Newbie with a problem
kermit
editor for that matter. In fact I've only just abandoned film and chemicals!
I've got PS CS2, a training video and a number of books from the library to
browse through before deciding which to buy.
What has become immediately clear is that getting to grips even with the
basics of Photoshop will take a considerable time. But I do have an urgent
request from my nearest and dearest to produce a replacement of a photograph
that is of the wrong dimensions for the frame she has in mind. I could of
course cheat and get a photo friend to help out - but most of them are
pretty new to Photoshop themselves!
I don't have the original film negative. The print image has been scanned to
360dpi and saved as a tiff file. It depicts a subject standing on a tiled
floor with vertical blinds behind. I can't just crop it. The composition
would suffer and neither the composition or the aspect ratio is right.
Basically I need to make the whole image wider by adding approx 15% of the
blinds and tiles to the left-hand side and about 10% to the right. The
exposure of the blinds and tiles is pretty even but both are light colored.
In the past I'd probably have made a few enlargements, preferably from the
original negative, cut and pasted the extra material to the sides and then
spent hours with an airbrush to try and achieve as seamless a finish as
possible before re-photographing the doctored print and producing a print of
the correct dimensions from that. Messy, and probably the joins would still
be visible - if subject to too close an inspection!
The question is; how do I best do the same result in Photoshop? I would
like to keep the existing colors although I could produce a good image by
changing to a dark, plain background instead of light colored blinds and
removing the tile edges so as to have a plain shiny floor. Initially,
however, I'd like to have a go at "adding" extra blinds/tiles to the left
and right. What would be the best Photoshop techniques to use to do this?
Regards,
Bill
keith
Wouldn't it be easier to place a matte inside the frame to border the
picture?
I suspect the blinds & floor will have light reflections, shadows etc.
that would require blending in if you were to tackle it with
Photoshop.
Keith
tony cooper
What you want to do can be done in Photoshop, but it's a complex
project that requires skill to accomplish. I'd look to other
solutions.
The simplest is to place the image - in the present ratio - on a
canvas of the dimension that will fit the frame. ("Canvas" being the
Photoshop term for the print size) You may have to reduce the size of
the image to get a good balance of white space around it.
In effect, it is the same as mounting it in a frame that is larger
than the picture with a matte filling the rest of the frame.
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida
kermit
I've tried mattes but visually they don't work. The basic image just badly
proportioned. It's too tall for its width - it may well have been
physically cropped to fit its existing (and to my mind totally unsuitable)
frame. I can't crop anything off the height to adjust this because I need
every scrap of the image to preserve the proportions of main subject :
tiles. It's the width (or lack of it) of the image that requires additional
'padding' so as to improve the the position and proportions of the main
subject within the overall composition. I've a feeling that the original
print was probably a 6 x 8 and was physically trimmed to fit its frame. So.
it's Photoshop or nothing!!
Bill
"tony cooper" <tony_co...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:vs67f5do6a0flq0u7...@4ax.com...
kermit
I've tried mattes but visually they don't work. The basic image just badly
proportioned. It's too tall for its width - it may well have been
physically cropped to fit its existing (and to my mind totally unsuitable)
frame. I can't crop anything off the height to adjust this because I need
every scrap of the image to preserve the proportions of main subject :
tiles. It's the width (or lack of it) of the image that requires additional
'padding' so as to improve the the position and proportions of the main
subject within the overall composition. I've a feeling that the original
print was probably a 6 x 8 and was physically trimmed to fit its frame. So.
it's Photoshop or nothing!!
Bill
"tony cooper" <tony_co...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:vs67f5do6a0flq0u7...@4ax.com...
Sam
"kermit" <ker...@missthisbigpond.net.au> wrote in message
news:YILIm.52493$ze1....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
If I understand your situation, you should be able to do this reasonably
easily and effectively using the clone tool. (That's the button on the
tool-bar that looks like a little rubber stamp.)
You'll need to be certain that the background you're cloning from is fairly
regular in terms of colour, brightness and contrast etc, but you've already
said that's the case, so we'll assume we're good to go.
Okay, so you first need to ammend your canvas size and shape.
Go to *Image>Adjust>Canvas Size*, and alter the aspect ratio. You can set
the direction of expansion if you want to keep the main subject off-centre
for composition purposes.
Now, select your clone tool, and go to the top of the window, and set a
reasonably big brush size with a soft feathered edge.
You want it to be big enough to paint smoothly and easily, but you want it
to be small enough to fit within the existing area of background, allowing
room for movement without encroaching onto other surrounding areas.
Now place your clone tool over an existing good area of background, hold
down the alt key, and click with yor mouse/pen there.
This is the start point for your clone sampling.
Now, go to the point where you want to clone the background into and start
to paint the background in.
The brush and sample point will always remain relative to each other, and
you're effectively painting with a pattern instead of with a colour. It's as
if you had a tin of tartan paint, LOL.
You'll probably need to reset your sample point several times, and you need
to be constantly aware of colours, tones, textures, brightness etc to make
sure you get a good match, and you'll brobably have to do it a few times
before you get the hang of it, but it is a very effective method.
Hope this helps a bit.
