Compositing Images

[Wendi Karen]

I am still relatively new to pse but slowly I am trying to learn new things and I would like to learn how to do a composite.

A few years ago a graphic artist at work took a photo I had taken of my son against a blank wall and put it in a scene from Shrek she had found on the internet. Then I used this image to make birthday invitations for my son's Shrek themed birthday party.

What I would like to do is put my son in a scene with the characters from Family Guy.

I have general instructions on how to do a comopsite but I don't know what or where to look for a picture of the Family Guy characters that would work.

I remember the girl who did the Shrek one for me said the hardest part was finding a Shrek scene the right size. How do I know if something is the correct size and what should I be looking for when searching for an image to use?

Thanks for any help you can give.

Wendi

P.S. By the way, the girl who did Shrek is no longer with the company I work for so I can't ask her for help.

[kimi_boo]

Goggle Images can work wonders....
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=family+guy

Here is a link to a video that Butch did about using a layer mask.
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=family+guy

I wouldn't worry about size. you can always use Free transform to make your son any size you need to go with the image.

[Pauline]

Hi Wendi and welcome. Some images on the web can be really tiny. Under 100 K usually is not the best to work with because you just can't enlarge them. You might have to make the resolution of your card say 200 ppi in order to compensate for lower resolution pictures. When doing a search always try to find the one with the highest resolution number as you will get better results.

When doing a composite you also have to take into consideration things like the perspective. If it doesn't look right it's a tell tale sign that it's a cut and paste job. Shadows are also a big give away. Example......if the highlight is all on the right side of the background and you pick a picture of your son with the highlights on the left side, it will look completely wrong and out of place.

[Wendi Karen]

Thanks Kimi and Pauline. I think I might be in over my head, but I am not giving up yet.

I searched the images you attached the link to Kimi and I can see what Pauline said about size and resolution. What size should I be looking for?

Kimi, I'm afraid I don't know what 'free transform' is.

Also, Kimi you mentioned you attached a link to a video but when I click on it it goes to the google images.

Thanks so much for all your help.

Wendi

[kimi_boo]

my copy paste must not have taken. Here is Butch's video. Watch it more than once, and when you get stuck... watch it again. I can't count the amount of times I had to go back and watch to really get the feel of what I was doing.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7723020561810181483&pr=goog-sl

Hit Ctrl T for free transform. If you are using vers 4 hold down the shift key when you drag the corner. In vers 5... don't.

[Pauline]

Wendy you want the highest quality you can find. It's hard to give you a straight number. Everything really ties in together. So say you were making a picture that is 8 x 10, you would need a much larger file size for that than if you were making someing 4 x 6......It also depends on your resolution. If you are just doing something to save to for the web and show people on the computer you can get away with images with a lower resolution. A 100 K file is a very small file. Look at the file size that comes out of your digital camera. They could be anywhere from 2 MP up.

So basically the easiest thing to do is search for what you want on the net and make sure it's got a pretty good file size. When you drag it into your document you will see right away if it's going to work. If it's too small then it's no good. You can't really make it larger. I know this is probably very confusing but after a while you'll start to see what I mean. It takes some experimentation. If you are just doing a card you can set your resolution to 200 ppi or maybe even 180 depending on what you are doing. That would enable you to loose a lower resolution picture.

[cats4jan]

Thanks for the "masks" video - I have been working in PSE4 for about 6 months now, and haven't tried this - it all seems so complicated - however, it is a tool well worth learning.

Janice