Expert: LizaL - 3/7/2005

Question
-------------------------

 Hey, thanks for the clarification.  After i paste the image on another scene, how do i resize ? By the way, im intested in joining the online class in photoshop cs. May I noe wat exactly will u be covering and will there be any fees ? Thank U
Followup To
Question -
-------------------------

-------------------------

       Hi,
  
    Sorry for the late reply. I was busy with school work.  Anyway,          
ur guides were very helpful. Thanks. I've tried the extract filter    
and i understand it. I also tried the magnetic lasso tool but after i selected the picture i want, i dunno how to copy it and paste it on another
picture. I also dunno how to do tat using extract filter too.

        As for quick mask, i cant find the button on my photoshop CS. I follwed ur instructions on swatches but i dun see it.  Last but not least, how do i paste the image i extract from a pic to another ? And lately wen i want to watch the movie on lasso and quick mask it says:
        " Not Found
The requested URL /all_experts/mag_lasso.mov was not found on this server."

 TQ. Sorry for
inconvenience. :D
Followup To
Question -
      Hi,

Im a newbie i graphic design and i wanna start with Adobe Photoshop CS. I have a lot of hi-res wallpapers n i wanna manipulate it like, take a game wallpaper, say.. take a character from  counterstrike and blend it into a Battlefield 1942 background, or take scene from Farcry and mix it with sum other game character to create a cool desktop wallpaper.

    What's the tool in CS tat can do this
function?  
         Thankz :D
Answer -
Hi Ernest,

Welcome to the Photoshop world! There's a lot to learn and enjoy.

For what you want to do, there's no one tool to accomplish the job. Rather, you'll need to follow a series of instructions that involve many of Photoshop's tools, in combination.

It sounds to me like what you want to do is take a game character, remove it from its original background, and then place it into another background.

Is this what you want to do? If so, I can tell you how to remove the background from a picture, so you'll have only the selection you want, that you can place into another picture.

Of course, there are several ways of removing a background from a picture, and instead of exploring all those ways, I'll just post three and let you post back and tell me if this is what you're after.

-----------------

1. The Extract filter:

Go to the Filter pulldown menu and select Extract... You'll see your image within a new preview window, and you'll see a toolbox on the left side of the screen. Select the top tool, which looks like a marker.

Draw all around the edges of the image -- in other words, draw a border all around what you want to keep. You can change your brush size, too, if you have to get into some tight spots -- you can also zoom in and out with the magnifying glass (or keyboard commands).

Make sure you close the area you're drawing so there's not a gap. Then choose the next tool down in the palette, which is a bucket -- or fill -- tool. Click within the border you just drew, and you'll see it fill (the default color is blue). Hit the OK button, and what you drew the border around will appear in a regular Photoshop window.

You'll still have some cleanup to do (like with the eraser and magic wand tools), but this will get you started.

Here's a little Extract movie, using a picture someone sent me where they wanted to delete a huge blue background. In this example, I've only isolated one flag from the background, but hopefully this will give you an idea of how to use this filter. (It's kind of a big movie and might take a minute to load.)

http://little-works.com/all_experts/extract.mov


2. Quick Mask: It's a lot like the Extract... filter, but more precise.

http://little-works.com/all_experts/quick_mask.mov

Right below your big color swatches in the Photoshop tool box are two buttons. Enter quick mask mode by clicking on the right-most button of the two. Double click on this button, and make sure Masked areas is ticked.

Then choose a brush from the tool box and paint -- in this case, I was painting the parachutist, and not the sky. In other words, I was painting everything I wanted to keep, and those are the areas that appear in red. While in Quick Mask mode, you can also choose brush sizes and types according to the areas you're painting in; for some of the more intricate areas you may want to do this.

What you're actually doing is masking the areas you *don't* want to delete. So when you're finished, click on the exit quick mask mode button, which is right beside the one you clicked on to enter quick mask.

You should see what you painted show up as an inverted selection. All you have to do now is delete that unwanted selection by selecting Cut from the Edit pulldown menu.

But again, you'll probably have to go in and do some extra touch-up work to get the stubborn areas out of the picture.


3. Magnetic Lasso:

Another way to make selections from intricate images is the Magnetic Lasso tool. This tool is found if you click on the lasso tool in the tool box (second down on the left), and hold down the mouse button; you'll see it as a subchoice of the lasso tool). You'll still have some cleanup to do afterwards, and you might even have to draw in and/or use the Pen tool to recreate some of the paths that might be inadvertently misshapen, or deleted in the process, but it does help you make the initial selections.