Sam
"kermit" <ker...@missthisbigpond.net.au> wrote in message
news:YILIm.52493$ze1....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
It would help in giving an accurate answer if you could post a small preview
of the image
John Stafford
In essence you need content-aware scaling, or you can stretch it
proportionally rather than in a linear manner.
Is the picture really worth the trouble?
Bob LaBlawgh
to look right. You can also select an entire area via the marquee tool
and duplicate that. That might work for replicating (widening?) the
blinds. And you could also add a vignette effect so the expanded blinds
will fade to white, obviating the need to duplicate content to the edge
of the canvas.
--
Bob LaBlawgh
�It's never too late to have a happy childhood.�
JD
You can do the same thing you did with your enlargements using PS.
Open your image and select Image, Canvas Size. Enlarge the canvas to the
size you need.
Then use the Rectangular Marquee tool, hit m on your keyboard for this
tool. Drag it around the area you need more of and then hit Ctrl-c on
your keyboard or use Edit, Copy. Click outside the selected area to make
the outline go away, click on v on your keyboard and then hit Crtl-v or
Edit, Paste and there is a copy of your selection. Now use your mouse to
move it into place.
This should give you a place to start. The joints may show but I'll
leave it to you to find out how to use the Healing Brush, if CS2 has
that. I'm using CS3 on a Windows XP. If you're using a Mac then I don't
know if the keyboard shortcuts are the same.
--
JD..
Sam
"Bob LaBlawgh" <fa...@nothing.de.au> wrote in message
news:goYIm.5745$Wd1....@newsfe15.iad...
> Doing the clone thing will work, but it's trial and error to get things
> to look right. You can also select an entire area via the marquee tool
> and duplicate that. That might work for replicating (widening?) the
> blinds. And you could also add a vignette effect so the expanded blinds
> will fade to white, obviating the need to duplicate content to the edge of
> the canvas.
Yes, it requires some practice to get right, as poorly done cloning is
painfull to the eyes, but with a little practice, he should have no problem,
especially as it's a reasonably regular pattern of vertical lines.
Where he's likely tp encounter problems is with the floor, as he'll have
problems with perspective the further out to the ends he goes.
kermit
tones, textures, brightness etc are fine. The original lighting was lovely
and flat and soft and there are no patterns on either blinds or tiles, all
of which simplifies cloning immeasurably. There aren't too many lines to
bother about either and with fine tuning, a high zoom setting, and several
practice sessions I'm sure this will be cracked.
Excellent advice and help.
Many thanks Sam.
"Sam" <s...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:CZSdnfzO8PVliGnX...@bt.com...
kermit
But it's become a challenge which involves my doing it myself, albeit with
advice!
"John Stafford" <nh...@droffats.ten> wrote in message
news:nhoj-44B5E0.0...@news.supernews.com...
kermit
read in more than one book that's proving to be true is that there are often
several ways of doing the same thing in PS!
Although improving the original print remains the main objective I am, just
out of interest, going to have a stab at placing the subject, (clean well
defined edges, no intricate fine detail) against a newly shot background!
"JD" <J...@example.invalid> wrote in message
news:Da2dnX6qnOpHz2nX...@posted.grandecom...
JD
thing. And the best way to learn PS is to sit there and screw around
with it. Save your photo as a copy and experiment. You're not goig to
break anything. ;-) And ask questions in this newsgroup.
I'm not complaining but I personally find it's easier to follow the
"thread" when everyone bottom posts but as you can see I will top post
when the original person is a top poster. Minor point.
Once you become familiar with PS, you'll wonder why you waited so long
to learn how to use it.
--
JD..
kee...@yahoo.com.invalid
wrote:
>>> What has become immediately clear is that getting to grips even with the
>>> basics of Photoshop will take a considerable time. But I do have an
>>> urgent request from my nearest and dearest to produce a replacement of a
>>> photograph that is of the wrong dimensions for the frame she has in mind.
>>> I could of course cheat and get a photo friend to help out - but most of
>>> them are pretty new to Photoshop themselves!
Photoshop is the wrong tool for this. The right one would be after effects, or
Premiere. After effects was created just for this type project.
Michael J Davis
>I think that's it! Even a rough and ready first go shows that the
>colors, tones, textures, brightness etc are fine. The original
>lighting was lovely and flat and soft and there are no patterns on
>either blinds or tiles, all of which simplifies cloning immeasurably.
>There aren't too many lines to bother about either and with fine
>tuning, a high zoom setting, and several practice sessions I'm sure
>this will be cracked.
If you've done the cloning, you may wish to use a vignette and both blur
and darken (or lighten) the cloned area to reduce the emphasis on the
added material.
Use elliptical marquee to choose the untouched area.
Feather to say 100 pixels (less if your image is small)
Invert selection
Apply small amount of Gaussian blur
Use camera distortion correction to apply dark or light vignette to
taste.
In effect that's what I've done here to reduce a confusing background
(except I used layers to produce an out of focus glow effect).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/watchman/3928852204/
HIH
Mike
--
Michael J Davis
<><
"I never have taken a picture I've intended.
They're always better or worse."
Diane Arbus
<><
Sam
<kee...@yahoo.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:dc3bf511l63u900hd...@4ax.com...
Moron.