King of The Castle
Merging Two Images to fit together by
Using Selections - Promote to Layer
Supplies needed:
PSP
Eye Candy 4 or 5 (if you use the materials I provide.)
A background image - Right click HERE and choose "save target as" if you want to use mine.
A tube to fit into the background image.
Thank you Valerie for the lovely tube!
The site is in French, but pictures speak volumes.)
Caution - these files are large. I left them that way to preserve the quality of the image.
There are times when you combine two images and to keep perspective, part of the top image needs to be hidden so it fits into the picture naturally. I've seen multiple tutorials where the instructions tell you to erase the part that 'sticks out'. I have problems with the erase tool, getting it to erase what I want or leave what I want to keep. Sometimes, I want to move the image I've erased, but the edges are gone.
I've found another way of making those images work together. This tut takes alot longer to read thru than it does to do. This is a simple, magical technique that I use often.
Layers and promoting selections to layers.
Here's a wonderful tube that is perfect to use in a medieval setting. The lady's skirt and the lion's hind paws are cut off by the straight edges, so this tube won't stand alone well without modification of some sort.
I was looking for an excuse to use some of these marvelous screenshots of a screensaver I recently installed. This is the perfect combination.
The original screenshot is 1280 X 1024. A size I like to work with. It allows me to see the edges well enough to get in and do close work.
The tube was also a perfect fit for what I want to do with this image. There was no necessary resizing to make this work, which makes my job of explaining how to do this technique much easier!
Press F8 to open your layer palette.
Open both images in PSP.
Select the tube image by clicking on the title bar on top.
Edit > Copy
Select the background image.
Edit > Paste as New Layer
Use the mover tool to position the top layer where you want her to stand. Well, it looks pretty good but not at all the way it should look. The lady's skirt and the lion's paws need to be behind the pillars, not on top of them. You can use the eraser tool to erase the parts you don't want, but once you do, you can't adjust the tube position.
Hide the tube layer by clicking on the eye in the layer palette.
Select the bottom layer.
Select the lasso tool using these settings.
In PSP 7, you will have to hold down the shift button to Add a new selection to an existing selection.
Draw an outline around the bottom edge of the right pillar making sure to select a large enough area to cover the lion's paws. I made mine bigger just because I wasn't watching closely, but it won't hurt anything.
I opened the tube layer and lowered the opacity so you can see what will be covered up beneath the pillar.
In PSP 7, hold the Shift key down and draw another selection around the inside bottom edge of the left pillar. You don't have to use the shift key in PSP 8 and above. Use the Add Mode. Unhide the top layer now.
In your layer palette, right click on the background layer and choose: Promote Selection to layer.
It will highlight the new layer. Right click on it and select: Arrange - Bring to Top. Select none.
The selection layer covers the parts of the tube that you want behind the pillars but the tube can still be moved, resized and adjusted without worrying about erased edges that you can't unerase.
In the examples below, I moved the tube farther to the left so that those beautiful lion's paws are showing more. The problem was the lady's arm was in front of the left pillar now.
 
I drew another selection around the uppper part of the pillar, promoted it to a new layer and moved it to the top, too. Select none.
Uh-oh. Details. Notice that the glow of the light is now missing. Let's fix that! On the top pillar layer, use the selection tool to select around the lamp part that has a glow around it. Right click on the top pillar layer and select Promote Selection to layer. Right click again. Arrange > Move Down.
**** Below are screenshots ... select just around the lamp on the pillar and promote the selection to a new layer. Move the new layer down below the pillar, and hide the pillar layer. The pillar is Layer 1, the lamp is layer 2 in your layer palette.
This is what the lamp looks like without the glow applied next to the same shot with the glow applied.
 
Effects > Plugins > Eye Candy 4 > Gradient Glow OR Alien Skin Eye Candy 5 > Impact > Gradient Glow using the settings below. Apply the gradient glow to the lamp (layer 2) only, not to the pillar.
You can move this glow layer out or soften it with the soften brush, reduce the opacity to make it look more natural in your image.
I'm satisfied with the way my image fits now, so I will merge layers and add text to it, a handful of enhancements and call it good.
Click on the image below to continue to the second part of this tut and complete the tag using the above picture..
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