This tool will "snap" towards the edges of your image as you guide your pointer around it. You can click once to "set" an initial pixel, then simply move your mouse around the edge of the area, or you can click all the way around to set individual points. Clicking all the way around will let you get into the tighter, more intricate places.

In this little movie, I double-clicked on the bike image to unlock it and make it an editable layer, then I created a second, transparent layer and put it underneath the bike image. This ensured that the subject of the photo would be on a transparent background when I finished.

Then I used the Magnetic Lasso to select a couple areas of the picture, just as an example. I also made more than one active selection at a time. To do this, I selected the background from one area, then held down the Shift key while I selected another. Of course, if you want, you could select an area, delete it, and then move on to the next area; either way will work.

http://little-works.com/all_experts/mag_lasso.mov

-----------------

Here are also some links for tutorials in Photoshop CS:

http://studio.adobe.com/tips/main.jsp

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshop/

http://www.cbtcafe.com/photoshop/index.htm

------------------

I hope this helps! If you're just starting out in Photoshop, some of what I posted might not mean a lot to you yet -- so please feel free to post back and I'll be happy to clarify.

If you're interested in online classes for Photoshop CS, you can also email me at lizal@little-works.com. I'm planning to start a class in the next couple of months.


Lisa
Followup To
Question -
      Hi,

Im a newbie i graphic design and i wanna start with Adobe Photoshop CS. I have a lot of hi-res wallpapers n i wanna manipulate it like, take a game wallpaper, say.. take a character from  counterstrike and blend it into a Battlefield 1942 background, or take scene from Farcry and mix it with sum other game character to create a cool desktop wallpaper.

    What's the tool in CS tat can do this
function?  
         Thankz :D
Answer -
Hi Ernest,

Welcome to the Photoshop world! There's a lot to learn and enjoy.

For what you want to do, there's no one tool to accomplish the job. Rather, you'll need to follow a series of instructions that involve many of Photoshop's tools, in combination.

It sounds to me like what you want to do is take a game character, remove it from its original background, and then place it into another background.

Is this what you want to do? If so, I can tell you how to remove the background from a picture, so you'll have only the selection you want, that you can place into another picture.

Of course, there are several ways of removing a background from a picture, and instead of exploring all those ways, I'll just post three and let you post back and tell me if this is what you're after.

-----------------

1. The Extract filter:

Go to the Filter pulldown menu and select Extract... You'll see your image within a new preview window, and you'll see a toolbox on the left side of the screen. Select the top tool, which looks like a marker.

Draw all around the edges of the image -- in other words, draw a border all around what you want to keep. You can change your brush size, too, if you have to get into some tight spots -- you can also zoom in and out with the magnifying glass (or keyboard commands).

Make sure you close the area you're drawing so there's not a gap. Then choose the next tool down in the palette, which is a bucket -- or fill -- tool. Click within the border you just drew, and you'll see it fill (the default color is blue). Hit the OK button, and what you drew the border around will appear in a regular Photoshop window.

You'll still have some cleanup to do (like with the eraser and magic wand tools), but this will get you started.

Here's a little Extract movie, using a picture someone sent me where they wanted to delete a huge blue background. In this example, I've only isolated one flag from the background, but hopefully this will give you an idea of how to use this filter. (It's kind of a big movie and might take a minute to load.)

http://little-works.com/all_experts/extract.mov


2. Quick Mask: It's a lot like the Extract... filter, but more precise.

http://little-works.com/all_experts/quick_mask.mov

Right below your big color swatches in the Photoshop tool box are two buttons. Enter quick mask mode by clicking on the right-most button of the two. Double click on this button, and make sure Masked areas is ticked.

Then choose a brush from the tool box and paint -- in this case, I was painting the parachutist, and not the sky. In other words, I was painting everything I wanted to keep, and those are the areas that appear in red. While in Quick Mask mode, you can also choose brush sizes and types according to the areas you're painting in; for some of the more intricate areas you may want to do this.

What you're actually doing is masking the areas you *don't* want to delete. So when you're finished, click on the exit quick mask mode button, which is right beside the one you clicked on to enter quick mask.

You should see what you painted show up as an inverted selection. All you have to do now is delete that unwanted selection by selecting Cut from the Edit pulldown menu.

But again, you'll probably have to go in and do some extra touch-up work to get the stubborn areas out of the picture.


