Fun Photo Tutorial

Fun Photo Tutorial

Save all files to your classwork/photoshop folder

Open the image called elk.jpg. Make sure this image and all other pictures are viewing at 100% on the bar at the top of the image. (You can open this image by double clicking on the link or right click on the link and 'save target as').
Before going further group the four Palettes that will be used in this tutorial and the project to follow. In the Windows menu reset palettes.
Select Windows/Show Layers and you will see a miniature of the mountain scene in the Layers Palette. Right now it is labeled Background, but this must be changed. Double click on Background and rename it as mountain scene. Doing this will allow you change the order of your layers with greater ease as you move through this tutorial.
Open the image called whs.jpg. The Layer Palette will call this image Background also, but this is only temporary. After you cut the image out, you will close the wsh.jpg, and its Layer Palette will disappear. Don't do that yet, though.
We are going to select the school and copy it into the field in front of the mountain. To do this choose the Polygon Lasso tool and cut out the school only (exclude the cement front of it.) Choose the Move tool and move a duplicate of the school selection (click on the school and press the Option or Alt key so that a double arrow appears) into the mountain.jpg image. Position it so that it's at the base of the mountain on the left site and the edge of the school is at the left edge at the edge of the picture.
Close whs.jpg. When it asks do you want to save, say no.

Hint: Never "save over" or destroy your original images. You may make a mistake and need to go back and start anew.
Save the altered mountain image as lastnamefirstinitialfunphoto (as a .psd file) to your photoshop folder. To do this, select Save As. The Save As Option at the bottom of the pop-up box will say Photoshop (*.PSD,*.PDD) The .psd is the extension for a photoshop image. This form of your picture contains layers and is very easy to alter. Once you save an image as a .jpg or a .gif, the layers are gone and it's tough to change.

Hint: Always save the .psd version of your picture. You may need to revise the picture in the future.

Notice that a new layer is now on the Layer Palette of tutorial.psd. It shows the school on a transparent background (shown as a checkerboard) and is labeled Layer 1. Rename this layer as whs.

You probably need to do something about the trees in front of the school. Be creative -- tree without trunks look like bushes! The sky attached to the school probably doesn't match either. When working on this layer, be sure the whs layer is selected in the Layer Palette.

Use the Magic Wand tool to select the sky (make sure you are on the mountain layer and then select Edit/Cut. The sky will disappear and the mountain (on the layer below it) will show through. The trees may be a bigger problem. I opted to let them look like great big bushes.

If there are bits of sky still attached to your school, choose the Eraser tool and erase the blue. Before you do this zoom in and choose a brush size that won't erase too largely. Experiment with the size of your zoom and the size of the eraser.

Open picnic.jpg. These people will go into tutorial.psd, but right now they are too large. Select Image/Image Size. The pixel width is 207 and the height is 147. Change the width to 60 and press OK.

The picture is small now, but blurry. To sharpen the focus, select Filter/Sharpen/Sharpen. Make sure that the contrast matches the rest of the picture also.

We will move the entire little picture by selecting Select/All. Using the Move tool, move a duplicate of the little picture into tutorial.psd. Close picnic.jpg, but do not save it when asked.

Open the Layer Palette and name the new layer people.

Using the Move tool, position the people in the lower right corner between the two elk.

This picture will look better if the two elk on either side of the people were gone, so we will cover them with grass using the Rubber Stamp tool. To do this, select the mountain scene layer. Choose the Rubber Stamp tool and position its cursor over the kind of grass you want to cover the elk. Click on the grass while holding down the Option or Alt key. A little rubber stamp should appear.

Now let the cursor go, position it over one of the elk and click and drag over him. When you do this a cross hair should show where you first clicked and saw the rubber stamp and grass should start covering the elk. Go through this process again and cover up the other elk.

Use this same technique to delete the yellow grass that is around the people. First click (with Option or Alt) the Rubber Stamp tool on the grass from the mountain scene layer, then select the people layer. Zoom in on the people, choose the right brush, and click and drag over the yellow grass around the people.

We will now replace the overcast sky with a nice blue sky. To cut out the bad sky, select the mountain scene layer, choose the Magic Wand tool and use that tool to select the whole sky. Once this is done, select Edit/Cut and the transparent checkerboard base layer will appear.

Open clouds.jpg. Enlarge this image so it will fit into the other picture by going to Image/Image Size. Increase the width from 279 to 355. Select the whole thing with Select/All. Use the Move tool to drag it into tutorial.psd. The sky will overlap part of the mountains and grass. Name the layer sky.

To move the sky layer behind the mountain go to the Layers Palette and click and drag the sky layer below the mountain scene layer. Go back to your picture and use the Move tool to move the sky around until it looks just right. Save the whole picture one more time as lastnamefirstinitialfunphoto.psd. Make sure that the file is in your funphoto folder.

Save all files to your classwork/photoshop folder. You are now ready to save this picture in the form needed for the Internet. Choose File/Save for Web and then click on the 4-Up tab. Choose the JPEG format at Medium quality, choose which of the 4 images you like best and click on OK. The box that pops up should have the File Name as lastnamefirstinitialfunphoto.jpg and the Save as type as JPEG (*.jpg) Click on OK.

Close all the pictures that are in Photoshop. When it asks if you want to save, say no. Now open tutorial.jpg. Look at the Layers Palette. The whole scene appears on a layer called Background. All those layers you worked on in lastnamefirstinitialfunphoto.psd. are gone. This new image can not be altered easily. However it is a much smaller file and can be seen on the Internet. Close PhotoShop and open your Photoshop Folder on the Student Server. Copy/Paste your file to the @dropbox. Congratulations!