Expert: LizaL - 9/17/2004

Question
I am looking to take a Harley from a side view and make it look like it was buried in snow. Should I try a contour map or paste parts of the bike into different layers and emboss them? Any help would be great.  I have Photoshop 7

Answer
Hi Travis,

There are several things you can do. I don't think layers and embossing is the answer, because all that will do is create a raised effect to what you apply the embossing to. And a contour map won't have anything to do with the effect you're looking for -- that's used mainly for shaping a layer effect (like fine-tuning an embossed layer, or a layer with an inner shadow, etc.).

What you can do is take a picture of snow -- that is, find a picture of a snow scene you'd like to use. Open this picture in Photoshop. Then open the picture of your Harley, and drag it into the snow picture. Put the Harley layer underneath the snow scene. Select the Eraser tool, and make sure you're using the Brush option. Select a good-sized, fluffy brush and erase the snow on the top layer, until you can see the Harley underneath. Continue to erase parts of the snow layer until you get the desired effect from "combining" the two layers. You might have to switch brushes a few times; just experiment to get the effect you want. When you're finished, save the file as a PSD so you can go back and change it if you want, but you can also merge the layers and save it as a JPEG. Then you can distribute the JPEG however you like.

There are other, somewhat more complicated ways of combining two pictures, and I can give you more detailed instructions if the way I just described doesn't work for you, and you post back. But this is the quickest and most effective way I know to do what you want.

Hope this helps!

Lisa