Photoshop Assistance Thread

I havent seen a thread like this out there before so i think we need one.

My first question is about cutting people outta pictures. Can anyone give me a good tutorial or trick to make this easier. Im using the lasso now and try to use the pen but im not sure how to really use the pin. THanks

What are you attempting to do? Do you want to place the person in a different location or image?

well thats pretty much it and i would also like to know who to do fading and things like this

Don�t use the �lasso tool� to cut a figure out. Instead use �vector masking�. I will lead you through the steps, what we are doing is removing everything except the figure we want to isolate.

Setup your �layer pallet� as shown below. Click on the �original copy� and press �add layer mask�, its located at the bottom of the layer pallet, It is the lower small red circled button in the image. When you click it you will see the mask added to the original copy layer, I have it circled at the top of the image below. Now be sure your color pallet is black and white (press D) and click the new �vector mask�. You want to paint in Black.



Now select a hard brush (fairly large) and paint with black everything except the figure you want to keep. Just rough it out, later we will be more precise. When you do this the image will look like its being eraced but it�s not the information is contained on the mask and not on the image. If you accidentally remove something you didn�t want to remove change the brush color to white, click the layer mask and paint over the mistake. This will restore the image everywhere you paint.



Now lets select a small hard brush and really get some masking done. Blowup the image, click the layer mask and erase right up to the edge of the figure. Go around the entire figure until it�s the only thing left. Remember you can�t make a mistake here, just select white as your color to restore the pixels to the original and redo the masking.



To fine tune choose to show either the white or black bottom layers to highlight anything you may have missed, switch between the two and look over the image. Now you can add your background image or do anything else you want with the figure.

thanks alot man its alot eazier now

Quicksilver....You have no clue how close I came to creating this exact same thread earlier today...freaky

KL...wow....that makes life easier man...I was going in between the magnetic and polyganal lassos....I got the most success with the latter....Can you provide a good example for when the different lassos come would into play?

I recommend the magnetic lasso tool with a low tolerance. That way it doesn't jump. Also, be sure to zoom way in and use the spacebar to pan the image. There are hair plugins that will remove faint edges and the like but they cost a bit.

Originally posted by EnronOutrunHomerun
Can you provide a good example for when the different lassos come would into play?

I rarely use the lasso tool but there have been times when I use it to create a drop shadow because the edges don�t really matter, its just the basic shape that I need. I�ll show you one way to do it, like anything there are many different ways to go about getting the same results.

I select the magnetic lasso and go around the object that I want to create a shadow for.



When I have the selection I create a new layer and select it. This will bring that selection to the new layer and leave the original intact. Select a large soft brush, I�m using soft round 200 and changed the Opacity to 40%. Now starting at the base I paint in black to fill in the shape, I want the bottom to be darker than the top this is why we lower the Opacity, it gives you that control.



Now go to Edit>Free Transform, this will allow you to move the location of the shadow. There will be a box around your shadow, hold down the CTRL button and drag the two top corners down to put the shadow on the ground.



Now your shadow is on the ground elongate it a bit and fine tune where it lays. When you are satisfied go to Select>Deselect. Then move your shadow layer under your image so it looks more realistic. Now go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur to make the shadow more realistic.



Now I will go back and fix the white spot below the bottle. And your done.

How to create realistic smoke.

Open your image and create a blank layer on top of the original.



Select your blank layer, set your colors to black and white (press D). Go to Filter>Render>Clouds.



With the cloud layer selected go to Add Layer Style>Blending Options.



Hold down the Alt key and slide over the blending bar to the white side, this will remove all the black in the clouds.



Now you can go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and adjust it until you are satisfied. You can now erase any of the clouds you don�t want in the image.

Sweet....love your beautiful photoshop assistant *drools over Tyra*

What subtleties are there in image enhancement? I know this can go a million different directions...but in general, adding a feature to an exisiting image that blends into the original....like the veins KL put on those creepy pictures of Bush for example...

I'm gonna pull all the secrets out of you KL

[Edited on 9/2/2004 by EnronOutrunHomerun]

All great tips!

The one thing for most of you beginners with photoshop is that Adobe can't even tell you the one way to do things. That's because there are so many ways. Keep this in mind when asking a question. You are likely to get many different answers. I would say KingLizard and I could make the same image and use totally different methods to achieve the same results.
(I would probably have used my favorite, layer multiply on the smoke KL. LOL!)

