![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/cfdbe75a-7981-4460-ae19-becf3266473c/1e02c67f-e0bc-496f-87f1-5936302b2d07_rw_3840.jpg?h=bdda7b77c448ed67b8da6e3bfd8f4925)
I bought a pack of cheap tennis balls a while back for another photo project, and they got a further outing this week. I had the LSH (Long Suffering Husband) wet the ball, then spin it, against my usual black back-drop.
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/cfdbe75a-7981-4460-ae19-becf3266473c/7c5d2cb7-2a95-4783-9714-ba1ad85d68da_rw_1920.jpg?h=d5666c896d69f9fa04e07a6826b9c06e)
Although he put a pretty good spin on it, once I got the image into Photoshop, I still felt it was lacking something, so I decided it would look better with a more natural background. Every now and again I go around with my long lens and create files of out-of-focus bokeh which I can then use as background replacements in PS. I picked a greenish image and added the dark tennis ball image as a new layer in Photoshop using Blending Modes on Screen (plus a wee bit of masking as these automated things are rarely completely accurate).
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/cfdbe75a-7981-4460-ae19-becf3266473c/7200ac57-505a-4b74-bfc2-8b74e964671b_rw_3840.jpg?h=5015d6bd5ebe8149b21cfe9469905e6a)
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/cfdbe75a-7981-4460-ae19-becf3266473c/8ab2e06c-b61e-44c2-8b54-ce828b1c41d9_rw_3840.jpg?h=aed7f84096268d661a7b9c92189651cd)
I still felt it didn't have the punch I wanted – it needed a racket. We don't play tennis, but we did once upon a time have the odd game of badminton. I had David hold the racket against the black background again.
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/cfdbe75a-7981-4460-ae19-becf3266473c/639c11c1-2a3b-4849-9e16-90b4211c879a_rw_1920.jpg?h=4056c9f5220e33dd79d135b4b511139e)
The only problem was, it looked all wrong having a tennis ball with a badminton racket. As I don't know any tennis players, I had to improvise. Photoshop to the rescue again with Edit–Transform-Distort, plus a bit of shortening of the handle.
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/cfdbe75a-7981-4460-ae19-becf3266473c/71e2f751-2935-4b1f-945d-29c1506b65b8_rw_1920.jpg?h=146cfbb497424008ab997bc0b02d9f70)
This time it was a bit more difficult to add it seamlessly to the image, so I used a bit of Photoshop jiggery-pokery (this translates to “I can't remember exactly how I bodged it”).
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/cfdbe75a-7981-4460-ae19-becf3266473c/6a06183a-c41f-4441-97ad-7ae9c25cdafc_rw_3840.jpg?h=64a3eda72fffbfd79f0d870ec53dc6a2)
Job done!