Help With Pictures

[Jayman]

I have seen someone take a picture of 3 people and clip or remove the 3 people from a photo and place in another photo. I have Photoshop Elements 3.0 Can this be done with Elements 3.0? If so how do you clip or cut the a section out? All I seen to do is cut or crop or square or circle. Have no idea how its done but here a link to the photo this person made. The 3 females was in another image but took off the original and added to this picture making it look like they are in front of it. The link is:
http://members.aha-area.com/6rs/picturej 2.JPG
Thanks for any help of info.

[AngelicKim]

Hi Jayman and welcome to the forum. You have come to the right place for help. What you are asking can definately be done in Elements 3. I am not the greatest at doing this process so I will defer to someone else to help you out here. The people on this forum are great and someone will be along soon that can give you assistance. Check back often for replies. This late hour it may be a few minutes or hours. Just depends on time zones as to who and how fast you get answered.

[Jayman]

Hope this is right way to reply back. New to this. But thank you for helping.

[AngelicKim]

Jayman, I have been searching previous threads for directions for you. I can't find the one I was looking for put this one is similar and should help.

http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5160

On the part that says use the lasso, I personally prefer the magnetic lasso tool. It is easier for me in making a selection.

BTW you did reply properly by submitting in the thread.

[Diana]

Hello Jayman,

There are several selection tools that you can use to select the person/people you want to move. The lasso tool and the selection brush are common ones to use for this process. It helps to zoom in on the image until it is very large in order to select the edges neatly. Once you have the desired part of the image selected, if you press Ctrl-J it will place your selection on a new layer. Then you can drag it to a new background. You have to have both the background image and the image you're selecting from both open in the photo bin. Here's a fun image I did in Elements 3:

http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/gallery/view_img.php?id=11721

Diana

[Jayman]

Thanks for the help. Just now when I zoom in and select image to the edge. How do I scroll up without the lasso line following me and then continue back were I haven't selected yet?

[Diana]

Hold down the spacebar and the cursor changes to the hand and you can use it to move the image around to reach all the edges. When you let up on the spacebar, it returns to the lasso.

Diana

[Jayman]

Got it finally..whew..lol Thanks alot again. Just only another thing is like this link:
http://members.aha-area.com/6rs/picturej 2.JPG
Between the middle and right lady see at there waistes there is a small section there that was lasso out cause legs at bottom was attached and couldn't go around them. How do I stop it once lasso around image and yet lasso another part like in that image were he had to use a seperate lasso looks like to lasso that small section between the two ladies waiste areas? Thanks again.

[Rusty]

Jayman, just remember, just because you start with the lasso tool, you can switch back and forth. As long as your selection is "active" -- the marching ants are flickering -- you can add to or subtract from the selection. There are little "boxes" up at the top of your image area (left side). Pass your cursor over them and you will see which is "add" and which is "subtract".

I will usually make a rough, but close as possible, initial selection and then use "add" or "subtract" to clean up all of the edges. Sometimes, if very small areas are involved, and if color and texture is the same, the magic wand is often a good way to add or subtract those small parts of the image. Whatever you try, if it doesn't work you can always undo that single step.

Rusty

[Diana]

First save your selection in case something happens and you lose it. From the menu: Select > Save Selection - then give it a name, Ok. When the lasso tool is selected, at the top of the work area there is an option bar for the tool. Click on the icon for "subtract from selection." If you hover your cursor over the icons, you'll see what they're for. After clicking the subtract icon, you can select the area in the middle of your original selection which you want to exclude from the selection.

Diana

[Jayman]

Ahh I see now. Think I got how to lasso or cut images now. Just one thing how do I make the edges blurred or something (don't know name of it) so won't see exact cut marks around lasso images? Like it is a tad blur from my link above in that image. Can't see were the exact cut marks are from the ladies pic and looks like a small blur looks around them.

[Jayman]

Heading to rest some but wanted to leave another question before I left. Maybe someone will see it and can help on it also. Same person who made the picture before on the link I gave made this image also. I was wondering how do you do text effects like in this image on this link:
http://members.aha-area.com/6rs/picturej 5.JPG
He done many text effects like bricks and multi colors on the text. I seen how to make them in a arch..etc but don't know how to make them color effects like that. Thanks for any help.

[emkayess65]

Hi Jayman, the blurry edges are called "feathering."
When your selection is active go to "Selection > Feather", chose a number of pixels to feather. If your picture has a high resolution(lots of px per inch) you need to choose a higher number than when it has a lower resolution. Experiment ... start with 2 or 3 px and see.
Marie S

[Jayman]

A little puzzled. When I lasso a person out the hair must be the hardest to get out of image with all the sprigs..etc sticking out. Is there an easier way to getting them or going around them that I don't know about or have to just follow lasso around them? Thanks

Oh eating some chocolate here, I'm a chocholic and don't know why I posted another topic in here above..lol Must be the milk in chocolate..remember mad cow disease? Can't remember nothing? Must be the choc then...lol

[Diana]

Jayman, selecting hair is an acquired skill and there are different techniques that help. There is a video in the subscribers's section on selecting hair. What I usually do is select around the largest clumps of hair and if there are little wisps, I just ignore them in the initial selection. Then use the smudge tool with a 1 or 2 pixel brush and smudge out a few wisps to make it look more natural.

The text effects you asked about look like they were done by applying layer styles to the text. In your Styles and Effects palette, under Layer Styles, in the right pane, you'll find a list of styles. Scroll down and try some of them on your text. After typing your text, click on the Move tool and then click on one of the layer styles. To get it to look good, you may have to go to the Menu and click Layer > Layer Style > Scale Effects and use the slider until the effect fits the text.

Here are a few links to some good basic tutorials:
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pselementsbasics/
http://www.arraich.com/elements/pse_ppreBeginner1.htm
http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tutorials/jennifer/tips-beginners.html

Becoming a paid subscriber to Photoshop Elements Techniques would give you access to more than a hundred video and written tutorials as well as a newsletter/magazine. It's well worth it.

Diana