PainShop Pro 9 - need a little software help with this image

Author

need a little software help with this image

mkh

2007-05-17, 6:19 pm

underprocessable

Fred Hiltz

2007-05-17, 6:19 pm

mkh wrote:
> I have attached a pdf. What are the steps for creating this
> image. I am wanting do do something like this for a report
> cover. The way the leaf frames the photo is really cool. Can
> someone just point me in the right direction, like what tools
> within psp I should look at?

That is a very nice effect. There are many ways to do it. I would
choose the following, which provides excellent flexibility for an
artistic arrangement of the parts. It uses a leaf-shaped mask to
reveal the desired parts of the photos.

Make the Layers palette visible. Prepare a PspImage file containing
a pure white background layer plus four raster layers containing
Photo #1, Photo #2, and two flood-filled beige layers.

Prepare a maple-leaf image that is pure white on a pure black
background. Greys in the anti-alias at the edges are OK, maybe even
desired.

Select each of the four layers in turn, doing Layers > New Mask
Layer > From Image and choosing the leaf image Source Luminance, not
inverted, as the source of the mask. Each image layer is now grouped
with its mask.

Double click each of the groups in turn, clearing the check mark
"Group is linked." This allows you to move the mask and the image
independently.

Select each mask layer and each image layer in the Layers palette
and hold Shift while dragging the masks and the images around for
the best arrangement.
--
Fred Hiltz, fhiltz at yahoo dot com

JoeB

2007-05-17, 10:17 pm

"Fred Hiltz" <not@home.ca> wrote in news:464b7479_2@cnews:

>
> mkh wrote:
>
> That is a very nice effect. There are many ways to do it. I would
> choose the following, which provides excellent flexibility for an
> artistic arrangement of the parts. It uses a leaf-shaped mask to
> reveal the desired parts of the photos.
>
> Make the Layers palette visible. Prepare a PspImage file containing
> a pure white background layer plus four raster layers containing
> Photo #1, Photo #2, and two flood-filled beige layers.
>
> Prepare a maple-leaf image that is pure white on a pure black
> background. Greys in the anti-alias at the edges are OK, maybe even
> desired.
>
> Select each of the four layers in turn, doing Layers > New Mask
> Layer > From Image and choosing the leaf image Source Luminance, not
> inverted, as the source of the mask. Each image layer is now grouped
> with its mask.
>
> Double click each of the groups in turn, clearing the check mark
> "Group is linked." This allows you to move the mask and the image
> independently.
>
> Select each mask layer and each image layer in the Layers palette
> and hold Shift while dragging the masks and the images around for
> the best arrangement.

The instructions would likely do the job (I'm not "mask proficient"
but I think I grasped the concept). However, I'd think that preparing
the maple leaf image would be a tough task for those of us who are
really deficient in drawing skills :-) But for the same effect using
a different shape I suspect one could use one of the preset shapes.

Before your post, I thought perhaps (for the maple leaf shape) I could
use the magic wand and isolate the maple leaf shape from the pdf image
with a selection, then use that selection on a primary image and crop
to the selection to get the maple leaf shape. But several efforts
still resulted in many jagged edges around the resulting image. I
couldn't get it to be as smooth as the edges of the main maple leaf
image in the pdf.

Regards,

JoeB

Spandex Rutabaga

2007-05-18, 10:17 pm

mkh wrote:
>
> I have attached a pdf. What are the steps for creating this image.

There are a number of ways to do this. Perhaps the simplest one
has this general idea. You take a photo and place a new layer
filled with something like white over it. Then you take a
leaf-shaped selection and load it into your image with the
upper layer active. If you press the Delete key you will erase
a portion of the upper layer exposing the photo below through
a leaf-shaped hole. If however you flood fill the selection
with some color, you will get leaf shapes like the beige ones
on the white layer.

OK, where does the selection come from? You can draw it yourself
with a selection tool. Alternatively find a picture of a leaf
on a contrasting background of completely different color. Run
the Threshold filter on this image choosing a setting that makes
the leaf look white on a black background (or the converse).
Then just use the Magic Wand to make a leaf selection that you
save to disk for later.

To move, size, rotate and/or distort the selection in your two
layer image before you delete or fill, switch on Selections >
Edit Selection and manipulate the selection with the Deform
tool. To get your marching ants selection marquee back just
toggle Edit Selection again.