For myself, cutting people out of pictures is done with the pen tool. Now, I know that many of you have trouble with the pen tool. I did too for a long, long time. In fact, I once told another graphic designer at my old company when I was starting out and he started cracking up. "He can't use the pen tool", he laughed. It was like a "geek" convention with all the "geeks" laughing at the guy that could use the pen tool.

Anyway, I know what it is like.

Trust me though. Even if you don't use for cutting people out...it is still a very handy tool. After I use it to cut out, I also will use it to trim some and then possibly the blur tool to touch up the edges a bit. Another method I use is to select the canvas (not the person) then use SELECT>INVERSE. Next SELECT>MODIFY>CONTRACT by 1 pixel. Finally, SELECT>INVERSE again. This will highlight the outside of the whole person by 1 pixel. Then use the blur tool or blur filters to taste and it will only effect the outside edge.

Here are some good pen tool tutorials.
An Introduction to Photoshop's Pen Tools.
Removing the Background
Using the Photoshop 7.0 Pen Tool is a snap
Photoshop Videos - Remove People out of Photos (This is the main page. You will need Quicktime to see the movies though.)

The pen tool....
- I've tried to play around with it and figure out how it works but no luck so far....I watch other people use it here at the office and it's like a third hand for them.....:bnghd:

Just to illustrate my point above about the smoke.
I took KL's two images, copied the smoke pic to a new layer and then adjusted the layer blending dropdowns as highlighted.

That was it.

Thanks for the tips Zed! I will need to practice with the pen tool to become proficient as it stands I rarely use it.

Another good tip is when you�re working on an image press the TAB key to toggle between full screen and regular view. This will remove everything from your screen except your image, good for masking.

Originally posted by EnronOutrunHomerun
What subtleties are there in image enhancement? I know this can go a million different directions...but in general, adding a feature to an exisiting image that blends into the original....like the veins KL put on those creepy pictures of Bush for example...

This might have gotten lost in the posts earlier so I thought I would bump it back up...I'm fasicinated at how you guys are able to add realistic features to the image - both Zedd and KL did some awesome work with the "Rumsfeld/Spock" images...

Originally posted by EnronOutrunHomerun
This might have gotten lost in the posts earlier so I thought I would bump it back up...I'm fasicinated at how you guys are able to add realistic features to the image - both Zedd and KL did some awesome work with the "Rumsfeld/Spock" images...

Well, I cheat!

If I remember, I cut out just Rummy's face and then I used layer blending similar to my clouds example above.

See? You can see the real Spock's eyebrows right through the Rummy "skin". LOL! I generally just keep experimenting until I get what I like. Pshop is like that. Some of my best work has been done by accident.


Edit: It really depends on how much time I have available. More time...I will use longer and more exacting methods.

[Edited on 2-9-2004 by ZeddicusZulZorander]

ah ha....I guess the more little short cuts you know the more the possibilites become endless - Awesome work for something done "quickly"...I just tried sort of combining the two techniques mentioned above just to see if I could get it down - I need to work on getting all the background out of the way - it's hard to see...but here's what I did...I used the one tool (the band-aid) that I can use with some proficiency for um....obvious reasons....lol

This is just as easy tho and you can get 100 times the detail...with a little practice I can get a lot better at these sorts of things....thanks

Originally posted by EnronOutrunHomerun
What subtleties are there in image enhancement? I know this can go a million different directions...but in general, adding a feature to an exisiting image that blends into the original....like the veins KL put on those creepy pictures of Bush for example...

This is how I did it. As Zed said there are probably many different ways to achieve this effect. You could probably use the Color Burn tool to achieve this as well. But I will show you what I did on this image.



Create a new layer above the image, select it. Color pallet to medium grey and black. Select a small hard brush (I used #3) and draw in your veins. Select black and a #1 hard brush and draw a line over the bottom half of the veins. Then bevel emboss until it looks good. Slide the opacity way down until it seems to blend into the image.

EDIT: You know I believe I used the Gaussian Blur on the veins after everything else.

[Edited on 2-9-2004 by kinglizard]

I used the same steps on this image and I added a beard by painting it on a new layer and simply adding noise.

wow this is a great thread LOL n But really this tips are great most of the stuff i know (which isnt alot) is just byp layin around iwth it and stuff. I need to take a class or soemtin cause i really dont even know the program that well