3. Magnetic Lasso:

Another way to make selections from intricate images is the Magnetic Lasso tool. This tool is found if you click on the lasso tool in the tool box (second down on the left), and hold down the mouse button; you'll see it as a subchoice of the lasso tool). You'll still have some cleanup to do afterwards, and you might even have to draw in and/or use the Pen tool to recreate some of the paths that might be inadvertently misshapen, or deleted in the process, but it does help you make the initial selections.

This tool will "snap" towards the edges of your image as you guide your pointer around it. You can click once to "set" an initial pixel, then simply move your mouse around the edge of the area, or you can click all the way around to set individual points. Clicking all the way around will let you get into the tighter, more intricate places.

In this little movie, I double-clicked on the bike image to unlock it and make it an editable layer, then I created a second, transparent layer and put it underneath the bike image. This ensured that the subject of the photo would be on a transparent background when I finished.

Then I used the Magnetic Lasso to select a couple areas of the picture, just as an example. I also made more than one active selection at a time. To do this, I selected the background from one area, then held down the Shift key while I selected another. Of course, if you want, you could select an area, delete it, and then move on to the next area; either way will work.

http://little-works.com/all_experts/mag_lasso.mov

-----------------

Here are also some links for tutorials in Photoshop CS:

http://studio.adobe.com/tips/main.jsp

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshop/

http://www.cbtcafe.com/photoshop/index.htm

------------------

I hope this helps! If you're just starting out in Photoshop, some of what I posted might not mean a lot to you yet -- so please feel free to post back and I'll be happy to clarify.

If you're interested in online classes for Photoshop CS, you can also email me at lizal@little-works.com. I'm planning to start a class in the next couple of months.


Lisa
Answer -
Hi Ernest,

Glad you're able to start working with the tools I mentioned.

About putting one picture into another once you've selected it -- like with the Extract filter, or the Magnetic Lasso -- here are two ways:


1. Open the file you want to put the picture into (your destination file), and with your first file open (the one where you used Extract or the Magnetic Lasso), choose the Move tool from your tool box. This is the top right tool -- it looks like a solid arrow, with a little crosshair beside it.

With the Move tool selected, all you have to do is click and hold on the image you want to move, and drag it into your destination file. It will appear on its own layer. If for some reason the image won't move, go to its layer in the Layers palette and make sure you don't see a padlock beside its name in the palette. If you do, double-click on the layer name to unlock that layer.


2. Another way to bring a picture over is to hold down your Control key (if you're using a Mac, it's the Command key), and click on the layer name in the layer palette -- that is, the layer that contains the image you want to bring into another picture.

Doing this selects all the contents of that layer at once, so you can select Copy from the Edit pulldown menu, then go to your destination file and select Paste from the pulldown menu. Again, the image will appear on its own layer.


The reason you couldn't find those movies is that I remove them from my server after a week. Some of them are pretty big in size, so I don't leave them online.

I put the Magnetic Lasso and Quick Mask movies back online, and you can find them here:

Quick Mask:
http://little-works.com/all_experts/quick_mask.mov

Magnetic Lasso:
http://little-works.com/all_experts/mag_lasso.mov

Sorry about that!

(The quick mask buttons are located below the big swatches in your tool palette -- you'll see them in the movie.)


Hope this helps, and let me know if you have any problems!


Lisa

Answer
Hi again Ernest!

Two ways to go about resizing:

1. If you're concerned that the image you're going to paste be of the best resolution, figure out what size it should be *before* you paste it into your second image. Then, with that image open, go to the Image pulldown menu and select Image Size.

In the Image Size dialog box, enter the dimensions you want the image to be. To make sure that the image stays proportional, keep the Constrain Proportions box checked.

Then go ahead and copy that image and paste it into the other image, or just drag and drop it into the other image.


2. Now if you're *not* particularly concerned about image resolution, go ahead and paste the image into the destination file. After you've pasted the image, you need to make sure that its layer is active. In other words, make sure, in the layers palette, that the layer for the pasted image is highlighted.

Then you can go to the Edit pulldown menu and select Transform. From the little flyout menu to the right, select Scale.

You should see handles all around the image, and you can pull on these handle to resize the image. Hold down your Shift key and it will keep the image proportional, so it doesn't wind up looking all stretched out.

OR -- you can select Free Transform from the Edit pulldown menu, and do the same thing, but with Free Tranform you can do other stuff like rotate, at the same time.

-------------------

About the class, the cost is $25 for a 6-week online class. Send an email to lizal@little-works.com, and I'll send you back all the information on what will be covered.

Also, in the email you send me, tell me what *you* want to see covered. I usually compile my class material on the input I get from my prospective students, so what you tell me is always taken into consideration!


Hope this helps!


Lisa