Last week I took a series of photos at an Italian restaurant to be used in their advertising. These girls are the daughters of the restaurant owners. My Photoshop (CS4 by the way) skills are limited, but what I want to accomplish is to remove all of the dead space between Angie (pink) and Kelly (purple), probably loosing the front wine glass and sliding Kelly's forearm in front of Angie's hand. Any quick pointers to get me started will be very helpful... thanks in advance. -Ray
Probably the easiest way of doing everything you've described would be a reshoot! My Photoshop skills are not exactly Kung-Fu master level but I'd struggle to do all that and come away with a result I'd be happy to see published. As you have a good idea of the final result you'd like perhaps you could go back to the owner and say you'd like to give it another shot? I did some similar shots once upon a time that were taken up by a local "what's on" magazine as well as the restaurant so they're definitely worth having.
Ah, so definitely not an easy fix, eh James? This is only one of about 15 shots that they have selected, so I don't anticipate a reshoot. I know what you mean about being less than masterful with Photoshop, but the things that some people can do made me think it was worth trying. Or asking, anyway. If I can just figure out how to close the gap, I think I may be able to disguise the seam with cloning etc. since I have had pretty good success with that sort of thing.
I don't think it is that hard; unfortunately i don't have the time to do it. All you have to do is make a selection of the left half, starting right of the higher vase, down to the point on the wine glass, where the left girl's finger touches it, along the right side of the glass and around the plate. Then move the selection to the right and a small portion up, then all you'd need would be a little retouching of the background.
I don't think it is that hard; unfortunately i don't have the time to do it. All you have to do is make a selection of the left half, starting right of the higher vase, down to the point on the wine glass, where the left girl's finger touches it, along the right side of the glass and around the plate. Then move the selection to the right and a small portion up, then all you'd need would be a little retouching of the background.
Thank you Kelli! Believe me when I say I'm intimidated by Photoshop and lacking in basic skills, despite having dinked with it for years. When I hear "cut & paste" I think of text editing. And I've never figured out what masking was. But seeing your results, and having those terms (cut, paste, mask) to work with, I'll do a little more self-educating and see if I can't learn something new. Thank you again!
and thank you too, h2. I'll be working on this today and definitely referring to your instructions.
Basically what I did was select the area I wanted to move, ctrl+c, ctrl+v, which puts it on it's own layer. Move the layer over to where you want to position it. Change the layer to overlay mode so you can see through it. Then while still on the layer click the mask button. It will put up a blank mask. Click the mask. Then choose either a white or black brush and paint over the areas you want to show or hide (black will bring up the bottom layer, white will hide the bottom layer). I know it sounds complicated, but once you try it you'll see how simple it really is. Once you have the layer's masked out the way you want, change the opacity of the top layer back to normal. Then you can clean it up.
It is the single best tool in photoshop. Simple graphic explanations are around on the web; not using it really limits the kind of editing you can do, after all masking is the main difference between the basic and advanced rule sets for challenges.
Change the layer to overlay mode so you can see through it.
Rather than changing the mode you can also reduce the opacity of the top layer by whatever amount works to let you line up the images as desired.
If you are going to do much masking and/or cloning/retouching (or Dodge/Burn), a small tablet/stylus will make the job much easier and more accurate than using a mouse, trackball, or touchpad; even the best 4x5 tablets should be under $100.
[quote=Kelli]
If you are going to do much masking and/or cloning/retouching (or Dodge/Burn), a small tablet/stylus will make the job much easier and more accurate than using a mouse, trackball, or touchpad; even the best 4x5 tablets should be under $100.
Actually a Wacom tablet is high on my list. Thanks for your suggestions Paul, sincerely appreciated.
