Expert: LizaL - 9/18/2004

Question
Hi LizaL,

I too am a chronic mac user.  My question is this:  how can you
give an object the appearance that it would have as if it were an
xray image?

Answer
Hi Tony -- fellow Mac user!

I know a couple of ways of doing this; I saw a pretty simple tutorial on it a while back. It goes something like this:
1. Create a Photoshop document and give it a black background. Drag or paste the photo you want to have the X-ray effect on top of this layer.

2. With the photo layer selected, use the Invert command (Image>Adjustments>Invert, or Command+I). On the Layers palette, where you see the Layer blending options (below the word Layers), set the blending option to Screen, at 70%.

3. Still with your photo layer selected, desaturate the photo (Image>Adjustments>Desaturate, or Shift+Command+U). Then under Image>Adjustments, go to Brightness and Contrast and increase the Brightness to 20%, and make the Contrast -10.

4. Create a new layer and fill it with a bright green of your choice -- when I stepped through this to review my answer to you, I chose 0EF10E. It's out of gamut, but hey, this is just a tutorial, LOL! Anyway, set the Layer blending option for this layer to Color Burn, at 50%.

5. Go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation (Command+U), and set those options to Hue=0, Saturation=50, and Lightness=50.

That's pretty much it, although you'll want to play with it to get it the way you want it.


Here's a site that has some pretty neat Photoshop tutorials, including an X-ray effect on text:
http://www.nextdesigns.net/modules.php?name=Photoshop_Tutorials&file=xray_text

And the Adobe Studio Exchange is usually good for finding things like this, too:
http://studio.adobe.com/


Hope this helps! Mac on!

Lisa