Out of bounds

Hi !

Today I will show you how to make an “out of bounds” picture. I’ll take those pictures that I photographed last summer :

and at the end I will have this :

Open the first picture in Photoshop.
The horse from the left side of the image look pretty ok with what I want to do so I’ll make it go out of the picture.
Using Pen Tool select half of the horse. Right click when you finished the selection – Make selection, set 0 px for feather radius. Copy the selection in a new layer and make the layer invisible.

Make a new layer, above the background image, choose Rectangular Marquee Tool and make an rectangular like you see below.

Take the Paint Bucket Tool and fill it with white. Lower the opacity of this layer so that you can see the picture behind it. Ctrl +D to deselect.

Now press Ctrl + T to transform the shape. Right click on the shape and choose Distort.

Now with your mouse select any corner and move it around until you create something that looks like that

Press enter to apply transformation (or you can double click).

Press Ctrl and with the mouse press the layer that contains the white shape. That will select the shape. Go to the background layer, go to Select – Inverse and the press the Delete key.

Make the layer with the white shape invisible.

Making the layer with the horse visible this is what we have so far :


Next we’ll create the picture frame.
Make a new layer above the background.
Select Polygonal Lasso Tool. Keep in mind that the thickness of the frame is thickner on the side that is close to your eyes then the thickness form the other site (in our case the left side of the picture.)

Go to select and Inverse the selection then fill it with white. Now press Ctrl key and click on the layer with the white shape. Select –Inverse again , Delete key.



Hold down Shift and select the layer with the frame and the one with the background image. Press Ctrl + E the merge them into a single layer.

Hold down Shift once more and select the layer with the horse and the one with the background image. Now press Ctrl +T and make them smaller in the same time.

Now let’s take the second picture and place it in our project so that the horse can go there : )
Open the image in Photoshop, restore down the picture so that you can see the both projects. Make sure you have the Move Tool selected and drag the new image into the project we ware working.

Make the same steps as above in order to make the picture framed. Place the layer with the horse above all others.
You should have something like this :


That’s it ! Hope you liked it !

Vanishing Point

Hello again !

Today I was watching some video tutorials and I found out about Vanishing Point.
Vanishing Point lets you clone, heal, select something that is not quite easy to select using just Marquee tool and transform objects. You’ll find this tool in Filter menu.

I'll take this picture below and I’ll show you an example of what you can do with VP :)
Open the picture in Photoshop (you can find this tool only in Photoshop Cs2 or Cs3). Make a new layer – in which Photoshop will put your result.
Then go to Filter – Vanishing Point.

Go to the toolbox in the left and select Create plane tool. It’s usually selected.

Put your mouse pointer in the right corner at the top of the window from the right side of the picture and click. Click again on the left corner of the window from the left side, like you see in the picture below.
Fallow the line going down and then to the right, then back from where you start.
Now zoom in if you think you have to adjust where the points should be.
For the next step I’ll select the window from the right side. To make the selection easier so I don’t have to zoom and see if my selection is ok I’ll select the Transform Toll in order to increase the size of the grid and then to be able to select the area around the window.
Just like using the Transform tool as you usually do, drag the grid up, down, and to the right.

Now select Marquee Tool and select the window.

In order to duplicate the window press Alt key and drag it to the left.
You’ll notice you can move it all around but you have to pay attention to align it in line. If you press Shift key while you press the Alt key it will be much easier to position the window in line with the others.

Ok .. so far so good.
But because I selected outside the window too, I have now a piece of the shadow from the original window. That’s good because that way I can show you how to use the Stamp tool. The way you’ll use it is pretty much the same way the Stamp Tool always worked in Photoshop.
Select the tool and hold down Alt key - you’ll notice a little cross. Wherever you’ll click with that cross is the area that you want to patch with.
So click next to the window, on the yellow wall and then release it and pull over where you want a stamp of that area. Click again to patch that out. You also can adjust the diameter of the Stamp tool.

In the image below you can see that the Heal is turned on and we don’t want that in this case. Turn it off and do it again.


Click Ok.
You will see that Photoshop put the new window in the layer you created at the beginning.

Here is the final photo:And here is another way to use Vp.
I hope you liked it !

Elvis has a new job

Hello !

For this post I’ll take a picture with Elvis and one with a man at work. So I’ll put Elvis to do something else besides singing : )
This is my picture with Elvis :
and this is the man willing to give him his job :

Start with Elvis. Maybe you’ll choose another picture of him or with another man. But be sure you’ll notice all the details that were not supposed to be there, like you see in this image. But this is an old picture, anyway.
If your image looks fine take the Lasso tool and select his head and neck. The neck helps you to blend the two images better. Copy the selection.

Open the other image and paste the selection you’ve just made. Because the image with the man is in grayscale automatically the selection will be transformed in grayscale.
Turn off layer visibility for Elvis’s head, in order to prepare the image behind.

Take the Clone stamp tool and start to clone the areas next to the man’s head so that when you’ll put Elvis's head there you wouldn’t see the other man’s ear, for example.

Turn on the layer visibility for Elvis and place his head above the man’s head. Now apply a layer mask and with brush tool start masking around what you don’t need in the picture.

If you look at the picture behind you notice that the light enters in the room from the left side of his face. So Elvis can’t have shadow’s of light next to his nose and his eye (right eye) and we have to put some light on his left side of the head.

So take the Clone tool and erase the shadows. Then go to Filter – Render – Lighting effects. Make sure you have the layer that contains the head selected and not the mask.

Position the light where you think is best and then click OK. If you don’t like the result undo the filter and try it again.

Use the clone tool again to erase the light from the top of the head.

So ..that’s it. Have fun !

I forgot to mention. I take my picture from SXC . You just have to create an account there and you’ll have free pictures at high resolution.

The world through a broken vase - part II

Here we are, part II of this post where I showed you how to make the crack in the vase. You'll find there the pictures we work with too.

After you finished part I open the second picture. To put it into your current project make sure you have the move tool select, click on the image and drag it into your project.

Position it over the vase. Load the last saved selection. With the second photo layer active press the Add layer mask icon. Now click on the link between photo and layer mask
and then select only the photo layer so you can now move your photo where you consider it’s ok in the selection.


You can notice that your photo is less then the selection. Go to the original photo and select the water. Then copy it and paste into the project. You can use the Transform tool to make it as big as the selection. And then apply the same step to put “the water” into selection. Or you can select just the bottom of your image with Rectangular marquee tool ant then transform it.



Based on the selection you already have make a new one, just a little smaller, And just for the right side of the selection.

I looked at the picture form the lest side and that’s how I imagine the thickness off the vase. If you see it otherwise make it in your way :)

I took this picture to fill the selection ant make my vase look like it was made by clay. Use the same steps with layer mask here too.


Play around with that crack until you make something you like. :)

Now I’ll do the water that is draining off the vase. Make a selection that looks something like this:

Save selection. I tried to do a realistic water for many times. Most realistic was when I did like this : Marge down all the layers.(hold down Ctrl key and select each layer then Ctrl+ E.
Duplicate the new layer. Ctrl + Transform – flip vertical. Lower the opacity so you can see where to put it so that the water will be were you made the last selection.

Load the last saved selection.

Let only this piece of selection and put it in a new layer so you can apply layer styles to it. I put this ones:



That’s it :)
I hope you liked it !