Photoshop: Putting one photo into another November 24, 2008

Look, Kenz, we’re on TV!

Putting one photo in another is very simple.

1. Open the picture or frame you’d like to put your new picture into.

2. Open the picture you want to put into the other picture select and copy it. Make sure the sizes are roughly the same so you don’t put an enormous picture into a small one. You can adjust the size later for the best fit, but it’s easier to fix when the photo is roughly the right size.
3. Go back to your original picture or frame and select the area you want to put  your picture into with the marquee tool or one of the selection tools, such as magnetic lasso.
4. Instead of just pasting the picture in, use Edit –> Paste into. It automatically masks your picture, but allows you to still move it inside of the frame. If you need to resize it now, have the photo layer selected and go to Edit –> Free Transform. Hold the shift key to keep the proportions the same as you shrink or enlarge your photo. Hit return when you have it sized and placed correctly.

Photoshop: Magnetic Lasso November 19, 2008

Continuing with the Twilight theme, let’s take our vampire and put him in the right setting. I’ve taken the original photograph that I want

to use and first made all the desired changes in the original photograph, such as adding the gaussian glow to make him pale and sephoric, creating the glowing eyes, and even get rid of any acne. Here is the progression of my vampire from the original to the finished product (without the background):

Now we’ll use the magnetic lasso tool to cut him out and put him wherever we want him to be. The magnetic lasso in the tools pallet with the other lasso options. The magnetic feature helps the computer figure out what you want selected. Especially with high contrasting colorings, the magnetic lasso will easily cling to an image. Just click anywhere on the path, release, and the lasso will follow the path of your mouse until you connect the end point to the starting point. You can click anywhere along the way to help put the points exactly where you want them. Use the toolbar at the top of the screen to make other adjustments. Feather will impact how harsh or soft the difference is between the image you are cutting out and the entire image as a whole. 

You don’t always have to have perfect precision with the lasso tool. After you have the image selected, you can turn on the Quick Mask Mode by clicking on the bottom icon in the tools pallet that looks like a front loading washing machine. With this selected, you can go back and adjust your image. Using the paint brush will include more of the image in your selection and using the eraser tool will exclude those parts of the image in your selection. Here you can see my progression:

The dark shadows on this image make it difficult to see where the body ends and where the shadows begin, but since I know I’m placing him into another dark image, I’m not very concerned about this. All I have to do with him now is use the Move tool (arrow tool at the top of the tools pallet) and drag his layer into another picture. In my example, I’ll drag him into the forest.

Photoshop: Picture Package November 11, 2008

This little feature in Photoshop is real handy for sharing photos and making multiple prints. It’s just like getting those photo packages from school or prom, but you can make it yourself (and God knows it’s cheaper!). With Photoshop open, you can either open the photo you want to make a picture package of, or just go straight to File > Automate > Picture Package.

Choose the prints you’d like, the resolution, how many, etc. And if you want to print more than one photo, simply click directly on one of the photos in the picture package screen and it will open up a file screen for you to select a replacement photo.

After you hit OK, Photoshop gets busy resizing the photos and arranging them on a single page, ready to print.

Photoshop: Twilight Eyes November 9, 2008

In honor of the upcoming premier of “Twilight”, I thought I’d share a technique in honor of the book/movie. With four images, I composited them together to make one image that kind of plays homage to the series. Here’s the play off:

The seperate images are of the “vampire”, wolf, moon and forest. There’s a lot that goes into photos like these and the more time you spend on the tiny details, the more authentic they look. I’ll tell you right now that I spent minimal time editing and adding the wolf. At any rate, these next few tutorials will break down the general methods of photo manipulation. Keep in mind, there are a hundred different methods to do the same action, so find what works for you. What is explained here might not work exactly right for you, but it’s always worth it to learn another method.

Let’s focus on the eyes.

Very, very easy, though it works best with light colored eyes. All you need to do is use the burn tool. You can play with the range to see which will get you the best result.

Zoom in (command +) and use a small brush over the iris.

*Note, the photo on the right has also been filtered with a diffuse glow. To do this, simply select the layer, go to Filter > Filter gallery. Diffuse glow is under the Distort folder.

Photoshop: Bleaching November 3, 2008

You can have a lot of fun with photos just by messing with the coloring and give them an old time or spooky (since it was just Halloween) feeling. Here’s a photo of my niece dressed as Snow White. And beside it is what my finished product will be after the bleaching.

Open a portrait (or anything, really). Add a new Adjustment Layer from the Layers menu and choose B&W from the dialogue box. You can try selecting a preset, or adjust the colors to get an effect that you like.

In the layers pallet, reduce the opacity of the adjustment layer just a little so that only a hint of color bleeds through.

Select your background layer and adjust the curves (either in from the image menu, or from the layers pallet click the icon that looks like a black and white cookie). You want to make an S curve, but a very lean one. Pull it out about 3/4 from the top, but not too far. Same for the shadows (bottom of the S curve).

With the curves layer selected, click the mask (white box attached to it). Then use the paint bucket tool and click on the image with black. (Black conceals, white reveals). Your image should have lightened up a bit.