row of windows on North Hall how I wanted it to look, and then found a free stock image of a sheet ghost. You can find free stock photos on websites such as Unsplash, Pexels, and Pixabay. I made sure to choose a black and white image where the ghost is white on a black background for the method I am using. First, I used the lasso tool to select the area around the ghost. Once selected, I went up to the toolbar and selected Select>Inverse so the marquee would then be in the space surrounding the ghost. Once this area is selected, hit delete and you will be left with your ghost.